PSY 2012 General Psych Exam 4 Study Guide Highlighted information is what Yoon focused on during the review session Chapter 13 Social Psychology 1 What is the definition of social psychology and the three themes around which psychologists organize their research of social phenomena o Social Psychology Study of how people influence others behavior beliefs and attitudes o 3 Themes Social Thinking used to make sense of the world by understanding the causes of people s behavior Social Influence used to analyze the effects of society upon people s behavior Attributions Attitudes and Actions Conformity and Obedience Group Influence Social Relations Prejudice Aggression Altruism 2 What is the fundamental attribution error and how can it affect our analysis of Attributions behavior personal and situational o Personal Attributions Process of assigning causes to behavior 2 kinds of attributions Attribution to internal characteristics of a person such Attribution to factors external to a person such as o Situational Attributions as ability personality mood or effort the task other people or luck o Fundamental Attribution Error dispositional influences on other people s behavior Tendency to overestimate the impact of Dispositional Influences Enduring characteristics personality traits attitudes and intelligence o Due to the fundamental attribution error we also tend to underestimate the impact of situational influences on other people s behavior we attribute too little of their behavior to what s going on around them and too much of their behavior to personality characteristics o People commit the fundamental attribution error mainly when explaining other s behavior but when explaining their own behavior people tend to focus on situational attributions rather than personal attributions 3 What is the definition of attitude and how do attitudes and actions affect each other o Attitude The belief that includes an emotional component predisposing us to respond in a certain way to particular objects places people and events o Attitudes directly affect actions believing that your teacher is rude feelings of dislike towards the teacher act unfriendly and misbehave 4 What is the foot in the door phenomenon o Foot In The Door Phenomenon Persuasive technique involving making a small request before making a bigger one asking someone to volunteer for only an hour a week to increase the likelihood of them agreeing to volunteer for four hours a week in the future Door In The Face Technique Persuasive technique involving making an unreasonably large request before making the small request we re hoping to have granted Low Ball Technique by quoting low sales price and then mentions all of the add ons once the customer has agreed to purchase the product Persuasive technique in which the seller of a product starts 5 What is the central claim of cognitive dissonance theory o Cognitive Dissonance Theory Unpleasant mental experience of tension resulting from two conflicting thoughts or beliefs To relieve the tension caused by cognitive dissonance we may change our behavior justify our behavior by changing the conflicting cognition or justify our behavior by adding new cognitions 6 What are Asch s experiments on conformity Be able to differentiate between Tendency of people to alter their behavior as a result of group normative and informational social influence Note factors influencing conformity Conformity pressure o Asch s experiment was supposedly measuring visual discriminations with 7 participants However Asch s experiment was actually measuring the effects of conformity on only 1 participant the other 6 were involved in the experimental study The real participant was always the 6th person out of 7 to answer the visual discrimination question conformity heavily influenced the participant s answers Watch this video for further in depth explanation https www youtube com watch feature player embedded v rPEDS 0jMgs o Normative Social Influence Conforming out of fear of social rejection or desire to gain social approval o Informational Social Influence Conforming out of acceptance of other s opinions o Factors Influencing conformity Uniformity of Agreement If all previous fake participants gave the same wrong answer the real participant was more likely to conform to the wrong answer However if only 1 fake participant gave the right answer the real participant was 75 more likely to provide the correct answer and not conform Difference in the Wrong Answer If one fake participant gave a wrong answer that was different from all the other fake participants then the real participant was less likely to conform and more likely to say the correct answer Size The size of the majority made a difference until around 5 and up in which the conformity level generally remained the same Cultural Norms Asians are involved in a collectivist culture while Americans are involved in a individualistic culture therefore Asians are more likely to conform than Americans Personality Traits People with low self esteem are more likely to conform than people with high self esteem etc Gender is NOT a factor that influences conformity 7 Know Milgram s experiments on obedience and note influences on obedience Obedience extreme obedience Nazi s in Germany to Hitler o Milgram s experiment involved 1 real participant the teacher and 2 fake Adherence to instructions from those of higher authority example of participants the researcher and the student The researcher told the teacher to give the student an electrical shock whenever he she got an answer wrong and to increase the electrical shock progressively with wrong answers The students pretended to get incorrect answers so the experimenters could see how far the teachers would go under instruction of the researcher Below is the setup of the experiment and the following link provides more details about the experiment https www youtube com watch feature player embedded v xOYLCy5PVgM o Factors Influencing Obedience Location of the Higher Authority Figure the experimenter The greater the psychological distance between the teacher and the experimenter the less obedience was observed Location of the Victim the student The greater the psychological distance between the teacher and the student the more obedience was observed Prestige of the Experimenter Location When the studies were done in the prestigious university of Yale by a Yale professor obedience was higher than outside of Yale Disobedient
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