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” (Allport, 1954)
- Social psy involves understanding the influence of others on our behaviour (present, imagined, or implied others)
- Others have an influence on our well-being:
∙ Need to belong
∙ Social support

Question 2

Fridlund (1991)

Answer 2

• Participants watched humorous video either:
  ∙ Alone
  ∙ With friend nearby doing irrelevant task
  ∙ With friend nearby watching video
  ∙ With friend
  = Smiled more when with friend or imagined friend watching video

Question 3

Implied presence of others - Bateson et al. (2006)

Answer 3

• Looked at what image above an honesty box increased money given
• Participants either saw:
  ∙ Control image (plants)
  ∙ A pair of eyes
  = Participants paid 3 times more when pair of eyes
  = Implied presence of others influences behaviour

Question 4

Need to belong

Answer 4

• Larger social networks positively associated with happiness (Kawachi & Berkman, 2001)
• People with steady romantic partner happier than single people (Easterlin, 2003)
• Most likely to feel bad when alone (Cacioppo et al., 2006; Diener, 1984)

Question 5

Baumeister and Leary (1995)

Answer 5

• Desire to affiliate with others and be socially accepted (need to belong)
• Developed through natural selection
  = Increased our likelihood of survival
• Influences our emotional experience:
  ∙ Feel good when this need is met
  ∙ Feel bad when this need is not met

Question 6

Williams (2001)

Answer 6

• Participant sat in waiting room with 2 confederates
• Confederate started passing a ball between people:
  ∙ Participant included in this (inclusion condition)
  ∙ Participant initially included then excluded (ostracism condition)
  = Ostracism condition had detrimental effect on wellbeing
  ∙ Lower self-esteem, higher bad mood, loss of control, and physiological arousal

Question 7

Eisenberger et al. (2003)

Answer 7

• Placed participants in fMRI scanner
• Played computer version of ball-tossing game (Cyberball)
• Participant was either:
  ∙ Included in the game with two others
  ∙ Excluded in the game with two others
  = Being excluded resulted in activation of brain regions associated with physical pain

Question 8

Social support

Answer 8

Extent to which an individual has people they can rely on to respond to their needs

Question 9

Social support - Cohen and Wills (1985)

Answer 9

• They suggest social support improves mental and physical health
• Motivates people to take care of themselves
• Acts to buffer stress:
  ∙ Practical assistance – reduce or remove stressor
  ∙ Emotional assistance – reassuring person about stressor

Question 10

Social support - Coan et al. (2006)

Answer 10

• Support from others may also be positive
• Placed wives in scanner
• Told would receive electric shock when X appears on screen:
  ∙ No hand holding
  ∙ Wives held anonymous experimenter’s hand
  ∙ Wives held husband’s hand
• Measured activation of brain regions associated with negative emotions
  = Lowest activation holding husband’s hand
  = Suggests support reduces aversive emotions

Question 11

Social support - Lovell et al. (2012)

Answer 11

• Assessed social support in stressed group - carers of children with autism and ADHD
• Measured social support
• Measured psychological wellbeing
  ∙ Perceived stress, anxiety and depression, and health complaints
  = Social support negatively predicts stress, anxiety, depression and health complaints

Question 12

Need to belong and social support

Answer 12

the importance of others on our well-being

Question 13

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Configural Model (Asch, 1946)

Answer 13

• Two types of traits
• Central traits (e.g., warm and cold)
  ∙ Characteristic that defines a person’s overall personality
  ∙ If warm then likely to be friendly, fun, cheerful
  ∙ Are highly influential on impression formation
• Peripheral traits (e.g., polite and blunt)
  ∙ Characteristic that does not define overall personality
  ∙ Polite does not mean will be cheerful, etc.
  ∙ Are less influential on impression formation
• Central traits should have greater influence than peripheral traits
• Saw description of some people
• 4th description varied
• Central traits have a greater influence on impression formation than peripheral traits

Question 14

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Cognitive Algebra Model (Anderson (1965, 1978, 1981)

Answer 14

• Rate people on various attributes
• Combine these to create impression
• Weighted averaging - importance of each trait may depend on context
• Weighted averaging - influence of your rating is dependent on the importance of the trait
• Which model can account for the influence of central traits?
  ∙ Summation = no
  ∙ Averaging = no
  ∙ Weighted averaging = yes

Question 15

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Are we always logical?

