Social Psychology

Question 1

Bibb Latané

Answer 1

Worked on bystander intervention

Question 2

John Darley

Answer 2

Worked on bystander intervention

Question 3

Helping behavior

Answer 3

Includes altruism and behaviors that may be motivated by egoism or selfishness

Question 4

Altruism

Answer 4

Form of helping behavior in which the person’s intention is to benefit someone else at some cost to himself

Question 5

Robert Zajonc

Answer 5

Worked on the mere exposure hypothesis. Social facilitation effect. Found that the presence of others helps with easy tasks but hinders complex tasks.

Question 6

Prosocial behavior

Answer 6

Behavior that benefit other individuals or groups of people. There are two types: 1) altruism and 2) helping behavior

Question 7

Mere exposure hypothesis

Answer 7

Mere repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to enhanced liking for it. The more you see something, the more you like it. Robert Zajonc has done research about this.

Question 8

Spatial Proximity and propinquity

Answer 8

Plays a role in attraction. Even small differences have an effect. Possible explanations: 1) Potential friendships have a better opportunity to develop; 2) Increases the intensity of initial interactions.

The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships or romantic relationships with those whom they encounter often, forming a bond between subject and friend.

Question 9

Attractiveness Stereotype

Answer 9

Tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people. Explains why physical attraction has been found a determinant of attraction.

Question 10

Need complementarity

Answer 10

People choose relationships so that they mutually satisfy each other’s needs. The person who likes to talk is complemented by the person who likes to listen. Even successful complementary relationships have fundamental similarities in some attitudes that favor dissimilarity.

Question 11

Equity theory

Answer 11

We consider not only our own costs and rewards, but the costs and rewards of the other person. people feel most comfortable in situations in which rewards and punishments are equal, fitting or highly logical.
Overbenefited people tend to feel guilty. Random or illogical punishment make people anxious.
If one person feels that inequity is present, there’ll be an instability.

Question 12

Social Exchange theory

Answer 12

A person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with another. More rewards lead to more attraction to the other. People attempt to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

Question 13

Cognitive dissonance theory

Answer 13

Is the conflict you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors.
Engaging in behavior that conflicts with an attitude may result in changing one’s attitude so that it is consistent with the behavior.
The greater the dissonance, the greater the pressure to reduce dissonance.

Question 14

How can cognitive dissonance be reduced?

Answer 14

Dissonance can be reduced by changing dissonant elements or by adding consonant elements.

Question 15

Which are the two types of dissonant situations?

Answer 15

1) free-choice dissonance

2) Forced-compliance dissonance

Question 16

Which are the principles of cognitive dissonance theory?

Answer 16

1) If a person is pressured to say or do something contrary to his privately held attitudes, there will be a tendency for him to change his attitudes.
2) The greater the pressure to comply, the less the attitude change. Attitude change generally occurs when behavior is induced with a minimum of pressure.

Question 17

Post-decisional dissonance

Answer 17

Dissonance that emerges after a choice. Festinger

Question 18

Define Social Psychology

Answer 18

Concerned with social behavior including ways people influence each other’s attitudes and behavior: 1) impact of individuals on one another; 2) impact of social groups on individual group members; 3) impact of individual members on social groups; 4) impact of social groups on other social groups.

Question 19

William McDougall

Answer 19

Psychologist - In 1908 published alone first textbook on social psychology.

Question 20

E.H. Ross

Answer 20

Sociologist - In 1908 published alone first textbook on social psychology.

Question 21

Verplank

Answer 21

1950’s suggested that social approval influenced behavior.
Found that the course of a conversation changes dramatically based upon the feedback (approval from others.
Helped to establish reinforcement theory.

Question 22

Reinforcement theory

Answer 22

Behavior is motivated by anticipated rewards. Was challenged by social learning theorists.

Question 23

Social learning theory

Answer 23

Behavior is learned through imitation. Also the most influential theory on aggression. Aggression is learned through modeling (direct observation), or through reinforcement.

Question 24

Albert Bandura

Answer 24

main figure in social learning theory

Question 25

Bindle

Answer 25

Developed the role theory in 1979

Question 26

Role theory

Answer 26

People are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill, and much of their behavior can be attributed to adopting those roles.

Question 27

Bystander Intervention

Answer 27

or bystander effect
John Darley & Bibb Latané.
March 1964 in New Gardens, New York, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in three separate attacks by the same man. The killing took mora than a half-hour. 38 witnessed the attack and heard her screams for help. Nobody called the police or took some action to stop the murder. This behavior was attributed to personality flaws of the witnesses. They didn’t help because of their problem-solving process and two situational factors (social influence and diffusion of responsibility)
The more bystanders nearby, the less likely anyone will help.

Question 28

Attitudes

Answer 28

Keyston in the edifice of social psychology.
Typically expressed in opinion statements: likes or dislikes to people, things and ideas.
Components: 1) cognition or beliefs; 2) feelings; 3) behavioral predisposition.
A positive, negative, or neutral evaluation of a person, issue, or object.

Question 29

Spreading of alternatives

Answer 29

The relative worth of 2 alternatives is spread apart. Accentuate positive things of chosen option and accentuate negative things of options that are not chosen. A mechanism to reduce dissonance. Festinger.

Question 30

Free choice dissonance

Answer 30

When a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives. A equally likes B and C. A chooses B. Therefore, there is dissonance since C is left out. Dissonance emerges after his choice –> post decisional dissonance. To reduce dissonance, spread alternatives.

Question 31

Post-decisional dissonance

Answer 31

Dissonance that emerges after one’s choice.

Question 32

Forced-compliance dissonance

Answer 32

When someone is forced into behaving in a way inconsistent with his attitudes. The force may come from either anticipated punishment or reward. Festinger.

Question 33

Overjustification effect

Answer 33

If you reward people for something they already like doing, they may stop liking it. Once an activity is overjustified, there is a loss in the pleasure of doing it.

Question 34

Self Perception Theory

Answer 34

Daryl Bem
To explain forced compliance dissonance.
When your attitudes are weak or ambiguous, you observe your own behavior and attribute an attitude to yourself.
People infer their attitudes upon observation of their own behavior.
According to this theory, there is not a state of discomfort or dissonance produced by behavior. A person’s initial attitude is irrelevant.

Question 35

Consistency theories of attitude change

Answer 35

People prefer consistency and they will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference. If there is inconsistency (stimuli or irritants), the person will try to resolve it.

Question 36

Which are theories of inconsistency?

Answer 36

1) Cognitive dissonance theory

2) Balance theory

Question 37

Fritz Heider

Answer 37

Developer of the balance theory.

One of the founders of attribution theory. Divided attributions into two categories: dispositional and situational.

Question 38

Balance theory

Answer 38

Balance exists when all three fit together. When there isn’t balance, there will be stress, and a tendency to remove this stress by achieving balance.
Balance: 1 or 3 positives
Unbalance: 0 or 2 positives

His original theory was modified since it was too simplistic.
Solution to unbalance: P changes attitude towards O. Or C changes attitudes towards P or O.

Question 39

Sleeper effect

Answer 39

Over time, the persuasive impact of the high credibility source decreased while the persuasive effect of the low credibility source increased. Carl Hovland.

Question 40

Two-sided message

Answer 40

Messages that contain arguments for and against a position are used for persuasion since they are balanced. Carl Hovland.

Question 41

Carl Hovland’s persuasion model

Answer 41

Attitude change is a process of communicating a message with the intent to persuade someone.

Question 42

Components of Carl Hovland’s persuasion model

Answer 42

1) Communicator: source, someone who has taken a position and intends to persuade someone to adopt his position. The more credibility is perceived, the greater the persuasive impact. Credibility depends on how expert and trustworthy a source appears to be.
Credibility increases by arguing against self-interest (i.e. criminals who argue for greater police)
2) Communication: message
3) Situation: surroundings

Question 43

Carl Hovland & Walter Weiss Experiment

Answer 43

1952
Two sources: physicist Oppenheimer vs. Russian newspaper Pravda. opinions were measured before, immediately after and 4 weeks after. People were more persuaded by physicist.

Question 44

William McGuire

Answer 44

Worked on the Analogy of inoculation and resistance to persuasion.
Inoculated people against attacks on cultural truisms by first presenting arguments against the truisms and then refuting the arguments. Cultural truisms that were not inoculated were quite susceptible to attack.

Question 45

Analogy of inoculation

Answer 45

People can be inoculated against the attack of persuasive communications.
People can be psychologically inoculated against an oncoming attack by first exposing them to a weakened attack.

Question 46

Refuted counterarguments

Answer 46

Presenting refuted counterarguments motivates people to practice defending their beliefs.

