Social Psychology

Question 1

What is social psych?

Answer 1

The study of how people relate to and influence each other.

Question 2

Who is Norman Triplett?

Answer 2

First social psych experiment in 1897 on social facilitation. Cyclists performed better with pacers than riding alone.

Question 3

Who’s Kurt Lewin?

Answer 3

Founder of social psych. Developed field theory, the total of influences on individual behavior. A person’s life space is a collection of forces on the individual.

Question 4

Who’s Fritz Heider?

Answer 4

Founded attribution theory, the study of how people infer the causes of others’ behavior. Also founded balance theory, the student of how people make their feelings or actions consistent to preserve psychological homeostasis.

Question 5

What is actor-observer attributional divergence?

Answer 5

The tendency for the person who is doing the behavior to have a different perspective on the situation than a person watching the behavior.

Question 6

What is self-serving attributional bias?

Answer 6

Interpreting one’s own actions and motives in a positive way, blaming situations for failures and taking credit for successes.

Question 7

What is illusory correlation?

Answer 7

Assuming two unrelated things have a relationship.

Question 8

What is slippery slope?

Answer 8

A logical fallacy that says a small, insignificant first step in one direction will eventually lead to greater steps that will eventually have a significant impact.

Question 9

What is hindsight bias?

Answer 9

Believing after the fact that you knew something all along.

Question 10

What is false consensus bias?

Answer 10

Assuming most people think as you do.

Question 11

Who is Lee Ross?

Answer 11

Had subjects believe a statement, but were later told it was false. Subjects continued to believe the statement as if they created their own logical explanation for it.

Question 12

What is base-rate fallacy?

Answer 12

Overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familar with.

Question 13

What is M.J. Lerner’s just world bias?

Answer 13

It is the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people–blame the victim.

Question 14

Who is Ellen Langer?

Answer 14

Studied the illusion of control, the blief that you can control things you have no influence on.

Question 15

What is representativeness heuristic?

Answer 15

Use of a shortcut about typical assuptions rather than using actual logic.

Question 16

What is availability heuristic?

Answer 16

When people think there is a higher proportion of one thing in a group than is b/c examples of taht one thing come to mind more easily.

Question 17

Who is Leon Festinger?

Answer 17

Founded cognitive dissonance theory–it is is uncomfortable for people to have beliefs that do not match their actions.

Question 18

What is Daryl Bem’s self-perception theory?

Answer 18

Alternative to cognitive dissonance–when people are unsure of their beliefs, they take cues from their own behavior.

Question 19

What is the overjustification effect?

Answer 19

Tendency to assume that we must not want to do things that we are paid or compensated to do.

Question 20

What is gain-loss theory?

Answer 20

Suggests that people act in order to obtain gain and avoid loss.

Question 21

What is social exchange theory?

Answer 21

Humans interact in a ways that maximize reward and minimize costs.

Question 22

Two types of self-presenation?

Answer 22

Self-monitoring and impression management.

Question 23

What is social facilitation?

Answer 23

Tendency for the presence of others to either enhance or hinder performance. Robert Zajonc found that the presence of others helps with easy tasks, but hinders complex tasks.

Question 24

Who is Morton Deutsch?

Answer 24

Created the prisoner’s dilemma and the trucking company game story to illustrate the struggle between cooperation and competition.

Question 25

What is equity theory?

Answer 25

Idea that people feel most comfortable in situations where rewards and punishments are equal, fitting, or highly logical.

Question 26

What is Stanley Milgram’s famous study?

Answer 26

Study of conformity: originally 66% of subjects conducted the whole experiment.

Question 27

What was Philip Zimbardo’s famous study?

Answer 27

His prison simulation experiments could transform subjects into sadistic prison guards.

Question 28

What was Solomon Asch’s famous study?

Answer 28

The line study on conformity.

Question 29

What is the sleeper effect?

Answer 29

Explains why persuasive communication from a source of low credibiliity may become more acceptable after the fact.

Question 30

What is McGuire’s inoculation theory?

Answer 30

People’s beliefs are vulnerable if they have never faced a challenge, but after facing a challenge of their opinions, they are less vulnerable.

Question 31

What is group polarization?

Answer 31

As developed by James Stoner, it is the concept that group discussion generally serves to strengthen the already dominant point of view. This explains the risky shift, or why groups take larger risks than individuals.

Question 32

What is pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 32

When most people in a group privately disagree with something but incorrectly believe that most people in the group agree with it.

Question 33

What was Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s famous study?

Answer 33

The doll preference study, which factored into Brown v. Board of Education-demonstrated the negative effects that segregation on black children’s self-esteem.

Question 34

What is ingroup/outgroup bias?

Answer 34

It is when individuals in one group think their members have more positive qualities and fewer negative ones than members of another group.