Answer 15

• Are we just human calculators?
  ∙ Would be slow to form impression
• Form first impression within 100ms (Willis & Todorov, 2006)
• What shortcuts do we use to form impressions of others?
  ✳︎ Attractiveness: Dion et al. (1972)
  ∙ Presented participants with attractive and less attractive faces
  ∙ Rated each face based on trustworthiness, friendly and sociable
  = Attractive people rated more positively
  = ‘What is beautiful is good’ stereotype
  ∙ Attractive people..
  →Receive higher grades in school (Clifford & Walster, 1973)
  →Earn more money (Frieze et al., 1991)
  →Receive more lenient sentences for crimes (Downs & Lyons, 1991)

Question 16

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Primary and Recency Effect

Answer 16

• Jones (1968)
  ∙ Primacy effect - Information presented earlier has greatest influence on impressions
  →First impressions count
  ∙ Recency effect - Information presented later has greatest influence
  →Last impressions count
• Asch (1946)
  ∙ Presented participants with two lists of traits
  ∙ More positive impression when positive first
  First impressions count
  = Supports the primacy over the recency effect
• De Bruin (2005) - used Eurovision data from 1957-2003 = people who last = more positive impression/more positively viewed

Question 17

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Social Schemas

Answer 17

• Schema is a cognitive structure that represents our knowledge about an object or concept
• Social schemas can be applied to groups…aka stereotype
• Stereotype of overweight people (Wigton & MaCGaghie, 2001): low self-control, lazy, more mental health problems and lower intelligence
• Do stereotypes affect impression formation?
  ►Pingitore et al. (1994)
  ∙ Participants watched video of job interview
  →Half saw normal weight job candidate
  →Other half saw overweight job candidate (same actor but used prostheses)
  ∙ Rated impression and whether would give them the job
  = Less positive impression of overweight job candidate
  = Less likely to offer them the job

Question 18

IMPRESSION FORMATION: Summary

Answer 18

∙ Central traits (e.g., warm/ cold) have a greater influence on impression formation than peripheral traits (e.g., polite/blunt)
∙ People may use cognitive algebra to create impression
→Summation
→Averaging
→Weighted averaging
∙ Impressions are biased by the primacy effect, stereotypes and attractiveness

Question 19

ATTRIBUTION

Answer 19

• An attribution is assigning a cause to the behaviour of ourselves and others - providing a reason why someone did an action

Question 20

ATTRIBUTION: Heider and Simmel (1944)/Heider (1958)

Answer 20

• Feel discomfort if we don’t know why things have happened
• Motivated to find cause
• People make one of two types of attribution:
• Internal attribution – blame it on the person
• External attribution – blame it on the situation
• More likely to make external than internal attribution
• Know more about situations than person

Question 21

ATTRIBUTION: Covariation model

Answer 21

• Kelley (1967)
• Attributions are guided by three types (or classes) of information:
• Consistency information:
  Does the person usually behave this way in this situation?
• Distinctiveness information:
  Does the person behave to different objects in the same way?
• Consensus information:
  Do other people behave similarly in this situation?

Question 22

ATTRIBUTION: Covariation model: How often do people use the consistency, consensus and distinctiveness information?

Answer 22

• Lalljee et al. (1984)
• Gave participants events that required an explanation - ‘John did well in his history essay’
• Participants wrote down questions that they wanted to ask to determine the cause of the event
• Less than 20% of questions related to consensus, consistency or distinctiveness

Question 23

ATTRIBUTION: Weiner (1986)

Answer 23

• Achievement attribution based on 3 dimensions:
• Locus - Is it due to internal or external factors?
• Stability - Is it stable (unlikely to change) or unstable (likely to change)?
• Control - Is it controllable or uncontrollable?
• Attribution -> emotion -> behaviour
• Attributions may predict emotions:
• Internal, controllable and unstable may lead to pride/shame
• External, stable and uncontrollable may create anger
• Emotions predict behaviour:
• Pride/shame may promote studying
• Anger may reduce studying

Question 24

ATTRIBUTION: Fundamental attribution error

Answer 24

• Also known as the correspondence bias
• When making a causal attribution about others likely to blame person
• I.e., more likely to make an internal attribution

Question 25

ATTRIBUTION: Fundamental attribution error: Jones and Harris (1967)

Answer 25

- Read speeches about Fidel Castro: - Free to choose which stance they took = due to opinion = obvious internal cause - Told by the experimenter which stance to take = due to experimenter = obvious external cause

Question 26

ATTRIBUTION: Actor-observer effect

Answer 26

- People attribute behaviour of others to person (internal attribution) - People attribute their own actions to the situation (external attribution)

Question 27

ATTRIBUTION: Actor-observer effect: Nisbett and Caputo (1971)

