Social Psychology

Question 1

Define Social Psychology

Answer 1

How the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others

Question 2

Describe one study to support actual and imagined presence having an effect on behaviour

Answer 2

Fridlund 1991

• Participants shown an amusing clip, some watched alone, some with friends in the room and others with friends in a separate room
• People smiled more when their friend was in the room and when their friend was in the next room. Less smiling was when they were alone

Question 3

Describe one study to support implied presence having an effect on behaviour

Answer 3

Bateson 2006

• Honesty box where people put money for drinks.
• Three times the amount was put in when there was an image of eyes above the box than when there was a neutral image of plants.

Question 4

Describe the role of the Naive Scientist in the social world

Answer 4

• The rational and logical part of our decision making/problem solving
• Makes a list of positives and negatives of the situation
• Requires effort and is time consuming when in the social world

Question 5

Describe the role of the Cognitive Miser in the social world

Answer 5

• Uses limited cognitive resources (processing ability)
• Uses shortcuts to save time and effort when making decisions
• Automatic process, quick and effortless

Question 6

Define Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 6

Tversky and Kahneman, 1974

Base judgement on how closely a person/object matches a stereotype

Question 7

Define Availability Heuristic

Answer 7

Tversky and Kahneman, 1973

Estimate frequency of event based on how easy it is for examples to come to mind

Question 8

Define Affeect Heuristic

Answer 8

Finucane, 2000

Base judgement on our emotional state

Question 9

When do we use our Naive Scientist?

Answer 9

• We have time to make a decision
• We have an important decision
• Information is available
• We don’t have much cognitive load

Question 10

When do we use our Cognitive Miser?

Answer 10

• We don’t have enough time
• May not be an important decision
• No information is available
• We have high cognitive load

Question 11

Define Central Traits

Answer 11

• Describes the core of the individual and gives clues to other traits of the person

Question 12

Define Peripheral Traits

Answer 12

• Traits that don’t imply many more characteristics about an individual

Question 13

What is cognitive algebra?

Answer 13

• A scientific method of impression formation where we rate people on various traits and combine the scores

Question 14

Name the three ways of cognitive algebra

Answer 14

• Summation
• Averaging
• Weighted Averaging

Question 15

Define summation

Answer 15

Add up all scores of traits

Question 16

Define Averaging

Answer 16

Find the average rating of all scores by dividing the total score by the total number of traits

Question 17

Define Weighted Averaging

Answer 17

The influence of the traits may vary depending on the importance of each trait but overall impression is calculated by adding up the scores and dividing by the number of traits

Question 18

Define the Primacy Effect

Answer 18

Information presented earlier has the greatest effect on impression formation (first impressions count!)

Question 19

Define the Recency Effect

Answer 19

Information presented later has greatest effect on impression formation (last impressions count!)

Question 20

Describe Asch’s study on the Primacy and Recency Effects

Answer 20

• 1946
• One group heard a description of an individual with positive traits stated first and the other group had negative traits presented first
• Findings: when positive traits were first people formed a more positive impression than when negative traits were first

Question 21

Define Social Schema

Answer 21

• Our knowledge about people and groups i.e stereotypes

Question 22

Describe Pingitore’s study into stereotypes and impression formations

Answer 22

• 1994
• Participants were shown two different figures (one ‘normal’ and another ‘overweight’) and were asked who they were more likely to offer a job
• Findings: they were less likely to offer the overweight person a job

Question 23

Describe Cohen’s research into social schemas affect remembrance of interactions

Answer 23

• 1981
• Participants watched a couple having dinner. One group were told the lady in was a waitress while others were told she was a librarian
• Findings: when asked to recall what they watched, those that were told she was a librarian remembered traits that weren’t in the video i.e. reading a book or wearing glasses

Question 24

Describe Dion’s research into apperance and impression formation

Answer 24

• 1972
• Showed participants faces of people who were either attractive or not and they had to rate their level of trustworthiness, friendliness or reliability
• Findings: attractive people were more likely to be rated more friendly, sociable and trustworthy

Question 25

Define attribution

Answer 25

- Assigning a cause to the behaviour of ourselves and others | - Providing a reason why an action was done

Question 26

Describe Heider's input to attribution (1958)

Answer 26

- Proposed we apply a logical principal to understanding our world - Not having a reason for behaviour causes humans discomfort - We need to know why things happen to avoid them and therefore increase our survival (evolutionary aspect)

Question 27

Describe Hieder and Simmel's study into attribution (1944)

Answer 27

After watching an animationof shapes moving around (no story line) participants were asked to explain what they had seen - Findings: people wanted to make up complex explanation for what was happening which proves our desire to find causes for behaviours

Question 28

Define Heider's conclusion on the two types of attributions we make (1958)

Answer 28

- Internal Attribution - blame it on the person | - External Attribution - blame it on the situation

Question 29

Describe Kelley's Covariation Model to attribution

Answer 29

- 1967 | - Three factors we take into account when making an attribution

Question 30

Define the three factors of the Covariation Model to attribution

Answer 30

- Consistency: does the person usually behave in this way in the situation? - Distinctiveness: does the person behave to different objects int he same way? - Consensus: do other people behave similarly in this situation?

Question 31

Describe Lalljee's evidence against the covariation study

Answer 31

- 1984 - Participants were told a simple phrase: "John did well in his exam" and were asked what questions they wanted to know to work out why he did well. - Findings: less than 20% of questions related to distinctiveness, consistency and consensus

Question 32

Describe Weiner's three dimensions of attribution

Answer 32

- 1986 - Locus: due to internal or external factors - Stability: is it something that will change in the future? - Control: whether people have certain life situations such as health, romantic relationships and depression

Question 33

Describe the theory of Fundamental Attribution Error (aka correspondence bias)

Answer 33

- When making a casual attribution about others they are likely to blame the person i.e make an internal attribution -

Question 34

Describe the research into Fundamental Attribution Bias by Jones & Harris (1967)

Answer 34

- Participants read speeches about key people in history (either pro, anti or equivocal) - Findings: even when there was an obvious external cause people were still influence by their internal factors (their opinions)

Question 35

Define Actor-Observer Effect in attribution

Answer 35

- People attribute behaviour of others to the person but attribute their own actions to the situation

Question 36

Define research into Actor-Observer Effect by Nisbett and Caputo

Answer 36

- 1971 - Asked participants 5 reasons why them and their friends have certain behaviours - People were ore likely to make an external attribution for themselves and an internal attribution for their friends

Question 37

Define self-serving bias in attribution

Answer 37

- We attribute our successes to ourselves to feel good abut ourselves (self-enhancing) but attribute our failures to other factors so we don't damage our self esteems (self protecting)

Question 38

Describe research into self-serving bias (Johnson et al)

Answer 38

- 1964 - Educational psychologists taught student to multiply by 10 and then to multiply by 20 - Findings: when students failed teachers attributed that to the students but when the students passed they attributed that to themselves being good teachers

Question 39

Define Hewstone's theory into self-serving bias

Answer 39

- 1990 | - We have a bias attribution for groups we belong to (ultimate attribution error)

Question 40

Describe the implicationsof self-serving bias on sexualt abuse cases

Answer 40

- Victims may be blamed for being sexually attacked rather than offenders i.e if males judge the case