Social Psychology Flashcards
(143 cards)
1
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Crisis of social psychology
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- late ’60s - early ’70s
- loss of the social aspect; increasing emphasis on the individual instead of groups/society
- lack of clear direction for the discipline
- over-reliance on experimental methods
- lead out by Henri Tajfel & Serge Moscovici
2
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Critical social psychology
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Result of the crisis (‘60s - ’70s)
Social constructionism, discursive psychology, phenomenological psychology
3
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Social psychology
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Study of how people think about something, relate to, and influence each other
4
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Levels of analysis
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- intrapersonal processes
- interpersonal relations
- intra-group processes
- inter-group relations
5
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Group
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Two or more people who interact and influence one another
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Dyad
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A ‘group’ of two individuals
Characteristics:
- reciprocity
- psychological safety
- empathy
7
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Features of groups
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- cohesion
- roles (informal or formal)
- status
- communication networks (e.g. all-channel communication, wheel communication networks, etc.)
8
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Social facilitation
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Performance on a task improves due to the presence of others
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Social inhibition
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Performance is impaired due to the presence of others
10
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Zajonc facilitation model
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Presence of others leads to arousal:
- facilitation of a dominant response
- inhibition of a non-dominant response
11
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Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908)
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Relationship between arousal and performance is a bell curve. Performance increases as arousal does, but after the optimal level of arousal has been reached, any further increases of arousal will impair performance
Optimal level of arousal is higher for an easier task, and lower for a harder task
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Evaluation appraisal
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People care about how they are being judged by others
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Mere presence effect
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The presence of others alone is enough to increase arousal (and thereby affect arousal)
14
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Social loafing
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Individual performance decreases in groups when working towards a common goal
15
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Group polarisation
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Tendency of individual opinions and beliefs to become more extreme due to membership & discussion in a group
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Confirmation bias
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Selective search for information that validates one’s own opinions
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Risky-shift effect
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Groups often make riskier decisions than individuals (not universal > cautious shift)
18
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Groupthink
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Making decisions on the basis of preserving the group/direction of the group
Characteristics:
- high group cohesion
- group isolation
- directive leader with a clear vision
19
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Characteristics of effective minority influence
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- consistency
- self-confidence
- defection from majority
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Self
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A complex web of psychological entities and processes concerning one’s own person
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Spotlight effect
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Tendency to put oneself in the ‘spotlight’, overestimating the attention from others towards them > overestimating the amount of judgement
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Illusion of transparency
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Thinking that concealed emotions can easily be read by others
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Self-reference effect
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Information relevant/related to ourselves is processed quicker and remembered better
24
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Self-discrepancy theory
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Various self-perceptions might not be consistent with each other; this creates psychological discomfort
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Types of self-perception
1. the actual self: traits someone believes they possess
2. the ought self: traits someone believes they should have
3. the ideal self: traits someones wishes/hopes to have
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Social identity
One's sense of self and identity based on membership in certain social groups
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Downwards comparison theory
Strategy to repair self-esteem
If self esteem is threatened > compare downwards/lower expectations > restored self-esteem
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Self-esteem
Overall self-evaluation
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Narcissism
Uncontrolled, compulsive self-love; desire admiration and have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
- low views on other people
- mistrusting
- hostile
- Machiavellian (manipulative behaviour for self-gain without regard for others)
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Self-serving bias
Successes tend to be attributed to our disposition; failures tend to be attributed to our situations
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Defensive pessimism
Adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action
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False consensus effect
Tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's beliefs and (undesirable) actions
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False uniqueness effect
Tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities, talents, and behaviours
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Locus of control
Belief about responsibility of events/actions in life. Can be either internal (I control my life) or external (my life is controlled by other factors).