Question 47

Cultural truisms

Answer 47

Beliefs that are seldom questioned. They are vulnerable to attack because the individual has never had practice defending them.

Question 48

Reactance

Answer 48

When social pressure to behave in a particular way or to persuade someone is too hard. The person will choose to do or believe the exact opposite.

Question 49

What determines when and with whom we affiliate?

Answer 49

Level of anxiety

Need to compare oneself with other people.

Question 50

Belief perseverance

Answer 50

If you’re told to explain why a belief you hold is true and then you are told that this belief is false, you’ll tend to hold that belief. Lee Ross

Question 51

List individual factors that influence attraction

Answer 51

1) Similarity
2) Need complementarity
3) Physical Attractiveness
4) Spatial proximity
5) Reciprocity

Question 52

Credibility

Answer 52

The degree to which a person can be believed

Question 53

Elaboration likehood model of persuasion

Answer 53

Petty & Cacciopo
There are two routes to persuasion:
1) CENTRAL ROUTE: the issue is very important to us. Strong arguments will persuade.
2) PERIPHERAL ROUTE: the issue is not very important to us, we cannot clearly hear the message or we are distracted. The strength of the persuader’s argument really doesn’t matter. What matters is how, by whom and in what surroundings the message is delivered.

Question 54

Social comparison theory

Answer 54

We are drawn to affiliate because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relationship to other people.

Question 55

What are the three principles of social comparison theory

Answer 55

1) People prefer to evaluate themselves by objective, non-social means. But when this is not possible, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing them to those of other people.
2) The less the similarity of opinions and abilities between two people, the less the tendency to make these comparisons.
3) When there is a discrepancy; the tendency is to change one’s position so as to move in line with the group. The need to self-evaluation is linked to the need of affiliation.

Question 56

Stanley Shachter

Answer 56

Found that greater anxiety leads to greater desire to affiliate. Discovered that anxious people prefer the company of other anxious people –> the perceived similarity of other anxious people is a factor in the affiliation.

Question 57

Minimal justification effect

Answer 57

Also called insufficient justification effect.
Festinger
When external inducements (rewards or punishments) impact behavior, there is no need to change internal conditions.
When external inducements are minimal and they impact behavior, there is a dissonance that is reduced by changing internal conditions.

Question 58

Festinger and Carlsmith experiment

Answer 58

1959
Extremely boring tasks for an hour, then they were asked to tell the next subject that the task was interesting and they were payed either $1 or $20 for that. Then, they were asked how boring the task was for them. Those who told the lie for $1 told the experimenters the task was more enjoyable than those who received $20.

The $1 people had dissonance and had to justify their lie and the fact that they lied for so little by thinking and saying that the task wasn’t boring.

Question 59

Leon Festinger

Answer 59

Developer of the cognitive dissonance theory

Developer of the social comparison theory

Question 60

Gain-Loss Principle

Answer 60

Aronson and Linder
An evaluation that changes will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant.
We will like someone more if his like for us has increased. We will dislike someone more if his dislike for us has increased. Actually suggests that people prefer situations that start out negatively but end positvely, even over entirely positive events

Question 61

Aronson & Linder

Answer 61

hypothesized the gain-loss principle

Question 62

Reciprocity hypothesis

Answer 62

We tend to like people who indicate that they like us. We tend to dislike those who dislike us.
We don’t merely evaluate a person’s qualities and arrive at like or dislike. We take into account the other person’s evaluation of us.

Question 63

Dynamogenesis theory

Answer 63

Developed by Norman Tripplet

The presence of competing others released energy in individuals that they could not release on their own.

Question 64

Gustave Le Bon

Answer 64

Published his analysis of group behavior in 1895, considering the impact of other people on the individual.
He held that in crowds people are more emotional, less rational, more prone to extreme behaviors and easily stimulated by leaders from one kind of extreme feeling to another in short periods of time.
A person in a crowd, according to him, loses his/her individuality and becomes highly suggestible and with a lowered intellectual ability.

Question 65

Floyd Allport

Answer 65

Coined the term social facilitation: the presence of others producing enhanced performance in individuals.

Question 66

Social facilitation

Answer 66

the presence of others producing enhanced performance in individuals.

Question 67

Norman Tripplet

Answer 67

1895 - Indiana University
Began his studies of how social forces affect bicycle racing. Considered the impact of people on the individual.
Made the first experiments in social psychology
Run the first social psychology type experiment on social facilitation - cyclists.

Question 68

Latané and Darley social influence in bystander intervention experiment

Answer 68

Students in a room. Alone (control) and with two other people disguised as students. While students were completing a questionnaire in the room, smoke was entering the room (ambiguous event). The two experimenters disguised as students had to perceive the smoke and make sure that the real students noted how the noticed the smoke and still not do anything. Then, the student thought it was not an emergency. The result of the experiment led to coining and defining the term pluralistic ignorance

Question 69

Pluralistic ignorance

Answer 69

Latané & Darley
leading others to a definition of an event as a nonemergency
When most of the people in a group privately disagree with X, but incorrectly believe that most people in the group agree with it

Question 70

Latané and Darley diffusion of responsibility in bystander intervention experiment

Answer 70

Students were part of a discussion. A subject was placed in a room and told that the discussion would take place by intercom. Each person was allowed two minutes to speak. Other speeches were prerecorded. The subjects believed there were one, two or five other participants. One of the participants spoke about a tendency toward epileptic seizures and had one (prerecorded) in the middle of the discussion. Since the subject did not know what were other’s reactions, social influence was not present. 100% of the students who thought they were alone reported the seizure. When they thought there was another person listening, the percentage declined to 85%. With four more people, the seizure was reported only 62% of the time.

Question 71

Diffusion of responsibility

Answer 71

Once an event is perceived to be an emergency, if there is inly one bystander, he has 100% responsibility to act and control the emergency. However, if there is more than one person in that situation, responsibility, blame and guilt are shared, and people tend not to act. The more people present, the less the likelihood that any individual will offer help.

Question 72

Empathy

Answer 72

the ability to vicariously experience the emotions of another.

Question 73

Batson’s empathy - altruism model

Answer 73

when faced with situations in which others may need help, people can either feel distress or empathy. Each of these reactions can determine helping behavior. Other psychologists disagree with this. The state that helping behavior only occurs when a person perceives she will benefit from helping others.

Question 74

Distress

Answer 74

mental pain or anguish

Question 75

Batson’s helping behavior experiments

Answer 75

Set of experiments in which subjects saw a person in distress (for instance, receiving electroshocks) They were placed in two conditions:
1)Easy escape condition: after two electro shocks they were given the opportunity to stop watching and go home.
2) Difficult escape condition: after two shocks, they were asked to stay and witness 10 shocks.
After the second shock, all the individuals completed a questionnaire that measured their level of distress and empathy. Then, they were told that the person being shocked, experimented traumatic shocks as a child and they were given the opportunity to receive the reimaining 8 shocks in his place.

Subjects in the easy-escape condition who reported more distress than empathy, tended to leave rather than help. Subjects who reported more empathy than distress were more likely to help regardless of whether they were in the easy or the difficult-escape conditions.

Question 76

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 76

When people are frustrated, they act aggressively. Researchers have found that the strength of the frustration correlated with the level of aggression observed.

Question 77

Modeling

Answer 77

Direct observation

Question 78

Bandura’s famous study on the effect of modeling

Answer 78

Two groups of children (3-5 years old) observed either:
1) an adult playing with tinker toys
2) an adult showing aggressive behavior towards an inflated “Bobo” doll.
Then, each child was made to feel frustrated and then left alone in a room full of toys, including the rubber doll. Children who observed the aggressive behaviors were more likely to act aggressively to the doll. In some cases, the aggression was completely copied.

Bandura believed that aggressive behavior is selectively reinforced, people act aggressively because they expect some kind of reward (material benefit, social approval, attention).

Question 79

Muzafer Sherif’s Conformity Study

Answer 79

Used the auto kinetic effect in an experiment. He put some students alone in a room completely dark room except for a light. The participants were asked to report how many times they saw the light moving. Then, he brought a group of students and made them (as a group) estimate the amount of movement. The subject’s solitary estimate changed so that the group agreed. Individuals conformed to the group. Judgements converged on some group norm.

Question 80

Autokinetic effect

Answer 80

A point of light in a room that is otherwise completely dark will appear to move.

Question 81

Conformity

Answer 81

yielding to group pressure/ yielding to group pressure when no specific demand has made to do so.

The tendency to align your attitudes, beliefs and behaviors with those around you.

Going along with real or perceived group pressure.

