LO11 - Social Psychology 1 Flashcards
(34 cards)
Definition of social psychology according to Allport
The scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influences by the actual, imagines or implied presence of others.
We are interested in the social context and how this influences the individual.
It includes the implied presence of others as well as the actual presence of others.
First impressions
These are initial judgements of the character of others made quickly from very little information. It is based of a combination of information but especially from faces.
We can think a face is untrustworthy after only looking at it for a millisecond.
Studies have shown that judgements made in small time frames are highly correlated with judgements made with no time constraints.
What do we care about most when making first impressions
We care about trustworthiness, warmth and competence most when we meet people. We are social animals that have to determine certain information.
We want to determine if they have bad intentions. Individuals who are high in competence and not warm are high danger individuals.
Those with low warmth and low competence we are likely to disdain and deny humanity (homeless people).
Those with low competence and high warmth we pity and protect (children/elderly)
Those with high competence and high warmth we look up to, depend on and aspire to be.
Primacy effect
First impressions are quick and enduring. When we are introduced to an individual using positive words first, they get a higher rating than if negative words are presented first. Early information drives the first impression.
Confirmation bias in first impressions
First impressions are sticky because of this. We attend to information that is consistent with an initial impression and ignore information that is inconsistent with initial information.
A positive initial impression means you will pay more attention to positive details and less attention to information that discredits you initial opinion.
Heuristics
These are low effort mental short cuts that are generally quite accurate.
Accuracy of first impressions
Some impressions don’t endure but we tend to be accurate. When we pay more attention we can form quite an accurate impression.
The more we get to know people the more information we get and we become more accurate.
We pay attention when it matters and form a relatively accurate first impression.
Explaining human behaviour
We are always trying to make inferences to predict behaviour. This helps us to gain some control over our environment.
We try to observe the internal qualities of a person why trying to explain why they do something.
Attribution theory
Attributions are inferences we make about the causes of behaviour.
Attribution theory tries to explain causality in two main ways.
Dispositional attributions
Dispositional attributions are internal causes to the person (traits, values, attitudes and beliefs)
Situational attributions
Situational attributions look at external factors to explain the behaviour. It is about circumstances such as events
Fundamental attribution error
When trying to find the cause of another person’s behaviour, they tend to overestimate the impact of internal/dispositional influences and underestimate the impact of external/situational influences.
This is a Western phenomenon - we focus on autonomy and individual factors.
Actor-Observer Bias
When we view the self, we explain the causes of behaviour more in terms of external factors.
When we view others, we look more at dispositional factors.
Self-serving bias/attributions
Self-serving biases is the view that we are motivated to maintain a positive self-view.
One way that the self-serving bias comes about is that we attribute our successes to internal factors but failures to external factors.
Attributions for future events
We try to predict future events with affective forecasting. We are bad at predicting how we will feel in the future for both positive and negative emotions.
When we predict future happiness we overestimate how strong the emotion will be and how long it will last. We ignore that emotions are affected by a host of things.
Attitudes
We can have a positive/negative/mixed reaction to or orientation towards a person, object or idea.
You can hold simultaneously positive and negative attitudes about things.
Explicit attitudes
These are easy to report (self-report), we are conscious of them and they can be updated with new information.
There may be biases in self-report about some issues.
Implicit attitudes
These are quick, automatic, unconscious and difficult to update. They are often not correlated with explicit attitudes.
They are the result of numerous repeated experiences. Past negative experiences are difficult to unlearn.
Measuring implicit attitudes
Measured indirectly via facial expressions, body language or Implicit Association Tests.
Variations of the IAT exist and they use reaction times.
Measures the strength of association between concepts (black/white, gay/straight) and positivity/negativity.
Faster responses reflect stronger associations and therefore revealing biases.
Attitudes and behavioural link
Attitudes have consequences - behaviour. However, attitudes dont often predict behaviour.
E.g. abstract attitudes about climate change might not reflect how you act.
Attitudes are most likely to predict behaviour about specific issues and when the attitudes are strong.
Persuasion
Changing people’ a attitudes to change their behaviour. We are always being bombarded by persuasive messages.
Elaboration likelihood model (persuasion)
This is a dual process theory of persuasion that suggests how people respond to persuasive messages.
There are two routes to this communication for a persuasive message.
The central route is high effort and requires cognitive effort to evaluate the message/argument. It is likely to result in a lasting change in attitude.
The peripheral route is low effort and we pay attention to superficial and easy to process information/cues that result in temporary changes in attitude.
Will persuasive messages take a central or peripheral route?
It depends on the receiver’s motivation, ability and need for cognition. Motivation matters.
Some people tend to think things through and take a central route.
Cognitive dissonance theory
This is based on the idea that we strongly desire cognitive consistency and a mental state in which beliefs, attitudes and behaviours are compatible.
Where there is a discrepancy between beliefs attitudes and behaviours we feel dissonance (inner tension) and are motivated to reduce this.
People do irrational things to maintain cognitive dissonance. The greater the incompatibility, the greater the tension.