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Priming
Activating particular associations in memory
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Kulechov effect
Control people's perception of emotion by manipulating the context
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Misinformation effect
Misinformation of an experience event might be included/reconsolidated into the memory
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Controlled processing
Mental activities that require conscious, deliberate, and reflective thinking
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Automatic processing
Mental activities happening with little or no conscious awareness; effortless and habitual
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Types of social schemas
Self schemas: "who am I?" > own traits, values, mannerisms, and the sense of self
Person schemas: personality traits to categorise people by; specific traits related to specific people (e.g. a friend or family member)
Role schemas: information on behaviour and norms expected from someone in a certain role (e.g. doctor)
Event schemas: information on appropriate behaviour for certain events (e.g. a wedding)
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Social encoding
Encoding social information into memory (also using past social experiences)
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Overconfidence phenomenon
Overestimation of the accuracy of one's beliefs
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Representativeness heuristic
Presumption of someone/something belonging to a certain group due to resemblance to the prototype of a group
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Availability heuristic
Likelihood of events is based on how readily something comes to mind
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Counterfactual thinking
Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that could have happened
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Illusory correlation
Perception of a non-existent relation or a stronger one than exists
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Attribution theory
How people explain others' behaviour, attributing it to either disposition (internal circumstances, e.g. personality) or situation (external circumstances, e.g. environment)
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Heider's theory of naive psychology (1958)
- tendency to assume behaviour is motivated and intentional
- dispositional & situational attributions
- tendency to 'prefer' internal (dispositional) factors as they assume that personality is stable
- ^varies by culture
49
Jones & Davis' theory of correspondent interference (1965)
- actions are indicative of intentions and dispositions
- unusual behaviour tells more about a person than usual behaviour
- 5 sources of behaviour to judge explanation (if yes...)
1. freely chosen behaviour? > internal
2. unusual behaviour? > internal
3. socially deviant behaviour? > internal
4. serves own interests? > internal
5. has a high personal impact? > internal
- preference for internal explanations of behaviour > makes people predictable > stable personality & traits
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Kelley's conversation model (1973)
- people use information on consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus of behaviour to make judgements and attributions
- high consistency > internal
- high distinctiveness > external
- high consensus > external
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Self-perception theory
Attitudes are inferred from observations of one's own behaviour
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Fundamental attribution error
Tendency for observers to underestimate situational factors and overestimate dispositional factors
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Impact bias
People have a tendency to overestimate the impact of emotional events
- psychological immune system: more resilient in the long-run than predicted
- true for both positive and negative events
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Attitude
Cognitive representation that summarises our evaluation of an object
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ABC model of attitudes
Affective emotional response (feeling)
Behavioural responses (doing)
Cognitive responses (thinking)
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Mere-exposure effect
Tendency for novel stimuli to be like more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them
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Demand characteristics
Participants correctly interpret the expected findings of an experiment and alter behaviour to fit accordingly
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Modelling
Acquisition of behaviour on the basis of observing that of others
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Heider's Balance Theory (1946)
- people avoid having contradicting attitudes and evaluations of an object
- in the case of inconsistency, people adjust these
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Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957)
- people are motivated to keep they attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour consistent
- if inconsistency occurs, dissonance will be reduced by changing their attitudes, belief, or behaviour or by justifying/rationalising the discrepancy
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Four main functions of attitudes
1. Knowledge: provide structure and order; help explain and understand the world (quickly)
2. Instrumental: maximise rewards, minimise negative outcomes due to 'good' or 'bad' evaluations; if something becomes favourable, we change the attitude towards it
3. Ego defence: protect threats to self by projecting insecurities onto others; defence mechanism for anxiety
4. Value expression: express and reinforce sense of self and identity by displaying personally important attitudes
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Thurstone Scale
- questionnaire > 22 independent statements on an issue
- rate feelings towards each statement from 1 to 11
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Likert Scale
- simplification of the Thurstone scale
- scale of 1 to 5; 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'
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Osgood's Semantic Differential Scale
- scale of 1 to 7 with opposite adjectives at each side
- multiple scores per item
- 3 evaluative dimensions: activity, evaluation, and potency
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Acquiescence bias
Participants consistently answering 'yes' in a questionnaire, no matter the question asked
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Social desirability
Tendency for participants to answer in a way which is favourable/socially desirable
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Bogardus' Social Distance Scale (1925)
Measures people's willingness to have close social contact with people from diverse social groups
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Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Implicit method of measuring attitudes based on automatic associations that exist between objects and concepts
Issues exist:
- construct validity (does it measure what it aims to ?