Question 82

Solomon Asch’s Conformity Study

Answer 82

Put students in a panel telling them they will evaluate line lengths. 7 to 9 people were confederates of the experiment. There was only one subject. The subject was always sit one seat before the last. Participants had to compare lines and give the response to a given question in the same order they were sit. All people gave the right answer to the first question. However, in the second question, all confederates gave the wrong answer even when the right answer was obvious. Subjects gave the wrong answer to this question approx. 37% of the time and they gave at least one wrong answer 75% of the time, while in the control group, wrong answers to the second question were given less than 1% of the times.

Question 83

Stanley Milgram’s experiment

Answer 83

Give an electric shock to a person when he gives the wrong answer.

3 experiments:

1) Yale
2) Conneticut
3) Indirect punishment by not delivering the shocks by themselves.

Experimenter prodded subject to give erlectric shocks by 4 sentences.

Subjects shocked person: majority continued shocking up to maximum voltage.

Three of the participants suffered from seizures and others showed signs of distress and nervousness.

Try to read again and again the experiment.

Question 84

Compliance

Answer 84

A change in behavior that occurs as a result of situational or interpersonal pressure.Conforming to others to gain their approval and avoid their disapproval. Occurs when people go along publicly but not privately.

Question 85

Foot-in-the-door effect

Answer 85

demonstrates that compliance with a small request increases the likelihood of compliance with a larger request. (the small request is reasonable)

Homeowners signed a petition for safe driving. A few weeks later were asked to put a sign in the front door that said “drive carefully”. Compliance was greater in this way than what is was in the control group.

Question 86

Door-in-the-face effect

Answer 86

People who refuse a large initial request are more likely to agree to a later smaller request. (the large request is unreasonable).

College students were asked to serve as voluntary counselors for two years. Then, they were asked to serve as chaperone juvenils on a trip to the zoo. More subjects complied compared to the control group.

Question 87

Doll preference study

Answer 87

Clark & Clark (1947)

The experimenter showed each children a black and a white doll and then asked several questions. Both black and white kids preferred the white doll. It highlighted the negative effects of racism and minority group status on the self-concept.
Later experiments showed that black children have positive views of their own ethnicity. This can be due to the changes in society and the use of improved methodologies.

Question 88

Kenneth Clark & Mamie Clark

Answer 88

studied ethnic self-concept among ethnically white and black children using the famous doll preference experiment. Results were used in the 1954 Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education case

Question 89

Hierarchy of salience

Answer 89

the way identities are organized. An identity will emerge according to the situation and the hierarchy of salience for that situation.

Question 90

The more salient the identity,the more we conform to _______

Answer 90

the role expectations of identities.

Question 91

Social Perception

Answer 91

the ways we form impressions about the characteristics of individuals and of groups of people.

Question 92

Primacy effect

Answer 92

Refers to those occasions when first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions.

Question 93

Recency effect

Answer 93

When the most recent information we have about an individual is most important in forming our impressions.

Question 94

Attribution theory

Answer 94

focuses on the tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other’s behavior. Heider
we are all naive psychologist that try to discover causes and effect in events and other’s behavior. People will attribute intentions and emotions to just about anything

Question 95

Dispositional causes

Answer 95

related to the person whose behavior is considered. Includes beliefs, attitudes, and personality characteristics.

Question 96

Situational causes

Answer 96

are external and are related to features of the surroundings like threats, money, social norms and peer pressure.

Question 97

fundamental attribution error

Answer 97

Tendency for bias in evaluations of other people.
bias towards making dispositional attributions rather than situational attributions when inferring the causes of others’ behavior. It is not simply a bias, it is an error.

Question 98

Halo effect

Answer 98

Tendency for bias in evaluations of other people.
Allow a general impression about a person ( I like Jill, in general) to influence other, more specific evaluations about a person ( Jill is a good writer, Jill can do no wrong).

This explains why people are often inaccurate in evaluations of people that they either believe to be generally good, or those that they believe to be generally bad.

Question 99

Belief in a just world

Answer 99

Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.

A strong belief in a just world increases the likelihood of “blaming the victim” since such a world view denies the possibility of innocent victims.

Question 100

M. J. Lerner

Answer 100

Studied the tendency of individuals to believe in a just world.

Question 101

Theodore Newcomb

Answer 101

Studied the influence of group norms. Studied political norms.

Question 102

Theodore Newcomb’s study

Answer 102

Small woman’s college. Most of the parents were Republican. However, the college’s atmosphere was liberal. Each year of a student college career was marked by an increase in liberalism. Over time, students accepted the norms of their community. He studied:

1) Patrons of voting behavior (increase in votes for liberals specially among students of more advanced levels; Therefore, they started being republicans and ended up as liberals).
2) Follow up 20 years later. Most of the students who left school being liberals remained liberals and those who left conservatives remained conservatives. Liberals generally married liberals and those who married conservatives went back to their previous conservatism.

Question 103

Edward Hall

Answer 103

There are cultural norms that govern how far away we stand from the people we’re speaking to. i.e.

1) USA intimate 1 foot
2) USA strangers several feet apart.

Question 104

Proxemics

Answer 104

The study of how individuals space themselves in relation to others.

Question 105

Zajonc, R. Theory - social facilitation effect

Answer 105

the presence of others increases arousal and consequently enhances the emission of dominant responses and impairs the emission of nondominant responses.

During early stages of learning, when everybody is amateur, the presence of others would enhance the wrong, dominant movements. However, in experimented performers, the presence of others will improve performance because the dominant movements are the right ones.

Question 106

Social loafing

Answer 106

the tendency for people to put forth less effort when part of a group effort than when acting individually.

i.e. the team rope pulling (tug of war) is half of the sum of the individual strengths. the amount of clapping done by spectators at sporting events and the productivity of a collective farm.

if you closely monitor each person, it wipes the effect out

Question 107

Philip Zimbardo

Answer 107

Worked on anonymity: people are more likely to commit antisocial acts when they feel anonymous within a social environment. When a person is anonymous, there is diminished restraint of unacceptable behavior.

Question 108

Prison simulation

Answer 108

Study made by Phillip Zimbardo. Mock prison. 12 students prisoners, 12 students guards.

Prisoners were arrested, driven blindfolded to the mock prison, stripped, deloused and given uniforms with ID numbers.
Guards were told not to use physical violence. However, when a rebellion started on day 2, guards sprayed prisoners with carbon dioxide from a fire extinguisher, stripped them and putting the ringleaders on solitary confinement. A first prisioner had to be released because of uncontrollable crying, fits of rage and disorganized thinking. Three prisoners developed similar symptoms and fifth prisoner developed psychosomatic rash. The experiment, intended to last 2 weeks, lasted 6 days. The sense of self of individuals was overwhelmed by the roles they were playing, and they began acting their roles, forgetting they were university students participating in an experiment.

Question 109

Deindividuation

Answer 109

Loss of self-awareness and of personal identity. It can be the result of mingling in a crowd, wearing uniforms or adopting a larger group identity in some way.

Question 110

Irving Janis

Answer 110

Studied groupthink
studied decision making in groups and why these decisions sometimes go wrong. He revised archives and historical documents of government officials. Inferred that bad decision making in groups is due to groupthink.

Question 111

Groupthink

Answer 111

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

Question 112

Bay of Pigs is an example of ____. Why?

Answer 112

The plan for this invasion stated that in the event of an unsuccessful initial landing, the invaders should retreat into the Escombre Mountains. No one revised a detailed map that showed there were 80 miles of swamps and marshes separating the place of initial landing from the mountains.

Question 113

Risky shift

Answer 113

Group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choices. This average riskiness of the individual choices can be considered to be an estimate of the group’s original riskiness. Therefore, there occurs a shift.

Question 114

Value hypothesis

Answer 114

Risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally valued. i.e. riskiness in business venture is culturally valued. The less members of a group will compare themselves with more risky members and then become riskier.

Question 115

James Stoner

Answer 115

1968 - Studied group polarization
conducted an experiment in which he presented couples to examine the risky shift in controversial situations. He found a shift toward caution instead of risk. The shift depended on the content of the dilemma.

Question 116

Group polarization

Answer 116

tendency for group discussion to enhance the group’s initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution. If a group originally has a tendency to be risky, further discussion will tend to make the group more risky and vice versa.

Question 117

Leaders of groups engage in____ communication than nonreaders.

Answer 117

more

Question 118

By artificially increasing the amount a person speaks, that person’s perceived leadership ________.

Answer 118

also increases

Question 119

Kurt Lewin

Answer 119

conducted research to determine leadership styles. Manipulated leadership styles used to supervise boys in an after-school program. Each group experimenting a different leadership style. Founder of social psychology. Applied Gestalt ideas to social behavior. Field theory. Life space. Valence, vector, and barrier are forces in the life space.

