Social Psych Flashcards

Question

Reinforcement theory

Answer 1

Behavior is motivated by anticipated rewards (i.e. Verplank, Pavlov, Thorndike, Hull, Skinner)

Answer 2

Bindle (1978)- people are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill and their observable behavior is adopting those roles.

Answer 3

Perception, judgement, memories and decision-making are all examples of cognitive concepts that influence our understanding of social behavior

Answer 4

are the "keystone" in modern social psychology; made up of cognition or beliefs, feelings, and behavioral predispositions.

Answer 5

People prefer consistency and will change, or resist changing, attitudes based upon this preference.

Answer 6

A theory on consistency and why attitudes change. Has three components: the person (P), other person (O), and thing or person (X). Balance exists when all exist harmoniously. If not, there is stress. People have the tendency to work to remove stress and achieve balance.

Answer 7

Cognitive dissonance is when attitudes are not in sync with your behaviors. The greater the dissonance, the greater pressure to reduce it. It can be reduced by changing dissonant elements or adding consonant elements.

Answer 8

1) Free choice- when a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives, 2) forced compliance- when one is forced to act in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs or attitudes (can happen through punishments or rewards)

Answer 9

When CD emerges after making a choice

Answer 10

Reducing dissonance by trying to separate two alternatives to make one seem the clearly better option.

Answer 11

Studied cognitive dissonance by paying participants either $1 or $20 to do an extremely boring task, but tell the next person that it was fun. Those paid $20 rated the task as less enjoyable. This was explained through CD and the minimal justification effect, saying that those who were only paid $1 to lie had to reduce the dissonance between their payment/ experience and their lie by rating the task as more enjoyable.

Answer 12

When behavior can be justified by means of external inducements, there is no need to change internal cognitions. But if external justification is minimal, you will need to reduce dissonance by changing internal cognitions.

Answer 13

Self-perception theory: people infer their attitudes based on their behaviors

Answer 14

If you reward people for something they already like doing, they may stop liking it

Answer 15

Studied source credibility: found that highly credible sources were more effective in changing attitudes than were communications by low credibility sources.

Answer 16

The persuasive impact of a high credibility source decreases over time while that of a low credibility source increases over time.

Answer 17

Contain arguments for and against a position; used for persuasion since they seem like "balanced" forms of communication

Answer 18

Central route: When we care about an argument or it is important to us, persuasion must go through the central route. Here we follow the argument closely, mentally evaluate the argument, and generate counterarguments of our own. Strong arguments change minds more here. Peripheral route: where we either don't care about the situation or can't pay attention to the message. Here the strength of the argument doesn't matter, but how, by whom, or in what surroundings the argument is presented influences minds.

Answer 19

Presenting an attack on a cultural truism and then refuting it. This practice encourages people to defend their beliefs. (inoculation analogy)

Answer 20

Under certain conditions, people will hold beliefs even after they have been shown to be false.

Answer 21

When social pressure to behave in a particular way becomes so blatant that the person's sense of freedom is threatened, the person will tend to act in a way to reassert a sense of freedom.

Answer 22

Suggests we are drawn to affiliate because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relation to others. Three principles: 1. People prefer to evaluate themselves by objective, nonsocial means whenever possible. When this isn't possible, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing them to those of others. 2. The less similarity of opinions and abilities between people, the less the tendency to make comparisons. 3. When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions and abilities, there is a tendency to change one's position so as to move it in line with the group.

Answer 23

Assumes a person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with another person. If the rewards outweigh the costs, the more attraction to the person. We wish to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

Answer 24

Proposes that we consider not only the costs and rewards to ourselves in an interactions, but also those of the other person. We refer an equal ratio of costs and rewards (inequality = instability)

Answer 25

Either 1) similarities attract (e.g. affiliation, intelligence, attitudes, education, eight, age, race, etc.) or 2) need complimentary, or "opposites attract," where people chose relationships so that they mutually satisfy each other's needs.

Answer 26

the tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people (makes physical attractiveness a determination for attraction)

Answer 27

the closer someone is, the more accessible they are; may increase the number of exposures (i.e. mere exposure hypothesis)

Answer 28

the more we see something the more we like it (i.e. people, commercials, etc.)

Answer 29

a helping behavior were your intent is to benefit someone else at some cost to the self

Answer 30

altruism, egoism, selfishness

Answer 31

leading others to the definition of an event as a non-emergency (i.e. if you're in a room and there is smoke, and someone acts as though nothing is wrong)

Answer 32

The more people witnessing, the less responsibility each individual holds; blame/guilt can be shared with others. The more people that are there, the less likely any one is to report or intervene

Answer 33

Empathy-altruism model - when faced with situations in which others may need help, people might feel distressed and/or empathetic; both are important because either can promote helping behaviors

Answer 34

One possible explanation for aggressive behaviors; when people are frustrated, they act aggressively. Strength of frustration is correlated with aggression levels

Answer 35

aggression is learning through modeling (direct observation) or through reinforcement

Answer 36

change in behavior that occurs as a result of situational or interpersonal pressure

Answer 37

demonstrates that compliance with a small request increases the likelihood of compliance with a larger request

Answer 38

people who refuse a large initial request are more likely to agree to a later smaller request

Answer 39

is influenced by other people's views, social roles,a nd group memberships

Answer 40

a part of his larger framework of social cognitive theory; self efficacy is an individuals beliefs about their ability to organize and execute a particular pattern of behavior. People with strong self efficacy exert more on a difficult task than people with low self-efficacy

Answer 41

performance accomplishments (e.g. history of success with task), vicarious experiences (e.g. observed successful performances on task), social persuasion (e.g. task success as suggested by others), and physiological and emotional states

Answer 42

When first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions

Answer 43

when more recent information we have about an individual is most important for forming our impressions

Answer 44

(Heider) The tendency for individual's to infer the causes of other people's behavior. Dispositional causes are those related to the person whose behaviors are being considered and situational attributions are external and are those related to features of the surroundings

Answer 45

When inferring the causes of other's behaviors there is a general bias toward making disposition attributions rather than situational ones

Answer 46

the tendency to allow a general impression about a person to influence other, more specific evaluations about a person. Explains why people are often inaccurate in evaluations of people that they either believe to be generally good or generally bad

Answer 47

the tendency of decision-making groups to strive for consensus by not considering discordant information

Answer 48

finding that group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choices, one explanation is the value hypothesis- says risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally evaluated

Answer 49

Presented dilemmas to couples to examine the risky shift in controversial situations. group decisions shifted toward caution instead of risk

Answer 50

A tendency for group discussion to enhance the group's initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution

Answer 51

leaders of groups engage in more in communication than non-leaders. also the more a person speaks, the more their perceived leadership status also increases

Answer 52

groups were less efficient, less organized, and less satisfying for boys as compared to democratic groups

Answer 53

more hostile, aggressive, and more dependent on their leader than were other groups. the quantity of work was greater than in other groups, but work motivation and interest was not

Answer 54

more satisfying and more cohesive than autocratic groups. work motivation and interest were stronger in democratic than in other groups

Answer 55

cooperation-people work together for mutual benefit so all can obtain a goal, competition- acting for individual benefit to obtain a goal that has limited availability

Answer 56

to cooperate or compete, where either both can cooperate and avoid punishment, one can defect to avoid intense punishment and the other receives it, or both defect and both receive intense punishment. an individual would compete instead of cooperate if they wanted the best outcome for themselves or if they don't trust the other person and doesn't want to lose.

Social Psych Flashcards

(80 cards)