Answer 27

- Asks participants to write why they liked the girl they dated most frequently - Also asked why best friend liked the girl he dated - Counted the number of internal and external attributions made - More likely to make external attribution for self - E.g., ‘she is a warm person’ - Make internal attribution for friend - E.g., ‘he likes warm people

Question 28

ATTRIBUTION: Self-serving bias

Answer 28

- Attribute success to self = self-enhancing | - Attribute failure to other factors = self-protecting

Question 29

ATTRIBUTION: Actor-observer effect: Johnson et al. (1964)

Answer 29

- Asked educational psychology students to teach children to multiply by 10 and then 20 - Then received (false) feedback: - Student A did well - Student B either did badly or improved - When student B improved attributed it to their teaching skill = Internal attribution - When student B failed both tasks attributed it to the student’s lack of ability = External attribution

Question 30

ATTRIBUTION: Self-serving bias: Hewstone (1990)

Answer 30

- He suggests have bias attributions for groups we belong to | = Ultimate attribution error

Question 31

ATTITUDES

Answer 31

“evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor” (Eagley & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)

Question 32

Tripartite model (Rosenberg & Hovland 1960)

Answer 32

- Affective – ‘Star Wars is exciting’ ►Feelings and emotions associated with the object - Cognitive – ‘Start Wars is not sophisticated’ ►Thoughts and beliefs associated with the object - Behavioural – ‘I will watch the next film’ ►Behaviours towards the object = Overall attitude is average of these three

Question 33

Components of attitudes

Answer 33

- People vary in their likelihood of forming attitude based on affect or cognitive - Haddock et al. (2008) ∙ Participants had a tendency to either form: ✳︎ Attitudes based on affective component ✳︎ Attitudes based on cognitive component ∙ Received affective or cognitive appeal about new drink ∙ Most positive attitude when appeal matched person ✳︎ Affective people influenced by affect appeal ✳︎ Cognitive people influenced by cognitive appeal

Question 34

Attitudes and behaviour; do attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 34

- LaPiere (1934) - Travelled with Chinese couple around USA ✳︎ High prejudice towards Chinese at the time - Tested how many restaurants, hotels, etc., refused to serve the couple - Only 1 refused in over 250 establishments - Few months later contacted same establishments to see if they would serve a Chinese couple ✳︎ 90% said definitely would not serve this couple = Huge gap between their attitude and their behaviour!

Question 35

Attitudes and behaviour: Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975)

Answer 35

- Behaviour determine by three variables - Attitude - Subjective Norm ✳︎ Our beliefs about how significant others (e.g., friends and family) view the action - Behavioural intention (or intention) ✳︎ Our willingness to undertake the behaviour

Question 36

Attitudes and behaviour: Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1992)

Answer 36

- Extended Theory of Reasoned Action by adding perceived control ✳︎ Person’s belief they are able to perform the action

Question 37

Attitudes and behaviour: Sheeran and Taylor (1999)

Answer 37

- Looked at factors associated with condom use intentions - Attitudes, subjective norm and perceived control ✳︎ Moderate predictor of condom use intention - Demographics and knowledge ✳︎ Weak predictors of intention

Question 38

Attitudes and behaviour: MODE Model - Fazio (1990)

Answer 38

- When motivated base behaviour on deliberate consideration ✳︎ Think rationally about the action - When not motivated base behaviour on accessibility of attitudes ✳︎ How quickly and easily the attitude comes to mind

Question 39

Attitudes and behaviour: Schuette and Fazio (1995)

Answer 39

- Some asked once = low accessibility Some asked 6x = high accessibility - Asked to evaluate two articles - Also manipulated motivation ✳︎ Their conclusions would be read by expert (high motivation) or non-expert (low motivation) - Their original attitude was more likely to predict their conclusions about article when: ✳︎ Highly accessible AND low motivation

Question 40

Measuring attitudes

Answer 40

- Can measure attitudes in two ways: ►Explicit measures ∙ Directly asking people about their thoughts ►Implicit measures ∙ Reaction time tasks ∙ Implicit association test (Greenwald et al., 1998)

Question 41

Measuring attitudes: EXPLICIT MEASURES OF ATTITUDES

Answer 41

- Likert scale - Semantic differentials ✳︎ Presented with bipolar adjectives (e.g., good/bad) ✳︎ Rate which describes your attitude best - Guttman Scale

Question 42

Measuring attitudes: IMPLICIT MEASURES OF ATTITUDES

Answer 42

- IAT (Implicit association test) ✳︎ Unconscious (or implicit) attitude ✳︎ Looks at reaction times for associating a group with positive or negative stimuli