Question 120

Autocratic leadership style

Answer 120

1. Provide clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be done, and how it should be done. 2. Set a clear division between the leader and the followers. 3. Make decisions independently with little or no input from the rest of the group.

groups leaded by this style were more aggressive, more hostile and more dependent on their leader in Lewin’s Study. Quantity of work was greater than in democratic groups but motivation and interest were stronger in the democratic groups.

Question 121

Laissez-faire leadership style

Answer 121

Leader who offer little or no guidance and gives complete decision-making freedom to the group or to individual members, often leading to poorly defined roles and a lack of motivation.

groups leaded by this style were less efficient, less organized, and less satisfying for the boys than democratic groups according to Lewin’s study.

Question 122

Democratic leadership style

Answer 122

he most effective leadership style. They 1. Offer guidance to group members while participating in the group and allowing input from other group members. Show less productivity, but higher quality contributions. Group members feel engaged in the process and are more motivated and creative.

groups leaded by this style were more satisfying and more cohesive than autocratic groups.
Quantity of work was greater than in democratic groups but motivation and interest were stronger in the democratic groups.

Question 123

Cooperation

Answer 123

persons act together for their mutual benefit so that all of them can obtain a goal.

Question 124

Competition

Answer 124

A person acts for his individual benefit so that he or she can obtain a goal that has limited availability.

Question 125

Prisoner’s dilemma

Answer 125

Classic method for investigating people’s choices to compete or cooperate.

Prisoner A and B have been taken into custody for a felony. They are separated and can choose between confessing and not confessing. If both confess, they will be charged with a moderate sentence. If one confesses, the other will be left free and he will receive a harsh sentence. If neither of them confesses, they both will receive a misdemeanor. it is preferable to have:

1) be left free
2) misdemeanor
3) moderate sentence
4) receive a harsh sentence

Question 126

Robber’s Cave experiment

Answer 126

Study on cooperation and competition. Muzafer Sherif.

Created hostilities through competition and then reduced the hostilities through cooperation.

Boy’s camp. 22 twelve-year-old boys.Two groups of boys. The groups did not know about the existence of the other group. One group had rude rules while the other had polite rules.

During week one, both groups engaged in cooperative activities, developed a status hierarchy, differentiation of roles and tasks, norms and self-adopted names.

During week two, both groups competed against each other and had rude behaviors. At the end of the week, both groups reported not wanting to see the other group again.

Researchers then tried to reduce hostility by:

1) 7 contact situations, i.e. going to the movies together - did not function.
2) activities in which they had to work together in order to solve a problem. (superordinate goals). Joint effort to reach these goals dramatically improved intergroup relations.

at the end they became quite friendly.

Group conflict is most effectively overcome by the need for cooperative attention to a higher superordinate goal between two parties

Question 127

Muzafer Sherif

Answer 127

conducted conformity experiment - autokinetic effect

conducted robber’s cave experiment and found that having superordinate goals increased intergroup cooperation.

Question 128

Superordinate goals

Answer 128

Goals that are best obtained through intergroup cooperation.

Question 129

Alice Eagly

Answer 129

Suggested that gender differences in conformity were not due to gender, per se, but to differing social roles. Theory of role congruity.

Question 130

Stanley Milgram

Answer 130

Studied obedience by asking subjects to administer electroshock. Proposed stimulus-overload theory explain differences between city and country dwellers.

Question 131

Stimulus-overload theory

Answer 131

explains why urbanites are less prosocial than country people, they don’t need anymore interaction. they already have all the social interaction they need

Question 132

False consensus bias

Answer 132

or false consensus effect.
is a cognitive bias whereby a person tends to overestimate how much other people agree with him or her. There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values and habits are ‘normal’ and that others also think the same way that they do

Question 133

Lee Ross

Answer 133

Worked on belief perseverance, cognitive biases and naive realism

Question 134

Richard Nisbett

Answer 134

Lack of awareness

We all lack awareness into why we really do what we do. (aside: due to repression or biases, this is why psychotherapy is so important… integration of objective truths with subjective living/appraisals). the first comprehensive, empirically based argument that a variety of mental processes responsible for preferences, choices, and emotions are inaccessible to conscious awareness.

Question 135

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 135

The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty

When people rely on representativeness to make judgements, they are likely to judge wrongly because the fact that something is more representative does not make it more likely

Question 136

Availability heuristic

Answer 136

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that occurs when people make judgments about the probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that, “if you can think of it, it must be important.”
if someone asked you whether your college had more students from Colorado or more from California, under the availability heuristic, you would probably answer the question based on the relative availability of examples of Colorado students and California students. If you recall more students that come from California that you know, you will be more likely to conclude that more students in your college are from California than from Colorado

Question 137

What is compliance in conformity research?

Answer 137

Going along publicly with something, but not privately.

Question 138

What is the effect of forewarning people?

Answer 138

Less likely to comply or conform

Question 139

Zimbardo and Population Density

Answer 139

Found that anti-social crime correlates with population density

Question 140

Specifically, what is the ingroup/outgroup bias?

Answer 140

it is the believe that your group has lots of positive traits, few negative, and the opposite of the other group. This is the basis of prejudice

Question 141

Do opposites really attract?

Answer 141

No, not really, according to research. Research shows that we seek others who confirm out beliefs

Question 142

Richard Lazarus

Answer 142

cognitive-mediational theory within emotion

Differentiated between problem-focused coping (changing the stressor) and emotion-focused coping (which is changing the way you respond to the stressor)

Question 143

Bogus pipeline

Answer 143

The bogus pipeline is a technique used by social psychologists to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. It is a fake polygraph. The person whose attitude or emotion is being measured is told that they are being monitored by a machine or a polygraph (lie detector), resulting in more truthful answers.

Question 144

Peter principle

Answer 144

People are promoted at work until they reach a position of incompetence that goes beyond their abilities, a position in which they remain being unable to earn further promotions.

Question 145

Milton Rokeach

Answer 145

He found racial prejudice to be inversely related to socio-economic status, and thus concluded that such bias is used in an attempt to elevate one’s own status. He also studied racial bias and the similarity of beliefs. People prefer to be with like-minded people more than with like-skinned people. Also, racial bias decreases as attitude similarity people increases.

Question 146

Theory of reasoned action

Answer 146

states that people’s behavior intention in a given situation is determined by their attitude about the situation and subjective norms.

1) Attitude in this context = beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior multiplied by his or her evaluation of these consequences
2) Subjective norms = a combination of perceived expectations from relevant individuals or groups along with intentions to comply with these expectations. In other words, “the person’s perception that most people who are important to him or her think he should or should not perform the behavior in question”

Question 147

Paul Ekman

Answer 147

Six universal emotions: Happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, sadness. Found using the Facial Action Coding System FACS -> can help determine whether a smile is genuine (engaging the upper cheek) or fake (involving just mouth and eyes). Pioneer in research of emotions. Found this after cross-cultural studies that show that individuals in various cultures recognize facial expressions of these emotions.

Question 148

Harold Kelley

Answer 148

His major contributions have been the development of interdependence theory (with John Thibaut), the early work of attribution theory, and a lifelong interest in understanding close relationships processes.

His view of the attribution theory assumes that the attributions we make are, for the most part, accurate and logical. We base attributions on the consistency, distinctiveness and consensus of the action.

Question 149

Walter Dill Scott

Answer 149

One of the first to applied psychologists. Applied psychology to business. Helping in advertising and military selection.

Researched methods of social control and human motivation.

1) developed laws of suggestibility as a critical mechanism of advertising
2) solved the problem of selecting not only officers but also men whose aptitudes would fit them for training as specialists and technicians of many kinds.

Question 150

Sunk cost

Answer 150

Cost that has been incurred and cannot be recovered.

Question 151

reciprocal interaction

Answer 151

constant exchange of influences between people, is a constant factor in our behavior

Question 152

Theory of Role Congruity

Answer 152

Alice Eagle

the belief that prejudice arises when one social groups’ stereotype mismatches their valued success in other social roles. That is, society views one social groups role to be exclusive to that group in particular, and that venturing outside this could not be a successful endeavor, thus creating prejudicial attitudes

Question 153

Naive realism

Answer 153

Based on three tenets:

1) That I see entities and events as they are in objective reality, and that my social attitudes, beliefs, preferences, priorities, and the like follow from a relatively dispassionate, unbiased and essentially “unmediated” apprehension of the information or evidence at hand.
2) That other rational social perceivers generally will share my reactions, behaviors, and opinions—provided they have had access to the same information that gave rise to my views, and provided that they too have processed that information in a reasonably thoughtful and open-minded fashion.
3) That the failure of a given individual or group to share my views arises from one of three possible sources—
a) the individual or group in question may have been exposed to a different sample of information than I was (in which case, provided that the other party is reasonable and open minded, the sharing or pooling of information should lead us to reach an agreement);
b) the individual or group in question may be lazy, irrational, or otherwise unable or unwilling to proceed in a normative fashion from objective evidence to reasonable conclusions; or
c) the individual or group in question may be biased (either in interpreting the evidence, or in proceeding from evidence to conclusions) by ideology, self-interest, or some other distorting personal influence.

