Module 36 - social thinking and social influence Flashcards
1
Q
social psychology
A
- Study of how people interact and relate to each other
- we are a social species, so a lot of our psychology is related to interactions with other people
2
Q
social psychology vs. sociology
A
- lots of overlap
- social psych tends to be more on the individual level
- sociology tends to be more focused on the societal level
3
Q
in-groups vs. outgroups
A
- humans evolved to live in small groups so sense of group membership was important
- helpful to distinguish people who are on your team and people who aren’t
- explains attachment to sports teams and various prejudices
- different types of group memberships can be more relevant in different context (who counts as us or them can change)
- ex: a person can have a lot of racial prejudices in general but at a football game can feel solidarity with everyone rooting for their team, regardless of race
4
Q
dispositional attribution
A
- attributing someone’s behavior to their personality
5
Q
situational attribution
A
- attributing someone’s behavior to their situation
6
Q
fundamental attribution error
A
- bias toward dispositional attribution
- especially common in individualistic cultures
7
Q
attribution theory
A
- often, our choice of attribution is self-serving
- often credit our own good actions (or actions of in-group members) to personality
- credit good actions of out-group members to situation
- blame our own bad actions on the situation
- blame bad actions of out-group members on personality traits
8
Q
central route of persuasion
A
- based on evidence and arguments
- conscious process
- slower than peripheral route
9
Q
peripheral route of persuasion
A
- based on incidental cues
- ex: attractiveness, confidence
- automatic
- emotion based
10
Q
norms
A
- standards of expected behavior in a culture
- change as cultures change
- differences in norms can cause conflict
11
Q
tight vs. loose cultures
A
- tight has stricter adherence to norms
- loose has weaker norms and tolerates more deviation
12
Q
conformity
A
- behaving the way other people behave
13
Q
automatic mimicry
A
- chameleon effect (tendency to automatically imitate the actions/postures of a person you’re looking at)
- helps with social learning
- stimulates empathy for and from the other person
- can occur on a subcultural group level
14
Q
Soloman Asch’s conformity experiments
A
- they were less likely to agree if there was at least one other person agreeing with them
15
Q
what makes people more likely to conform?
A
- they feel incompetent or insecure
- their group has at least three people
- everyone else agrees
- they admire the group’s status/attractiveness
- they have not already committed to another response
- they know they’re being observed
- their culture is more collectivist and encourages respect for social standards
18
Q
Milgram’s obedience experiments
A
- subjects were “teachers” who gave confederate “students” electric shocks (weren’t actually real) when they got the questions wrong
- wanted to see if the subjects would go along with giving supposedly dangerous levels of electricity
19
Q
What caused high obedience in Milgram’s experiments?
A
- person giving orders was nearby and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure
- research was supported by a prestigious institution
- learner was farther away
- there were no role models for defiance
- foot in the door phenomenon was used (slowly administered more electricity compared to going straight to dangerous)
23
Q
group polarization
A
- being in a likeminded group makes your beliefs more polarized
- discussion between people who have similar attitudes/beliefs increases those attitudes/beliefs
