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Flashcards in Social & Cultural Psych Deck (55)
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1
Q

Social Psychology

A

scientific study of effects of social + cognitive processes on way individuals perceive, influence + relate to others

2
Q

Impression Formation: Attributions

A

SITUATION, DISPOSITION, BEHAVIOUR
•Tend to ignore situational factors when coming up with explanations
•Act that way because that’s the type of person they are

3
Q

Attributions

A

causal explanations for why events or actions occur

4
Q

Personal attributions

A

Explanations that refer to internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods + effort

5
Q

Situational attributions

A

Explanations refer to external events - weather, luck, accidents/actions of other people

6
Q

The Fundamental Attribution Error

A

tendency for ppl to overemphasize personal factors + underestimate situational factors in explaining the behaviour of others
•ignore external causes, focus on personality traits, moods, overemphasize internal factors
–Cultural differences: Collectivistic cultures much better at looking at context

7
Q

Actor/observer discrepancy

A

When make attributions about themselves, tend to focus on situational variables rather than on their personal dispositions
–Particularly for negative events: positive = dispositional, negative = situational, for other ppl it’s the opposite

8
Q

Attributions Across Cultures

A
  • Indians more likely to use situational factors to explain behaviour
  • Morris & Peng:
  • American students found personality more important
  • Chinese student found situational factors more important
9
Q

Attributions Across Cultures

• Morris & Peng, 1994:

A

–Examined English + Chinese language newspaper reports of two similar, highly publicized murders

10
Q

Attributions Across Cultures

• Morris & Peng, 1994:

A

–English newspaper reports focus on traits, attitudes + psychological problems
–Chinese newspaper reports focus on interpersonal relationships, problems with Chinese society + aspects of American society

11
Q

Impression Formation: Stereotypes

A

Cognitive schemas allow for easy, fast processing of info about ppl based on membership in certain groups
•Not inherently good/bad
•Gather info about them without getting to know them first
•At least some of the time they allow us to make good assumptions
•If we are properly motivated then we go beyond labels to get to know them

12
Q

AUTOMATIC, CATEGORY-BASED PERCEPTIONS

A

“Nerd”, “Trekkie”, “Geek”

13
Q

CONTROLLED, ATTRIBUTE-BASED PERCEPTIONS

A
  • Friendly
  • Honest
  • Gives to charity
  • Tutors 5th grade students
  • Drama major
14
Q

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A

tendency to behave in ways that confirm own/others’ expectations
Labels stick, expectations define what we see
•Teachers expectations of students
•Told teachers these are gifted kids, but chosen at random, set up these expectations
•Gave more attention to kids lead to good grades
•Expectations affect interactions
•Bad expectations elicit bad interactions

15
Q

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A

–Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places”
•Rosenhan took various adults
•Admitted them to psychiatric institution
•Behaved normally, ppl just interpreted normal behavour in pathological way

16
Q

Stereotype threat

A

when ppl worried about confirming negative stereotypes
anxiety tends to lead to confirmation of stereotype
•Distraction from performing well, impairs WM– Tends to actually lead to decreased performance
–Physiological stress, distraction, effortful suppression of negative thoughts & emotions

17
Q

Prejudice

A

negative judgments + attitudes toward a person based on their group membership
•Prejudice: negative feelings

18
Q

Discrimination

A

Inappropriate + unjustified treatment of people based on group membership

19
Q

Attitudes

A

Positive/negative evaluations of objects, events, or ideas
– Mere exposure effect: like more familiar
– Conditioning effects: learning to like something
– Social influence: do other ppl like/hate this
– Direct experience

20
Q

Implicit attitudes

A

Tend to reflect automatic, less controllable aspects of evaluations
–Predict automatic, spontaneous behaviours, not really aware of attitude
•Talking to member of outgroup, negative – not even aware, predictive of behaviour, how much eye contact, how close, how much blinking

21
Q

Explicit attitudes

A

Tend to reflect conscious, controllable aspects
–Predict controlled, deliberate behaviours
•These attitudes may not always agree
•What we’re saying

22
Q

Implicit and Explicit Prejudice

A

“Shooter Task” (Correll et al, 2002)
–participants view various scenes + whenever they see a person, they must decide whether to shoot/not shoot
more likely to incorrectly shoot unarmed black + not shoot armed white man
•Degree of awareness of cultural stereotypes

23
Q

Shooter Task (Correll et al, 2002)

A

–Performance predicted by levels of racial prejudice,but by awareness/knowledge of cultural stereotypes (regardless of personally endorsed/not)

24
Q

Implicit and Explicit Prejudice

A

•Similar studies have shown that police officers are less likely to shoot unarmed people + equally likely to shoot black + white targets

25
Q

Social Influence

A

impact we have on other people + that they have on us

26
Q

Social facilitation

A

presence of other ppl increases arousal, which can lead to improved/impaired performance (complex tasks)
being in the presence of other ppl is enough to increase arousal automatically, also in other species
•Increase helps better if task is easy + well practiced, dominant response
•Impair if it’s complex, non dominant, something we haven’t practiced

27
Q

Social loafing

A

tendency for people to work less hard in a group than when working alone
–Reduced if people know their individuals efforts can be monitored
•Why we hate group work
•As group size gets larger, less effort
•We know individual performance aren’t monitored