Question 154

Facial Action Coding System

Answer 154

Paul Ekman

FACS is an anatomically-based system for describing all observable facial movement for every emotion. Each observable component of facial movement is called an action unit or AU and all facial expressions can be decomposed into their constituent core AUs.

Question 155

Lack of awareness

Answer 155

Richard Nisbett

We all lack awareness into why we really do what we do. (aside: due to repression or biases, this is why psychotherapy is so important… integration of objective truths with subjective living/appraisals). the first comprehensive, empirically based argument that a variety of mental processes responsible for preferences, choices, and emotions are inaccessible to conscious awareness.

Question 156

Interdependence Theory

Answer 156

John Thibaut and Harold Kelley

Often identified as a social exchange theory.

I = f(S,A,B), where any given Interaction (I) is represented as a function of the two people in it (A and B) and the context of the specific interdependence situation (S).

The balance of rewards and costs between partners within a relationship as well as how well rewards and costs compare to what would be expected in another relationship predict relationship quality

Question 157

Hawthorne Effect

Answer 157

Also called observer effect

is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.

Coined by Henry Landsberger.

Question 158

Obedience

Answer 158

Kind of conformity

Compliance with a direct order issued by an authority figure. There is a direct request to change our behavior.

The person influencing us is of a higher status (they have authority)
The request to change our behavior is usually from just one person.

Question 159

What is lacking in Milgram’s (1963) research? a) debriefing, b) ecological validity, c) prior consent

Answer 159

b) ecological validity

Question 160

Identification

Answer 160

Conforming to others due to a desire to be like them. because you value the membership of the group. It is not a true conversion.

Question 161

Disobedient role model

Answer 161

way of resisting pressures to obey. Watching others disobey remind us we are able to do the same

Question 162

Defriefing

Answer 162

In psychological research, a debriefing is a short interview that takes place between researchers and research participants immediately following their participation in a psychology experiment. The debriefing is an important ethical consideration to make sure that participants are fully informed about, and not harmed in any way by, their experience in an experiment.

Question 163

Presumptive consent

Answer 163

that before the real volunteers are enlisted, a sample of people is asked their opinion on the acceptability of the experiment. These people obviously do not take part, but their views are taken into account

Question 164

Which ethical solution did Milgram use?

Answer 164

debriefing

Question 165

Kelman’s types of conformity

Answer 165

Compliance
Identification
Internalization

Question 166

Why do we conform

Answer 166

To be accepted, liked or just to fit in or to avoid feelling silly

Question 167

What is lacking in Milgram’s research

Answer 167

Ecological validity - The extent to which an experiment can be generalized to real life, a type of external validity

Question 168

Which is more powerful as it is a true conversion, compliance or internalization?

Answer 168

Internalization

Question 169

Ways in which minority influence majority

Answer 169

1) Persuasiveness ->
2) Relevance
3) Commitment -> Minorities can exert influence by showing dedication as this gives
4) Flexibility

The minority view is one which has meaning at one particular time and place

This is when the minority tries to win over people from the majority and attract others to its position. In politics these are usually describe as

Question 170

35% of Milgram’s participants refused to obey, possibly because of:

Answer 170

1) Reactance - Gamson era al one of the participants became suspicious of the procedure and persuaded others to withdraw
2) Disobedient role models - Watching others disobey remind us we are able to do the same
3) Responsibility - One participant had lived in Nazi Germany. Milgram believed past memories had “woken” her from her agentic state.

Question 171

Informational pressures are more likely to lead to internalization or compliance?

Answer 171

Internalization

Question 172

Processes in Minority Influence

Answer 172

1) Consistency - Moscovici- standing firm on opinion had an impact on the minority
The snowball effect
Flexibility
Social Cryptoamnesia

Perez et al, minority ideas are assimilated into the majority viewpoint without those in the majority viewpoint remembering where the ideas came from.

Clark - behavioral style of the minority, when a minority succeeds

Question 173

Social Change

Answer 173

When society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm

Question 174

Asch’s experiment uses and ambiguous (can be interpreted in more than one way) or unambiguous (clear right answer) task?

Answer 174

Unambiguous

Question 175

Solutions to ethical issues in social psychology research

Answer 175

Socially sensitive research Research that has implications for individuals and groups of individuals
Cost - benefit analysis - Distress to the participant vs. contribution to society
Debriefing Participants must be fully informed by the time the experiment ends
Ethical imperative Research that must be done

Question 176

Milgram’s number of participants going to 450v

Answer 176

Venue moved to seedy offices in a neraby town
The original experiment
Teacher had to force learner’s hand onto the plate to receive the shock
Teacher and learner are in the same room

40%
65%
30%
47.5%

Question 177

Mention some characteristics of people with high Internal locus of control (3)

Answer 177

1) High internals tend to be more achievement oriented
2) High internals are better able to resist coercion from others
3) High internals are active seekers of information

Question 178

True or false: According to Twenge et al (2004) we are more external today than in 1960’s

Answer 178

True

Question 179

Situational factors effecting social influence

Answer 179

1) Unanimity of majority - Asch’s conformity rate of 32% fell to 5% if one of the stooges gave the correct answer on all trials
2) Social support - When teacher left the room, obedience decreased
3) Environment - When Milgram moved his study to a less prestigious setting, rates of obedience fell to 47,5%
4) Buffers - Milgram’s obedience rate of 65% fell to 10% when two stooges acted as additional teachers

Question 180

External locus of control

Answer 180

When an individual believes that his/her behavior is guided by fate, luck or other external circumstances

Question 181

Variables that affect conformity according to Asch

Answer 181

1) Unanimity of the majority
2) Nature of the task
3) Size of the majority

Question 182

Minority Influence

Answer 182

An individual or small group influence the majority or large group to change their attitudes or behavior.

Minority influence is more likely to occur if the point of view of the minority is consistent, flexible, and appealing to the majority.

Question 183

How do people resist pressures to conform

Answer 183

1) Role of allies - Ash if there was dissenter conformity fell
2) Task familiarity - Music students were less likely to a music based task
3) Internal locus of control - Rotter, found that high internals are better able to resist coercion from others
4) Desire to want to remain independent - In Asch’s study those that did this clearly felt uncomfortable and avoided eye contact with others

Question 184

Ecological validity

Answer 184

The extent to which an experiment can be generalized to real life, a type of external validity

Question 185

Types of conformity

Answer 185

1) Normative conformity - desire to fit in

2) Informational conformity - desire to be right

Question 186

Three criticisms to Asch’s research

Answer 186

1) Era dependent
2) Ethnocentric
3) Lacking in ecological validity

Question 187

Era dependence

Answer 187

The extent to which experimental findings can be generalized to current times

Question 188

As task becomes more difficult, conformity _______

Answer 188

increases

Question 189

Who “asks” us to conform

Answer 189

Nobody, we act to

Question 190

Milgram’s findings in terms of psychological processes

Answer 190

1) Agentic State - means that an individual believes that he is acting without responsibility. In many cases participants to Milgram’s study sought reassurance from the experimenter that the experimenter would assume responsibility for any harm that came to the “learner”. Participants asked “Who will take the responsibility?”

Legitimate authority

Gradual commitment

Role of Buffers

Voltage only increased 15v at a time

Obedience fell to 40% when in the same room as teacher

Question 191

How do people resist pressures to obey?

Answer 191

1) Reactance
2) Disobedient Role Model
3) Internal locus of control
4) Time to think and find social support

gamson found that blatant attempts to restrict people’s freedom can sometimes produce a boomerang effect

When two research participants refused to give shocks

Question 192

Orne and Holland’s Claims

Answer 192

Obdience was due to payment in advance and the idea that a contract had been entered to

The participants realized that the setup was a sham

Question 193

Agentic State

Answer 193

means that an individual believes that he is acting without responsibility. In many cases participants to Milgram’s study sought reassurance from the experimenter that the experimenter would assume responsibility for any harm that came to the “learner”.

Question 194

graduated commitment

Answer 194

he fact that the electric shocks went up in gradual stages is important. If there had been just one switch labelled 450v, then it is likely that obedience would have been less. Having obeyed once, it becomes harder for the subject to resist subsequent commands

Question 195

What are some methodological advantages of debriefing?

