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105 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back

What is Social Psychology?

The *scientific* study of the way in which individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people.

What is the unit of analysis in Social Psychology?

The individual. More specifically, the individual in the context of a social situation.

What does Social Psychology study?

Studies psychological processes that people have in common with one another that make them susceptible to social influence.

What is the Fundamental Attribution Error?

We often overestimate the extent to which a person's behavior is due to their personality traits (vs. the situation)

What is the Four-Step Research Process

1) Come up with an idea


2) Refine the idea into a research question


3) Empirically test the question


4) Interpret the meaning of the results

What is a Hypothesis?

A testable prediction about the relationship between two or more variables

What is a Theory?

An organized set of principles used to explain observed phenomena.

What is a Conceptual Variable?

General Ideas/Abstract Concepts; Can't directly manipulate or measure

What is an Operational Variable?

Define one specific way to manipulate or measure a conceptual variable in a particular study. Multiple possible operationalizations.

Construct Validity - Example?

Used to evaluate operationalizations of variables. It's good when the experiment really manipulated the variables it was supposed to manipulate. How well does the operational variable map onto the conceptual variable? Using smile as an operationalization of happiness at a cocktail party would be a bad manipulation.

What can Self-Reports be biased by?

Self-Presentation concerns (want to be seen as good), Distorted Memory, Framing (how question is asked)

Anchoring Example

What percentage of African countries is in the U.N.? Fewer/More than 10%? Or what if we phrase it, Fewer/More than 65%? People change their response according to the variables

Contrast Effects Example

Comparing UCD student to Homer Simpson or Einstein affects how smart we think we are

Endpoint Effects Example

How much TV do you watch? Starting @ "Up to 0.5" or starting at "Up to 2". You feel pretty bad with first one and pretty good with second one.

Inter-Rater Reliability

The level of agreement among multiple observers of the same behavior

What are the three Research Designs?

1) Descriptive (isn't too common in Psych)


2) Correlational (more common)


3) Experimental

Goal of Descriptive Research

Describe people's thoughts, feelings, and behavior

Methods for Descriptive Research

Observational Studies, Archival Studies, Surveys

Random Sampling Ensures What?

Ensures results are representative of population. The results can be "generalized" to the population.

Goal of Correlational Research

Discover the relationship between two variables. How similar or distinct are the two variables? How well does one variable predict the other?

Advantages of Correlational Designs

Studies associations of naturally occurring variables, can examine phenomena difficult or unethical to manipulate in the lab.

Serious Disadvantage of Correlational Designs

Correlation is not Causation

Two essential characteristics of experiments

1) Manipulation and Control - Ensure that the only difference between conditions is variable of interest


2) Random Assignment

What is a Confound?

A variable that systematically changes along with the independent variable

What does Random Assignment ensure, and what is it essential for?

That pre-existing differences between participants are randomly distributed across conditions. Essential if we want to conclude that the IV has a *causal* effect on the DV.

What are Subject Variables?

Pre-existing differences among participants

What is the Main Effect?

The overall effect (if any) of an IV on the DV. Get the average of DV measures from both IV's. If average between the two IV's are different, there is a Main Effect.

What is Interaction?

The effect (if any) of an IV that is a function of the level of other IV's. The effect of one IV is different for different levels of the second IV. Look at the drop between bars on both sides of graph. Do the drops differ or are they both the same?

What is Internal Validity?

How sure we are the IV *caused* the effects obtained on the DV.

Questions to ask about Internal Validity

Did the experiment include control or comparison groups? Did the experiment prevent Experimenter Expectancy Effects?

What is External Validity?

How sure we are that the findings obtained would generalize to other people and other situations

Questions to ask about External Validity

Does the sample represent the population? Is the setting natural or engaging (does it use mundane or psychological realism)?

What is Mundane Realism?

How much the setting resembles the real-world setting of interest

What is Psychological Realism?

How much the experimental setting and procedures are real and involving to the participant. Studies sometimes use cover stories and confederates to help ensure experimental realism.

What is a Meta-Analysis?

Statistical procedures for examining relevant research that has already been conducted and reviewed. Quantitatively combines results of individual studies to measure the overall reliability and strength of particular effects. Often more reliable than any one study.

What is Social Cognition?

How individuals think about themselves and the social world, including their selection, interpretation, and use of social info.

Two kinds of cognition

Automatic & Controlled

Four Characteristics of Automatic Thinking

Unintentional, Uncontrollable, Effortless, Nonconscious

Awareness: 3 Ways in Which We Can be Unaware of a Mental Process

We can be unaware of the *presence* of a stimulus, we can be unaware of the way that a stimulus has been *interpreted* or categorized, we can be unaware of the way that a stimulus is *influencing* our behavior

Priming. Examples?