28
Q

Social norms

A

Expected standards of conduct, which influence behaviour

29
Q

Conformity

A

altering of opinions/behaviours to match those of others/social norms

30
Q

Conformity

A

–Sherif’s studies using the autokinetic effect – tiny spec of light in dark room stationary – think it’s moving
•indivudually – responses widely varied
•with group – we conform other ppl’s opinion
–Asch’s line judgment studies: show standard + given 3 line to compare
•confederates pick a, 32% conform
•if one confederate that gives correct answer then conformity drops
•what matters is unanimity

31
Q

Social Norms

• Obedience to authority

A

powerful social norm which refers to shared view that ppl should obey those with legitimate authority
exists in all societies so it runs smoothly

32
Q

Milgrams’ studies of obedience

A

–Performed a series of experiments involving a “learner” (confederate), “teacher” (participant) + an experimenter (authority figure)

33
Q

Milgrams’ Studies of Obedience

A

-overall prediction was that fewer than 1 tenth would obey completely + provide max level of shock
•T believes that hear L getting shocked
•Experimenter giving lines of encouragement
•Compliance goes down if authority goes down, experimenter not in room, T + L beside one another

34
Q

Milgrams’ Studies of Obedience

A
  1. Authority must be legitimate – Obedience in original study was reduced if not
  2. Authority must accept responsibility
  3. Norm of obedience must be accessible
  4. Incompatible norms (to not harm others) must be suppressed
35
Q

Helping Others: Bystander Apathy

A

Kitty Genovese
–Diffusion of responsibility: When other people are present, responsibility is divided + each person feels less responsible for helping
•less likely to help/seek help when there’s other ppl present, we assume it’s not up to us
•If ambiguous + no one is reacting, then we assume they don’t need help

36
Q

Helping Others: Bystander Apathy

A

–other people can also promote helping: If one person rushes to offer help, they signal that help is needed + many others may jump in
•Ambiguous situations: look to other ppl to see their reactions, we don’t wanna be the person to make a fool of ourselves

37
Q

To Seek or Not to Seek (Help)

A

Latane & Darley, 1968: The smoke-filled room
Alone: 75% reported the smoke
Three naïve participants: 38% reported the smoke
Two confederates who acknowledged smoke but then ignored it: 10% reported the smoke

38
Q

Aggression: Biological factors

A

–low levels of serotonin

•Bio: testosterone, low levels of serotonin

39
Q

Aggression: Individual factors

A

–frustration-aggression hypothesis
•Frustration leads to aggression
•Blocking from goal leads to frustration

40
Q

Aggression: Social and cultural factors

A

–culture of honour: belief system M primed to protect reputations through physical aggression

41
Q

Aggression: Culture of honour

A

–White Southern M more likely to endorse aggression in defense of property/in retaliation for insults
•Cohen et al (1996)

42
Q

Aggression

A
  • Walk down narrow hallway: person in the way calls him asshole
  • Southern men got in their face before moving away
  • More cortiol release from southern men when insulted + shook hands more vigourously
43
Q

What is culture?

A

Broadly defined - any kind of info acquired by individuals through imitative/social learning

44
Q

Is culture unique to humans?

A

•Unique to humans depends on definition

Humans are particularly skilled at social learning

45
Q

Significance of Cultural Information

A

–Sophisticated communication skills
–Theory of mind: understand ppl have minds of their own
•Nim chimpsky: uses language to make requests

46
Q

Significance of Cultural Information

A
  • Cultural animals deliberately share + pass on + add to knowledge so that it can be preserved
  • “High precision cultural learning: allows humans to accumulate + build on cultural information
47
Q

Significance of Cultural Information

A

Social animals may figure out good ways of doing things + may copy something they see another doing

48
Q

Cultural Psychology

A

study of how culture shapes psychological processes

–Cultural vs. social environments

49
Q

Cultural Psychology

A

Psychological experiences similar + different across cultures
•All psychology is conducted in cultural context
•Culture harder to pinpoint + see its effect
•Hard to sse because they’re so embedded
•Don’t see impact until we leave that culture

50
Q

Some examples of universalities

A
•Cultural universalities: common in vast array of cultures
–Males more aggressive
–Marriage
–Preference for own kin
–Children fear strangers
–Facial expressions
–Language; use of narrative 
–Wariness of snakes
–Group living
51
Q

CULTURE + MIND

A
  • Culture + mind continually impacting each other
  • Culture made up of collective minds
  • Mind shaped by culture
52
Q

Thinking Styles

•Categorization strategies

A
  • Taxonomic – individualistic – dog + cat

* Thematic – collectivistic – dog + bone

53
Q

Thinking styles

A
  • Analytic – attributes independent of context (Western)

* Holistic – considers things in context, relationship with other objects (Eastern)

54
Q

Cultural Differences in Perception & Categorization

A
  • Nisbett & Miyamoto (2005)
  • Individualistic: may be harder to do collectivistic task
  • Collectivistic: collective interest, relationships
  • European: rule based
  • Asian: family resemblance
  • As a whole/specific attribute
55
Q

Analytic vs. Holistic Perception

A
  • Absolute: draw same length – easier for individualistic
  • Relative: proportioned – easier for collectivistic
  • Absolute more analytic
  • Relative more holistic