Answer 195

1) the ability of researchers to check the effectiveness of a manipulation, or to identify participants who were able to guess the hypothesis or spot a deception. If the data have been compromised in this way, then those participants should be excluded from the analysis.

Question 196

Types of social influence

Answer 196

1) Majority influence - conformity

2) Minority influence - innovation

Question 197

Internalization

Answer 197

Also called acceptance. involves the integration of attitudes, values, standards and the opinions of others into one’s own identity or sense of self. Unlike compliance, in which conformity is purely for social acceptance, with internalisation the person conforms because they believe the group’s viewpoint

Question 198

Hofling experiment

Answer 198

Obedient nurses - confirming Milgram’s findings

investigated obedience among nurses to an order from a doctor. They used real nurses in a real hospital, but the nurses did not know they were taking part in a research study. During their shift a researcher telephoned the ward, introduced himself as a doctor, and instructed the nurse to administer a patient with 20mg of Astroten which was a drug the nurses would have been unfamiliar with. Standard hospital rules prohibited nurses from taking telephone orders from an unfamiliar doctor, administering a drug that was not on a list of permitted drugs, and administering drugs without a signed order from a doctor. Despite this, 21 out of 22 nurses followed the fake doctor’s orders and gave the drug.

Before the experiment, Hofling had asked nurses whether they thought their colleagues would obey the orders given in the experiment, and the majority believed there would be almost no obedience. But when the nurses were interviewed after the experiment, they defended their actions by arguing that it was normal for them to follow orders of the nature in the experiment.

Question 199

Bickman

Answer 199

The power of uniforms

The power a uniform has to make people more likely to obey orders was shown by Bickman (1974) in New York. Bickman used three male actors dressed in normal clothes, as a milkman, or as a security guard. The actors asked passersby to do things like pick up a paper bag that had been thrown in the street, or to give them a coin for a parking meter. Passersby were most likely to obey the actor dressed as a security guard and least likely to obey the actor in normal clothes.

Question 200

Sheridan and King

Answer 200

Puppy love?

hypothesized that some of Milgram’s subjects may have suspected that the victim was faking, so they repeated the experiment with a real victim: a “cute, fluffy puppy” who was given real, albeit harmless, electric shocks. They found similar findings to Milgram: half of the male subjects and all of the females obeyed to the end. Many subjects showed high levels of distress during the experiment and some openly wept. In addition, Sheridan and King found that the duration for which the shock button was pressed decreased as the shocks got higher, meaning that for higher shock levels, subjects showed more hesitance towards delivering the shocks.

Question 201

Rank and Jacobson

Answer 201

Not so obedient nurses

Rank & Jacobson (1977) repeated Hofling et al’s (1966) experiment, but this time they increased the realism of the situation by using valium (a drug the nurses were familiar with) at three times the recommended dose. When the research pretending to be a doctor telephoned, he introduced himself as a doctor the nurses would have heard of, and the nurses were in a position of being able to discuss the order with other nurses before carrying it out. Only 2 out of 18 nurses followed the order. The increased realism of the experiment, and the discussion with a colleague had lowered obedience rates in exactly the same way that Milgram’s addition of a dissenting confederate had done.

Question 202

Serge Moscovici

Answer 202

Moscovici claimed that majority influence in many ways was misleading – if the majority was indeed all-powerful, we would all end up thinking the same.

The study he is most famous for, Influences of a consistent minority on the responses of a majority in a colour perception task, is now seen as one of the defining investigations into the effects of minority influence:

Aims: To investigate the process of innovation by looking at how a consistent minority affect the opinions of a larger group, possibly creating doubt and leading them to question and alter their views
Procedures: Participants were first given an eye test to check that they were not colour blind. They were then placed in a group of four participants and two confederates. they were all shown 36 slides that were different shades of blue and asked to state the colour out loud. There were two groups in the experiment. In the first group the confederates were consistent and answered green for every slide. In the second group the confederates were inconsistent and answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.
Findings: For 8.42% of the trials, participants agreed with the minority and said that the slides were green. Overall, 32% of the participants agreed at least once.
Conclusions: The study suggested that minorities can indeed exert an effect over the opinion of a majority. Not to the same degree as majority influence, but the fact that almost a third of people agreed at least once is significant. However, this also leaves two thirds who never agreed. In a follow up experiment, Moscovici demonstrated that consistency was the key factor in minority influence, by instructing the stooges to be inconsistent. The effect fell off sharply.

Question 203

Hindsight bias

Answer 203

” I knew it all along effect”

Tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen the outcome.

Question 204

What are the areas and subareas that social psychology studies?

Answer 204

Social thinking

• How we perceive ourselves and others
• What we believe
• Judgements we make
• Our attitudes

Social influence

• Culture
• Pressures to conform
• Persuasion
• Groups of people

Social Relations

• Prejudice
• Aggression
• Attraction and intimacy
• Helping

Question 205

List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social thinking

Answer 205

• We construct our social reality.- we have a need to explain the world. Our actions depend on what we think and perceive.
• Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous
• Attitudes shape, and are shaped, by behavior

Question 206

List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social influence

Answer 206

• Social influences shape behavior.

- Dispositions shape behavior.

Question 207

List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social relations

Answer 207

• Social behavior is also biological behavior

- Feelings and actions toward people are sometimes negative and sometimes positive

Question 208

Dual processing

Answer 208

Thinking, memory and attitudes operate at two levels: one conscious and deliberate and one unconscious and automatic

Question 209

Self-monitoring

Answer 209

the extent to which one is concerned with how appropriate his or her behavior is in other’s presence.

Question 210

Define social neuroscience

Answer 210

An interdisciplinary field that explores the neural bases of social and emotional processes and behaviors, and how these processes and behaviors affect our brain and biology.

Question 211

Define culture

Answer 211

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Question 212

Define social representation

Answer 212

A society’s widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.

Question 213

Change blindness

Answer 213

Blindness to change in colors, or in specific stimuli while our attention was focused elsewhere.

Question 214

The spotlight effect

Answer 214

Overestimating others’ noticing our behavior or appearance

Question 215

Illusion of transparency

Answer 215

the illusion that our concealed emotions can leak out and can be easily read by others.

Question 216

Why if you break up with somebody you tend to shift your self-perceptions and feel less certain about who you are?

Answer 216

Because we have various selves in our various relationships. If our relationships change, our self-concepts can change as well.

Question 217

Mention 5 functions of the self

Answer 217

1) Long-term planning
2) Goal setting
3) Guide social behavior
4) comparison with others
5) Organize our thinking

Question 218

Define Self-concept

Answer 218

what we know and believe about ourselves

Question 219

Define Self-schemas

Answer 219

elements of the self-concept. Beliefs about the self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

Question 220

Define Schemas

Answer 220

Mental templates by which we organize our worlds

Question 221

Why do we care of others’ bodies and skills if athletics is central to our self-concept?

Answer 221

because how we perceive ourselves (the topics central to our self-concept) affect the way we perceive, remember and evaluate other people, events and information. We welcome information that is consistent with our own self-schema.

Question 222

define possible selves

Answer 222

Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future

Question 223

What is the function of the possible selves?

Answer 223

To motivate us with a vision of what we want and what we don’t want to become

Question 224

What determines our self-concepts?

Answer 224

• genetic influences

- Social experiences

Question 225

What are the social influences that affect self-concept? (5)

Answer 225

1) The roles we play
2) The social identities we form
3) The comparisons we make with others
4) How other people judge us
5) The surrounding culture

Question 226

How do the roles we play affect self-concept?

Answer 226

As we enact a new role, we initially feel self-conscious. Gradually, what began as playacting is absorbed into our sense of self.

Question 227

Define social comparison

Answer 227

Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.

Question 228

Define self-esteem

Answer 228

A person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth

Question 229

Define self-knowledge

Answer 229

Explanation and predictions of oneself

Question 230

Define social self

Answer 230

Roles as student, family member, friend. Group identity

Question 231

True or False - When climbing the ladder of success we tend to compare upward (we raise the standards by which we evaluate our attainments

Answer 231

True

Question 232

How do other people’s judgements help us build our self-concept?

Answer 232

When people think well of us, it help us think well of ourselves.

Question 233

looking-glass self

Answer 233

a metaphor to describe how we perceive ourselves

Question 234

What is the function of self-esteem

Answer 234

It serves as a gauge (calibrator) that helps us monitor and react to how others appraise us. We look for approval since ancient times because of our need to survive by being protected by our social group.

Question 235

Individualism

Answer 235

The concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Question 236

What could you infer of a person who describe himself like “I am a Muslim”?