Our social environment can activate a concept in our head that automatically directs behavior. Bargh et al studies. Primed with old people words, and PC's walk out of booth slowly. Primed with polite words, and PC is less likely to interrupt experimenter. Primed with rude words and more likely to interrupt experimenter.

What are Priming Schemas

Priming can also influence how we interpret world around us.

Schemas

Mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge about the social world. Influence the info that we notice, think about, and remember (direct our attention and organize our experiences)

When are schemas applied?

When they are chronically accessible, when they are goal-relevant, when they have been primed

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that people use to make judgments

Availability Heuristic & Example

Estimating the likelihood or importance of an event from how easily it can be imagined. Which place has the higher population? People say Brazil, not Pakistan

False Consensus Effect

Overestimate how much others share our opinions, attributes, and behaviors

Base-Rate Fallacy & Example

Insensitive to statistical base-rates. Is Linda an accountant or an accountant active in the feminist movement? Is Tom a humanities professor or a statistics professor?

Conjunction Fallacy & Example

We think specific conditions are more likely than general ones. Linda is of course *also* active in the feminist movement.

Counterfactual Thinking & Example

Imagining alternatives that might have occurred but didn't. I was so close to catching that bus.!

Characteristics of Controlled Thought

Intentional, Controllable, Effortful, Conscious

What does Controlled Thinking require?

Motivation & Ability

What does Ability include?

Cognitive Capacity, Time, and Awareness of the typically automatic effect

What is the Self-Concept?

Our knowledge of who we are & what we are like. First-step is self-awareness. Have to recognize the self as an object before you can learn about the self as an object.

What is the function of the Self-Concept?

Organizes our self-knowledge & influence what we notice, think about, & remember

Self-Reference Effect

We process info more efficiently & remember it better when it relates to self

Three ways we come to know ourselves?

Introspection, Observation, and Social Context

All about Introspecting

Looking inward to examine thoughts, feelings, and motives. Not very common, not very accurate. We're often unaware of the situational factors that influence our behavior. We're led to underestimate our biases b/c we assume introspection will provide accurate & complete info. It doesn't. Therefore, we have incorrect causal theories.

Self-Awareness Theory

When people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values. If they don't match up, you either *shape up* or *ship out*.

Self-Perception Theory. Example?

We learn about ourselves the same way we learn about other people. When we're uncertain about something we look to our behavior. Facial Feedback Hypothesis & Overjustification Effect

Overjustification Effect

The tendency for intrinsic motivation to diminish for activities that have become associated with reward or other extrinsic factors.

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion. Example?

Emotional experience as self-perception process that has two stages


1) Experience physiological arousal


2) Seek explanation for it


This often results in Misattribution of Arousal



Schachter & Singer study - epinephrine vs. placebo, and how the confederate acts, and whether you are told what effects to expect. If you're not told effects you act like the confederate - whether annoyed or excited.



Bridge study.

Looking-Glass Self (Cooley)

Emergence of self is dependent on social experiences. We learn who we are by taking the perspective of others, & observing how they treat & react to us.

Social Tuning. Example?

We tune our self-concepts to others in the current social context. Tuning ourselves to being stereotyped when we like a person who also has that view. Doing the opposite when we hate a person.

Social Comparison Theory

We evaluate our opinions and abilities by comparing ourselves to others, especially when we're unsure about our opinions or abilities. Comparisons happen quickly and automatically. Upward or Downward Social Comparison

Self-Esteem

Person's overall self-evaluation, or sense of self-worth

Mechanisms of Self-Enhancement

Downward Social Comparison, Self-Serving Cognitions (take credit for success & distance from failure, assign greater importance to those things we're good at), Self-Handicapping, Basking in Reflected Glory, Cutting Off Reflected Failure

Self-Handicapping

Self-sabotaging behaviors performed to protect the self from possible failure. Creating excuses, creating obstacles. Costs - increased risk of failure, dislike by peers

Are positive illusions adaptive?

May protect us from depression. Depressed people tend to see themselves accurately. Costs - can lead to patterns of self defeating behavior, can hurt social relationships

Self-Verification

Desire for others to see us as we see ourselves (even if we see ourselves negatively)

Social Perception

The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people

What are the clues helping us form Social Perception?

Persons, Situations, Behavior

Why is detecting deception so hard?