- predictive validity (do the results predict results for a similar measure?)
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Theory of Reasoned Action
Tp predict behavioural intentions:
1. expectation > subjective norms
+
2. attitudes towards the behaviour (+ or -)
\/
3. behavioural intention
\/
4. actual behaviour
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Theory of Planned Behaviour
Determining intentions through behaviour
a. attitudes
b. perceived social norms
c. feelings of control
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Insufficient justification effect
Reduction of dissonance through internal justification when external justification is insufficient
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Persuasion
The process by which a message induces a change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours
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Central route to persuasion
Argument is found to be persuasive due to the content of the message
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Peripheral route to persuasion
Argument is persuasive due to incidental cues (e.g. the speaker's attractiveness) instead of the validity of the argument itself
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Primary factors of persuasion
1. the communicator
2. the message
3. how the message is communicated
4. the audience
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Sleeper effect
Over time the content and the source of a message become disconnected
- thus the influence of the source's credibility decreases over time
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Two-step persuasion techniques
Door-in-the-face
- one big request is rejected
- a smaller request is therefore more likely to be accepted
- hard to say 'no' twice
That's not all
- make a slightly exaggerated request
- if accepted, information is added > people are more likely to comply
- often used for purchases > normally €1.25, now €1.00
Low-balling
- make a request, then when accepted, add (unfavourable) information > people stay committed
- target consistency/commitment norm
Foot-in-the-door
- make a small request > accepted
- then make a larger request > people stay consistent and accept this one as well
- triggers consistency norm
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Conformity
A change in behaviour or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure
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Compliance
Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request ven if privately disagreeing
- insincere/outward conformity
- usually with the purpose of getting a reward or avoiding punishment
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Obedience
Acting in accord with a direct order or command (usually from someone with higher status) > explicit social influence
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Acceptance
Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure
- sincere, inward conformity
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Factors of obedience (Milgram experiments)
- the victim's distance
- closeness and legitimacy of the authority figure
- is it an institutional (reputable) authority
- agentic state theory
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'Banality of evil'
Anyone can be 'made' to do evil things > ordinary people can do horrible things
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Steps in the definition of social identities that allow for acts of extreme inhumanity
1. creation of a cohesive in-group through shared social identification
2. exclusion of specific population from the in-group
3. constitution of the out-group posed as a threat to the existence of the in-group
4. representation of the in-group as uniquely virtuous
5. celebration of out-group annihilation as the fence of in-group virtue
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Normative influence
Conformity based on a person's desire to fulfil others' expectations, often to gain acceptance
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Information influence
Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people
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Reactance
A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom; arises from a threat to freedom of action
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Aggression
Physical or verbal behaviour intended to cause harm
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Theories of aggression
1. aggression is the result of a biologically based aggressive drive
2. aggression is a response to frustration
3. aggressive behaviour is learned
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Reciprocity principle
asserts that we should treat like with like; responses to a positive action should be positive, and responses to a negative action should be negative
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Types of aggression
- physical vs verbal
- direct vs indirect
- offensive vs defensive
- instrumental vs hostile
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Need to belong
A motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive interaction
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Proximity principle
Geographical nearness; proximity/functional distance is a powerful predictor of liking
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Matching phenomenon
The tendency for people to choose partners who are a 'good match' in attractiveness and other traits
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Assortative mating
The tendency for people to form relationships with those similar to themselves in social characteristics, such as education, political and religious views and social class
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Physical attractiveness stereotype
The presumption that physically attractive people possess other socially desirable traits as well
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Evaluative conditioning
How we can come to like or dislike something through an association with something we already like or dislike
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Sternberg's kinds of love (1988)
Passion (infatuation), intimacy (liking), decision/commitment (empty love)
- passion + intimacy = romantic love
- intimacy + decision/commitment = companiote love
- decision/commitment + passion = fatuous love
passion + intimacy + decision/commitment = consummate love
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Factors of close relationships
- commitment: intention to maintain relationship as well as feelings of psychological attachment to the other
- equity: outcomes from a relationship are proportional to their contribution
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Responses to relationship distress
___________________Passive Active
Constructive Loyalty Voice
Destructive Neglect Exit
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Biological outfit
The biological processes, including genetic heritage, that shape living organisms
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Brain plasticity