Answer 236

One could infer that this person place a great value on collectivism

Question 237

Independent self

Answer 237

Construing one’s identity as an autonomous self.

Question 238

Collectivism

Answer 238

Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly.

Question 239

Interdependent self

Answer 239

Construing one’s identity in relation to others.

Question 240

Individualism flourishes when____

Answer 240

people experience affluence, mobility, urbanism, and mass media

Question 241

What characterizes people with interdependent selves?

Answer 241

• They tend to be more self-critical
• They have less need for positive self-regard (interés propio, amor propio)
• People tend to look more for approval

Question 242

Are cultures solely individualist or collectivist?

Answer 242

No, people can sometimes behave individualistically and sometimes collectivistically. There are individualistic Chinese and collectivist Americans. Level of individualism varies across regions of the same country and political views.

Question 243

True or false: the more individualistic the time or the place, the more children receive uncommon names

Answer 243

True

Question 244

Does collectivism and individualism affect the way we think?

Answer 244

yes, people of collectivist cultures tend to focus more on the surroundings and on the relationships. They think more holistically. People from individualistic cultures tend to concentrate more on the focal object.

Question 245

List some real-life examples of differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures

Answer 245

• Advertisement
• Song lyrics
• Perceiving backgrounds
• Perceiving others’ emotions
• Perception of the usefulness of language
• Willing to be unique
• brain region activation

Question 246

What is the goal of social life in an interdependent culture?

Answer 246

to harmonize with and support one’s communities

Question 247

What is the goal of social life in an individualistic culture?

Answer 247

to enhance one’s individual self and make choices independently

Question 248

true or false: people never err when explaining their own behavior

Answer 248

False. People often err, specially when their behavior occurs due to subtle causes. People normally can’t identify what makes them happy

Question 249

True or false: people never err when predicting their own behavior

Answer 249

False. Examples:

• duration of romantic relationships better predicted by roommates
• medical exams’ results better predicted by classmates
• daily routine predictions at least equal made by close friends
• how long a task would take
• how much money they will spend

Question 250

Planning fallacy

Answer 250

Underestimating how long it will take to complete a task

Question 251

Affective forecasting

Answer 251

Our ability to predict our feelings

Question 252

What is the main findings regarding affective forecasting?

Answer 252

We have greatest difficulty predicting the duration and intensity of our future emotions

Question 253

Mention some examples of failing to predict our own feelings

Answer 253

1) sexual arousal

2) hungry buyers

Question 254

Impact bias

Answer 254

Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.
We are especially prone to impact bias after negative effects.

Question 255

True or false: We want. We get. We are happy.

Answer 255

False. Faster than we expect, the emotional traces of getting what we want evaporate.

Question 256

immune neglect

Answer 256

The human tendency to underestimate the speed and the strength of the “psychological immune system”, which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.

Question 257

True or false: We are more aware of the results of our thinking than of its process

Answer 257

True

Question 258

Dual attitude system

Answer 258

Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habit.

Question 259

Self-reference effect

Answer 259

When we process information with reference to ourselves, we remember it well.

Question 260

Mention the two elements of self-concept

Answer 260

1) Self-schemas

2) Possible selves

Question 261

Give an example of how specific self-perceptions have influence on behavior

Answer 261

Academic self-concept predicts academic performance

Question 262

True or false: feedback is better when it is specific and true

Answer 262

True

Question 263

What is the difference in reactions to self-esteem threats by people who have high vs. low self-esteem?

Answer 263

High-esteem people usually react to a self-esteem threat by compensating for it (blaming someone else or trying harder the next time, while low-esteem people are more likely to break by blaming themselves or giving up

Question 264

Why are most people motivated to maintain their self-esteem?

Answer 264

There are two explanations:

1) The self-esteem gauge alerts us to threatened social rejection, so that we can act with greater sensitivity to others’ expectations.
2) “terror management theory” - self-esteem is not only about acceptance. It is also about managing our fear of death. We strive to be recognized an we must continually pursue self-esteem by meeting the standards of our societies.

Question 265

What does the “terror management theory” propose?

Answer 265

People exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with remainders of their mortality.

Question 266

Mention 3 benefits of self-esteem

Answer 266

1) fosters initiative
2) Fosters resilience
3) Fosters pleasant feelings

Question 267

Is high self-esteem always good?

Answer 267

No. teen gang leaders, extreme ethnocentrists, terrorists and men in prison for committing violent crimes tend to have high self-esteem.

Question 268

Narcissism

Answer 268

Having an inflated sense of self

Question 269

What is the difference between being narcissistic and having high self-esteem?

Answer 269

People with high self-esteem value both individual achievement and relationships with others. Narcissists usually have high self-esteem, but they do not care for others. They are often outgoing and charming early on a relationship, but their self-centeredness often lead to relationship problems in the long run.

Question 270

True or false: an overinflated ego (narcissism) is a cover for deep-seated insecurity

Answer 270

False: an arrogant classmate usually thinks he is awesome. He is not covering his insecurity.

Question 271

True or false: Those high in narcissism and low in empathy are less successful in the long run, making lower grades and performing poorly at work.

Answer 271

True

Question 272

Secure self-esteem

Answer 272

Type of self-esteem rooted more in feeling good about who one is than in grades, looks, money, or others’ approval. It is conducive to long-term well being.

Question 273

Self-comparison approach

Answer 273

Leaving behind comparisons with others and instead treating ourselves with kindness.

Question 274

Why is self-control similar to muscular strength?

Answer 274

Both are weaker after exertion (to much effort), replenished with rest, and strengthen by exercise.

Question 275

Self-efficacy

Answer 275

A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s sense of self-worth. A sharpshooter in the military might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem. How competent we feel on a task.

Question 276

Mention some benefits of self-efficacy

Answer 276

1) leads to setting challenging goals

2) increases persistence

Question 277

How does self-efficacy grow?

Answer 277

With hard-won achievements

Question 278

What is the difference between self-efficacy and self-esteem?

Answer 278

Self-efficacy: If you believe you can do something

Self-esteem: if you like yourself overall

Question 279

True or false: If you want to encourage somebody, it is better to focus on their self-efficacy, and not in their self-esteem

Answer 279

true. Self-efficacy feedback leads to better performance than self-esteem feedback.

Question 280

Define locus of control

Answer 280

The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces

Question 281

Mention some benefits of having an internal locus of control (6)

Answer 281

High internals are more likely to:

1) do well in school
2) be more productive at work
3) make more money
4) successfully stop smoking
5) achieve long-term goals
6) address marital problems directly

Question 282

Define learned helplessness

Answer 282

The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events

Question 283

True or false: if you learn how to exert willpower in one area of your life, resisting temptation in other areas becomes easier too.

Answer 283

True

Question 284

Do systems governing or managing people that promote personal control also cause an improvement in health and happiness? Provide 4 examples

Answer 284

Yes

1) Geriatric care center
2) Prisoners given some control over their environment
3) Workers with more flexibility
4) Countries with more freedom -> more satisfaction

Question 285

Explain the tyranny of freedom

Answer 285

Excess of choices. Too much choices causes paralysis and increases depression. Making choices is tiring.

Question 286

Define modeling

Answer 286

Seeing others succeed with effort

Question 287

Which factors can contribute to self-efficacy? Which is the most important?

Answer 287

1) Social persuasion (You have what it takes to succeed)
2) Self-persuasion (I think I can)
3) modeling
4) mastery experiences (the most important)

Question 288

When does learned helplessness appear?

Answer 288

when attempts to improve a situation have proven fruitless.

Question 289

What is self-serving bias?

Answer 289

The tendency to perceive oneself favorably

Question 290

Self-serving attribution

Answer 290

A form of self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors. One of the most potent human biases.

Question 291

Why are self-serving attributions one of the most potent human biases?

Answer 291

Because they activate brain areas associated with reward and pleasure.

Question 292

Bias blind spot

Answer 292

Being biased about seeing one’s own bias

Question 293

True or false: people are generally convinced they are right and free from bias

Answer 293

True

Question 294

In which aspects do most people to see themselves as better than the average person? (3)

Answer 294

• Common dimensions
• Social desirable dimensions
• Subjective dimensions

Question 295

True or false: Group members’ estimates of how much they contribute to a joint task typically sum to more than 100 percent.

Answer 295

True: because of self-serving bias

Question 296

True or false: People are natural pessimists since our ancestors who survived were more pessimistic than those who didn’t survive

Answer 296

False: People are natural optimists since our ancestors who survived were more optimistic than those who didn’t survive

Question 297

Defensive pessimism

Answer 297

The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action.

Question 298

True or false: when we behave badly or fail in a task, we reassure ourselves by thinking that such lapses are also common

Answer 298

True - is part of the false consensus bias.

Question 299

False uniqueness effect

Answer 299

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors.

Question 300

Mention the 5 types of self-serving bias

Answer 300

1) Self-serving attributions
2) Self-congratulatory comparisons
3) illusory optimism
4) False consensus effect
5) False uniqueness effect

Question 301

Mention some benefits of self-serving bias

Answer 301

1) better coping with stressful circumstances - resilience
2) protect from depression
3) buffer anxiety

Question 302

group-serving bias

Answer 302

explaining away out group members’ positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behaviors by one’s own group).

Question 303

Self-handicapping

Answer 303

Protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure. For example procrastinating

Question 304

Mention 4 examples of self-handicap

Answer 304

1) reducing preparation before athletic competences
2) give your opponent an advantage
3) perform poorly at the beginning of a task in order not to create unreachable expectations
4) not try as hard as you could in a tough, ego-involving task

Question 305

Self-presentation

Answer 305

The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one’s ideals. It can be to an external audience, and to yourself. Particularly positive self-presentation is an important influence on behavior. We act in ways that are in line with our attitudes or in ways that will be accepted by others.

Question 306

Self-monitoring

Answer 306

Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression.

Question 307

Why is the fundamental attribution error called “fundamental”?

Answer 307

It is called “fundamental” because it entails the mission of psychology -> to explain behavior and separate the influence of personality dispositions vs. the power of the situation.

Question 308

Actor-observer differences in attribution

Answer 308

Actors are more likely to explain their behavior as a function of situational factors than are observers.

Actors and observers differ in what is most salient for them:

• for actors, the situation is more salient
• for observers, the actors are more salient

Question 309

What is the difference between the fundamental attribution error and the actor-observer difference?

Answer 309

The actor-observer difference is simply a bias, not a error.q

Question 310

Explain the main difference between the self-perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory

Answer 310

Self-perception theory is attributional in nature while cognitive dissonance theory implies that there is a natural tendency to reduce or avoid inner conflict.

Question 311

Mention the main difference between Two-sided appeal vs. attitude inoculation

Answer 311

In the two-sided appeal, the persuader presents the objections to counterarguments whereas in attitude inoculation, it is the receiver who generates objections to mildly criticized counterarguments.

Question 312

Low-ball effect

Answer 312

Throwing a bad condition after you have complied with a request. Like car dealers than say you have to pay for the insurance, etc, etc. after you have already agreed to buy the car.

Question 313

blind obedience

Answer 313

when the authority is not questioned at all

Question 314

Social identity

Answer 314

A social identity is the portion of an individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.

Question 315

Social identity theory

Answer 315

Social identity theory is best described as a theory that predicts certain intergroup behaviours on the basis of perceived group status differences, the perceived legitimacy and stability of those status differences, and the perceived ability to move from one group to another.

Completely interpersonal behaviour would be behaviour determined solely by the individual characteristics and interpersonal relationships that exists between two or more people. Completely intergroup behaviour would be behaviour determined solely by the social category memberships that apply to two or more people.

Question 316

What is the difference between social identity theory and social categorization theory?

Answer 316

The cognitive nature of personal vs. social identities, and the relationship between them, is more fully developed in self-categorization theory. Social identity theory instead focuses on the social structural factors that will predict which end of the spectrum will most influence an individual’s behaviour, along with the forms that that behavior may take.

Question 317

Field Theory

Answer 317

total of influences upon individual behavior

Question 318

A person’s life space

Answer 318

the collection of forces upon the individual

Question 319

Valence

Answer 319

positive or negative. +valence forces attract people whereas -valence forces repel people.

Question 320

Illusori correlation

Answer 320

assuming that two unrelated things have a relationship

Question 321

Slippery slope

Answer 321

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 322

Base-rate fallacy

Answer 322

overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familiar with

Question 323

Illusion of control

Answer 323

Belief that you can control things that you actually have no influence on. This illusion is the driving force behind manipulating the lottery, gambling, and superstition.

Question 324

Ellen Langer

Answer 324

studied the illusion of control

Question 325

Oversimplification

Answer 325

tendency to make simple explanations for complex events. People also hold onto original ideas about cause even when new factors emerge

Question 326

Impression management

Answer 326

Behaving in ways that might make a good impression

Question 327

Morton Deutsch

Answer 327

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

Question 328

The trucking company game

Answer 328

describes two companies that can choose to cooperate (and agree on high fixed prices) or compete again each other with lower prices. The best strategy would be to cooperate , but because one company cannot trust the other, they choose to compete.

Question 329

Dissenter

Answer 329

An individual who speak out against the majority

Question 330

When is an individual most likely to conform? (7)

Answer 330

1) there is a majority opinion
2) the majority has a unanimous position
3) the majority has high status, or the individual is concerned with her own status
4) The situation is in public
5) the individual was not previously committed to another position
6) the individual has low self-esteem
7) the individual scores high in a measure of authoritarism

Question 331

True or false : People will often not conform if they are forewarned that others will attempt to change them

Answer 331

True

Question 332

An individual speaker is most likely to change a listener’s attitude if: (6)

Answer 332

1) the speaker is an expert and/or trustworthy
2) the speaker is similar to the listener
3) the speaker is acceptable to the listener
4) The speaker is overheard rather than obviously trying to influence
5) The content is anecdotal, emotional or shocking
6) the speaker is part of a two-person debate rather than a one-side argument.

Question 333

True or false: antisocial behavior correlates positively with population density

Answer 333

True: Philip Zimbardo left broken-down cars in Palo Alto and New York

Question 334

When is groupthink most likely to occur? (7)

Answer 334

in a group that has:

1) unquestioned beliefs
2) pressure to conform
3) invulnerability
4) censors
5) cohesiveness within
6) isolation from without
7) a strong leader

Question 335

Reciprocity of disclosure

Answer 335

Sharing secrets or feelings. This facilitates emotional closeness

Question 336

Excitation-transfer theory

Answer 336

sometimes we attribute our excitement or physiological arousal about one thing to something else. For example, if you go bungee jumping you feel you like your date more than you do because of the excitement produced by bungee-jumping.

Question 337

Who can someone achieve objective self-awareness? (4)

Answer 337

1) self-perception
2) high self-monitoring
3) internality
4) self-efficacy

Question 338

Facilitators and hinderers of objective self-awareness

Answer 338

experiments making people do things looking at themselves in the mirror.

deindividuation works against objective self-awareness

Question 339

J. Rodin and E. Langer

Answer 339

found that nursing home residents who have plants o care for have better health and lower mortality rates.

Question 340

Stuart Valins

Answer 340

studied environmental influences on behavior. Architecture matters. Students in long-corridor dorms feel more stressed and withdrawn than students in suite-style dorms.

Question 341

Leonard Berkowitz’s frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 341

posits a relationship between frustration in achieving a goal (no matter how small) and the show of aggression.

Question 342

M. Fischbein and I. Ajzen

Answer 342

developed the theory of reasoned action

Question 343

Theory of reasoned action

Answer 343

people’s behavior in a given situation is determined by their attitude about the situation and social norms.

Question 344

Hazel Markus

Answer 344

Eastern countries, in contrast to Western countries, value interdependence over independence.
Eastern countries –> individuals demonstrate conformity, modesty, pessimism.
Western Countries –> optimism, self-enhancement, individuality.

Question 345

Elaine Hatfield

Answer 345

There are two types of love:

• Passionate love: intense longing for the union with another and a state of profound physiological arousal. Based in biophysiological system shared with other primates, is a powerful emotion that can be either positive (when love is reciprocal) and negative (when love is unrequited).
• Companionate love: affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined. Is achieved by mutual trust, respect, and commitment and often characterizes later stages of relationships.

Question 346

Reciprocal socialization

Answer 346

two parties adapt to or are socialized by each other. parents are socialized by youngsters when they use new young lingo. Youngsters are socialized by parents when they learn to respect rules.

Question 347

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Answer 347

branch of psychology that deals with the workplace. These psychologists work to increase an organization’s efficiency and functionality by improving the performance and well-being of the people in the organization.

Question 348

Muzafer Sherif’s 3 phases of group dynamics

Answer 348

1) In-group phase: where people bonded with their own groups.
2) friction phase: the 2 groups met and became competitive with one another.
3) Integration phase: the 2 teams had to work together toward a common goal that neither group could accomplish alone.

Question 349

Sociotechnical systems

Answer 349

method of work design that acknowledges the interaction of people and their environment in the workplace.

Question 350

Sunk cost

Answer 350

an expense that has been incurred and cannot be recovered. The best strategy is to ignore these when making decisions, because money that has already been spent is irrelevant for the future.