We pay attention to the wrong channels - facial expression, eye gaze... The channels that we ignore are pitch of voice, fidgetiness/shiftiness. These are harder to control.

Attribution Theory

Describes how we observe, analyze, and explain others' behavior

What two categories do attributions fall into? (Heider)

Personal and Situational

What is Correspondent Inference Theory? (Jones & Davis)

People try to infer whether a given action corresponds to an enduring characteristic of the actor.

What three factors do people consider when people are trying to decide to attribute something to a person?

Degree of choice, How unexpected the behavior is in the situation, Number of desirable outcomes

What is Kelley's Covariation Theory?

People use covariation of cause and effect to make inferences.

What are the three kinds of useful covariation?

Consensus, Distinctiveness, Consistency

Jack proposes to Jill. Consensus is low, distinctiveness is low, and consistency is high. What kind of attribution do we make?

An internal one that Jack is desperate.

What about when consensus is high, distinctiveness is high, and consistency is high?

We attribute it to the stimulus.

When consensus is low, distinctiveness is high, and consistency is high?

We make an interaction attribution that Jack and Jill have special magic

Do people really analyze behavior rationally and logically?

Sometimes, if they have ... I'm guessing, time and motivation.

Fundamental Attribution Error/Correspondence Bias

The tendency to overestimate the role of personal factors and underestimate the role of situations when explaining others' actions

The fact that people still believe that students who were forced to support a Castro POV really believed that, means...

We're using the Fundamental Attribution Error in that we're *not* looking at the situation.

Actor-Observer Effect

The tendency to make personal attributions for the behavior of others, and situational attributions for ourselves.

Does culture influence our attributions? What study is an example?

Yes - Individualist versus Collectivist. Fish study.

What does the study on Bi-Cultural Frame Switching tell us?

That when we prime a certain culture, we will view situations in that lens. Ex: We'll view the fish differently depending upon which culture is primed ... Or at least if you're a bicultural Chinese student.

When combining individual traits into a whole picture, do we sum or do we average? Example?

We average. Ava versus Sue. Ava had two 10's, that's it. Sue had two 10's and one 7. Ava won out despite not having as many good traits as Sue. Employers would be more likely to hire Ava.

What is the Primacy Effect?

Information presented early (vs. late) in a sequence has a greater impact on impressions.

What is Priming?

The tendency for recently used concepts to come to mind easily, and influence information processing.

Does priming influence Impressions? For example?

Yes. The Bargh & Pietromonaco (1982) study where either a list of neutral or hostile primes were read off, and then they read a paragraph about grumpy/assertive Donald. Those who were primed with grumpy words saw him as hostile. Those primed with neutral words were more likely to see him as assertive.

Confirmation Bias. Example?

The tendency to seek, interpret, and create info that verifies existing beliefs. Hannah. Teachers were either primed to think she was rich or poor - high expectations vs. low expectations. When a video was watched showing her perform a test, they categorized Hannah more towards the grade of the originally primed expectations.

Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing. Example?

We tend to seek out info that confirms our initial hypothesis. Questions we ask a person to determine if they are either extroverted or introverted.

When do we seek information objectively?

Uncertainty, high motivation to be accurate, have time and cognitive capacity

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies. Example?

Pygmalion in the classroom - early bloomers and late bloomers.

Three-Steps of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy process?

1) Perceiver's expectations


2) Perceiver's behavior toward the target


3) Target's behavior toward the perceiver

Two Views of Social Perception

1) Quick and relatively automatic


2) Relatively effortful process

When are perceptions *most* accurate?

Experience, predicting behaviors, accuracy goal

What's wrong with the Special K Challenge?

No control group, also has other variables they factor in such as trying to eat healthier in general. Says it's proven, but nothing can be proven, things can only be *supported*. There's an asterisk without an explanation.

What's wrong with the Lifting Treatment Study?

Whether a face is lifted or not is pretty subjective, and the study is only based on consumer perception. Consumer perception is composed of multiple facets. Again no control group.

What's wrong with the Ginseng Study?

Well it's double-blind, and placebo-controlled, so not much.

Random Sampling is What?

Likelihood of being chosen from the group of interest

Statistics. When the ratio is big what does that mean?

Difference Between Groups/Random Variation. That the difference between our groups isn't due to chance alone (p<0.5)

Interpersonal Mimicry

Chartrand & Bargh study where PC does what experimenter does - rubs face or shakes foot

What happened in the study where PC's were either show a railway station or a library and were told they would visit afterwards? What is the phenomena?

They read a list either more quietly or more loudly. A situational norm was primed.