The changes that occur in the organisation and structure of the brain as a result of experience and individual physical or psychological activity
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Natural selection
Th evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce are passed to ensuing generations
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Theory of mind
The ability to attribute mental states to others and oneself; to be able to see the world from someone's else point of view
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Gender
The socially constructed attributes and expectations by which people define male and female
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Sex
The biological characteristics, including hormones, genes, and physiology, that determine whether an individual is understood to be of male or female sex
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Intersex
The appearance of sex characteristics including hormones, chromosomes, and sexual organs, in an individual which do not conform to traditional definitions of male or female
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Cultural norms
Standards for accepted, typical, and expected behaviour
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Cultural dimensions (Hofstede)
- individualism vs collectivism
- power differences
- masculinity & femininity
uncertainty reduction
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Behaviour for liars
- less smiles > artificial smiles
- more errors when speaking
- slower talking, more hesitation
- higher pitch of voice
- longer response time
- short responses
- use of generic words
- vague, abstract, and non-verifiable information
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Social categorisation
The cognitive partitioning of the social world into relatively discrete categories of individuals
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Prototype
A social category member who is believed to possess the typical features of the social category
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Accentuation effect
Differences between members of different categories are exaggerated, as are similarities between members of the same category
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Black sheep effect
The deviant in a group is viewed much more harshly by in-group members than outgroup members
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Schism
The partition of a social group into separate factions and the ultimate succession of at least one faction from the group
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Social identity motives
- collective self-esteem
- distinctiveness
- belonging
- symbolic immortality
- uncertainty reduction
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Outgroup homogeneity
Members of a different group(s) are perceived as homogenous > similar to each other
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Prejudice
A preconceived judgement of a group and its individual members
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Discrimination
Unjustified negative behaviour towards a group or its members' social identity
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Authoritarian personality
A personality that is disposed to favour obedience to authority and intolerance for outgrips and those of lower status
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Social Dominance Theory (SDT)
Some social groups are placed higher in society than others, have access to more power and resources, and are therefore valued more positively than other social groups
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Social dominance orientation
A motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups
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Meta-stereotype
The stereotype that we believe a specific outgroup holds about our ingroup
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Deracialisation
The justification of the racial marginalisation of groups on the basis of non-racial features
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Conflict
A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or values between two or more parties
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Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif & Sherif)
Negative relations between social groups are based on real competition for scarce resources
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In-group bias
The tendency to favour one's own ingroup
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Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations where responsiveness to group norms is increased or where anonymity is increased
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Superordinate goal
A shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort > overrides differences between groups
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Bargain
Seek resolution to a conflict through direct negotiation between parties
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Mediate
An attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a conflict by facilitating communication and offering suggestions
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Arbitrate
Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies both sides and imposes a settlement
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Altruism
A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interest
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Social-exchange theory
The theory that human interactions are most accurately described as social transactions between people, where people exchange rewards and costs
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Egoism
A motive to increase one's own welfare
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Reciprocity norm
An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them
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Social-responsibility norm
An expectation that people will help those in need of it
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Social-role theory
Proposes that differences between the genders is due to social conditioning and cultural values, rather than biological sex
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Filial piety
A child's acknowledgement of the cost borne by their parents in raising them, and repaid in terms of reciprocal care for those parents
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Empathy
The capacity of sharing or vicariously experiencing other people's feelings
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Bystander effect
The finding that the presence of several bystanders makes it less likely that people will provide help to someone
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Moral exclusion
The perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary with which one applies moral values and roles of fairness
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Overjustification effect
The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing
