Social Psychology Midterm

When an individual seems to lose himself or herself in conforming to group's identity.

Ex: Becoming part of a gang

The outcome of an evaluation of attributes that produces differences in respect and prominence

personality traits, and abilities that guide behavior

The failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behavior, together with the tendency to overemphasize the importance of dispositions.

Ex: we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people.

The process of objectively establishing facts through testing and experimentation

When people mistakenly believe that everyone else holds a different opinion than their own. Most people in a group may go along with a view they do not agree with, because they incorrectly think that most other people in the group agree with it

Ex: Not speaking up when a friend cheats on his math test because you incorrectly think that the rest of your friends believe cheating is okay, even though you personally believe that cheating is wrong

When being in the presence of others improves individual task performance

Ex: A musician/actor/performer who becomes energized by having an audience and does a better performance

Describes a mental concept

Ex: Your schema for your friend might include information about her appearance, her behaviors, her personality, and her preferences.

A fixed, oversimplified, and often biased belief about a group of people

Something that can differ between individuals or groups

In correlational studies, variables are measured,not manipulated

The (usually very large) group you want to learn something about

The (usually much smaller) group you actuallystudy; you generalize from the sample to the population

Randomly determining which participants are exposed to which conditions (versions) of the study

Any variable not being investigated that has the potential to affect the outcome of a research study. In other words, it is any factor not considered an independent variable that can affect the dependent variables or controlled conditions.

A phenomenon that describes the association of two variables differently than you would expect. Instead of X causing Y, as is the case for traditional causation, Y causes X.

Ex: researchers may assume that those with a high body mass index (BMI) are more likely to be depressed when, in actuality, they find that depression leads to a high BMI

In social psychology, research that randomly assigns people to different conditions or situations.

Ex: Randomly selecting all of the schools participating in the hand-washing poster campaign

A research technique where you observe participants and phenomena in their most natural settings

Ex: Jane Goodall famously observed chimpanzees in the wild and reported on their group behaviors.

Divide the sample into separate groups, each group gets one experimental condition or "Compare"

Ex: If you wanted to determine if one type of cologne attracted more people than another type of cologne,

Each participant gets all experimental conditions and serves as their own control/comparison or "Same"

The study applied in the real world (outside of the lab)

(Blinded) Withholding of information regarding treatment allocation from one or more participants in a clinical research study

(a single-blind design) Participants are usually not told about the hypothesis being tested, or about any other experimental conditions, until after the study is complete

(a double-blind design) Ideally, the person actually running the study also does not know what condition the participant is in, or the hypothesis being tested

The process of collecting and analyzing numerical data.

(Often) Experimental

Objective

Quantitative

Replicable

Cumulative

Replication is a term referring to the repetition of a research study

A study in which the researcher collects and aggregates information from numerous data sources in order to make a generalization about the phenomena.

With an "Ally"

Ex: Ashe experiment

Asking someone to do something trivial before asking a bigger favor

Ex: Cult

Responding favorably to an explicit request by another person

The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective

Ex: Choosing a restaurant based on online ratings or recommendations

The behavior exhibited by most people in a given context

Ex: At the end of a theater play everyone stands up and start clapping, and immediately, others stand up and clap too. Some people may have liked the play a lot, while others may just be doing it as it is what it’s done at the

Participants obey toxic instructions to the extent that they see these as necessary in order to advance a worthy cause with which they identify.

Ex: Storming the capital

When a group of individuals reaches a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the consequences or alternatives. Groupthink is based on a common desire not to upset the balance of a group of people

Ex: The Challenger disaster. In 1986, miscalculations regarding the launch of the Challenger shuttle claimed the lives of 7 people. Space shuttle engineers knew about the shuttle’s faulty parts but they did not block the launch because of public pressure.

Withholding information or opinions in group discussions

The tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members

Ex: Racial hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, bring out the prejudice of individuals and make them much more violent.

Power that derives from institutionalized role or arrangements

Behavior enacted with the goal of acquiring or demonstrating power

The approach-inhibition theory of power proposed that elevated power (which relates to increased rewards and freedom) activates approach-related tendencies, whereas reduced power (which relates to increased threat, punishment, and social constraint) activates inhibition-related tendencies Keltner et al.

Ex: Ice Cream and the cockroaches

Exposure to additional arguments in favor of one's preexisting opinion strengthens that opinion.

Compare self to others, with the drive to be “better” than others; If others have similar opinions, we may take a more extreme position to differentiate ourselves.

Ex: I feel happy knowing that I beat my neighbor in the half-marathon.

Affect (Emotions), Behavior, Cognitions (Thought process)

Which people tend to develop liking or disliking for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Ex: Buying a particular brand just because of the familiarity of commercials or ads

The theory is that inconsistency between a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions creates an aversive emotional feeling that leads to efforts to restore consistency

Ex: Smoking: Many people smoke even though they know it is harmful to their health. The magnitude of the dissonance will be higher in people who highly value their health.

We infer our own attitudes from our behaviors, just like we infer other people’s attitudes from their behaviors

Ex: A person deciding that jazz is their favorite type of music simply because they observed that they listen to it more than other types of music

Failure to recall a choice immediately after we have made that choice

Ex: If you go to an ice cream store, order a chocolate cone, and then accept a strawberry cone without noticing

A model of persuasion. There are two different routes to persuasion using the central route and the peripheral route

(P, System 1): source expertise, attractiveness, the use of information unrelated to the message to increase acceptance of the message

Ex: Celebrities endorse a car type in a sales ad.

(C, System 2): quality/strength of the argument, uses data and facts to convince people of an argument's worthiness

Ex: A car company seeking to persuade you to purchase their model will emphasize the car's safety features and fuel economy.

An effect that occurs when a persuasive message from an unreliable source initially exerts little influence but later causes attitudes to shift

Ex: A politician utilizing negative advertising against an opponent that may not be true but you then think of it being true later down the road.

Argument Strength, Vividness, Fear

Ex: humorous, emotional, frightening (fear), rational (informative), and environmentally conscious.

The likelihood that we feel greater empathy, and an urge to help, in situations where tragedies are about a specific, identifiable individual, compared to situations where the victims are a larger, vaguer group of people

Ex: Showing a picture of a child starving instead of showing a large group

Mood and Need for Cognition, the need for cognition (that is, how deeply people like to think about issues), mood, and age.

Ex:

Age range.

Gender.

Race.

Health status.

Medical conditions.

Health risks.

Physical challenges.

Vision/Hearing.

Enjoyment of deep thinking, problem-solving, etc. (a personality trait)

Ex: Solving puzzles, extensive deliberation, and thinking abstractly

Mostly matters when a message isn't relevant to us and/or we're not motivated to process it carefully

Mostly matters at first, but not later (beware the Sleeper Effect!!)

Mostly matters for important arguments

Mostly matters when we don't think carefully (Peripheral Route)

Most effective when paired with factual information

Predicts which route we rely on

Peripheral route

A theory that supposes that one attempts to understand the behavior of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them.

Ex: We may unconsciously apply this theory when we see someone shouting on public transport. You may blame their character, assuming they are an angry person.

Which people make causal inferences to explain why other people and ourselves behave in a certain way

Ex: Let's say we have a friend who is failing a class. If she usually struggles in school with most subjects and has a hard time in classes that are easy for others, we will probably conclude that she is a poor student.

Whether an individual behaves the same way or differently in a given situation on different occasions

Ex: Ex: John laughs at the comedian at other comedy clubs (high consistency)

We explain our actions as due to the situation, and others’ actions as due to their disposition

Ex: As you are walking down the street, you trip and fall. You immediately blame the slippery pavement, an external cause. However, if you saw a random stranger trip and fall, you would probably attribute this to an internal factor, such as clumsiness or inattentiveness.

We explain our successes as due to our disposition, and our failures as due to the situation

Ex: An athlete is more likely to attribute a good performance to their own ability, and a poor one to external causes like the event environment.

System 1 (Unconscious): Automatic characterization of person, Lazy and distracted, Causal Attribution

System 2 (conscious): Automatic characterization of a person, Insufficient effortful adjustment, Causal Attribution

The overall positive or negative evaluation people have of themselves

Trait self-esteem is a person’s enduring level of self-regard across time–

Ex: A college football player has consistently displayed high self-esteem. This type of overarching self-esteem is called trait self-esteem

Refers to how we feel about or evaluate ourselves at a given point in time.

Ex: A person may have high self-esteem in one situation, such as excelling at work

Self-esteem is a psychological gauge of the degree to which people perceive that they are relationally valued and socially accepted by other people

Ex: Increased self-esteem when they are included and decreased self-esteem when they are excluded

We know more about ourselves than about the "average person", so we pay more attention to our own abilities than to other people's abilities when deciding if we're above average or not

Ex: Basically, instead of thinking "am I better than the average person at this?", we think "am I good at this?"

The desire to maintain, increase, or protect one’s positive self-views

Ex: Averages were given to participants and told to rate it, little did they know, it was their own answers, from six weeks earlier. They then rated themselves above their own numbers.

Bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities

Ex: Incompetent People Are Often Too Incompetent To Realize Just How Incompetent They Are

Self Enhancement

Cognitive Explanations

Using a starting point to estimate how frequent or likely an event is, and then making adjustments up and down from this starting point.

After some string of events with the same outcomes has occurred, the outcome is more likely to occur (Controlled)

Ex: Basketball player making three-pointers

Our tendency is to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions.

(Plane vs. Car)

We tend to think that our own beliefs and choices are more common than they really are

Ex: “Everyone is just like me!”

When we want good people in power but not bad people

When a persons initial impression of something turns out to be wrong

Internal Factors

External Factors

Perception, attention, memory, thinking, and problem-solving

The self that people believe they are

vs

The self that embodies people's wishes and aspirations

vs

The self that is concerned with the duties, obligations and external demands people feel they are compelled to honor.

A theory that behavior is motivated by standards reflecting ideal and ought selves.

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance

Ex: Barry Manilow shirt

Presenting the person we would like others to believe we are

Ex: Job interviews

The ability to control one's own outcome and those of others; the freedom to act

The scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations

Scientific method

When people who need to make a decision wait for someone else to act instead. The more people involved, the more likely it is that each person will do nothing, believing someone else from the group will probably respond

Ex: Witnessing racist, sexist, or otherwise inappropriate behavior coming from one employee toward another and not reporting it because you believe it's not your place to speak up.

Automatic processing: Any information processing that occurs involuntarily and without conscious intention or control

Ex: Seeing, reading, riding a bicycle, playing a game, or driving a car.

Controlled processing: It involves tasks that are difficult enough to require our full attention.

Ex: The first time a person drives a car, writing a letter to a friend, and answering interview questions

Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success

Ex: Evolving long necks have enabled giraffes to feed on leaves that others can't reach, giving them a competitive advantage.

A set of related propositions intended to describe some phenomenon or aspect of the world

What we deliberate change("manipulate") in an experiment

What we measure in an experiment, to see if it is affected by the independent variable

Randomly deciding who participates in the study at all

A type of confounding in which a third variable leads to a mistaken causal relationship between two others.

Ex: Cities with a greater number of churches have a higher crime rate.

Research that involves measuring two or more variables and assessing whether there is a relationship between them

Things that systematically differ between experimental conditions, and introduce alternative explanations for results