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What is social psychology ?

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-The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

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Why is it difficult to define social psychology?

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-We are bio-psycho-social organisms ------it has so may different aspects to it and it studies so many different things

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How does social psychology study human behavior, thoughts, and feelings?

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-develop theory -use hypotheses to test theories, give direction research, and make good theories practical

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How does social psychology relate to sociology and other areas of psychology?

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-It lies at social psychology's boundary. -Focuses more on individuals and does more experimentation. -Personality psychology(social focuses less on individuals' differences and more on how individuals, in general, view/ affect on another. ) -Neuroscience/ Biology -Clinical Psychology -Developmental Psychology -Personality Psychology

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Which field is most closely related to social psychology and often studied in unison?

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Sociology

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What does social psychology focus on?

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-Includes the person X situation interaction -------how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. They study the social influences that explain why the same person will act differently in different situations.

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How did behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis contribute to the field of social psychology?

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-Automatic and nonconscious vs. controlled and conscious

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What important 20th century event stimulated interest in social psychology, and why?

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-World War II - Asked the question - how people are capable of performing such terrible acts?

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What are some of the most important common themes of social psychology? (meaning and why important)

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-Power of the situation -Biological Roots -We construct our reality -We have duplex minds that enable intuitions -Selfish impulse VS. social conscience -How we construe our social worlds -How our social intuitions guide and sometimes deceive us -How our social behavior is shaped by other people, by our attitudes and personalities, and by our biology -How social psychology's principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study

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What is the ABC triad and how does it apply to what social psychologists do?

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- Affect: How people feel o Ex: feeling angry - Behavior: What people do o Ex: Driving aggressively - Cognition: What people think o Ex: Thinking that others are out to get you - The ABC triad helps have a broad understanding of how people think, act, and feel o It focuses on "normal" day to day behavior

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Power of the situation (Popular theme)

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-Our cultures help define our situations. ex: Promptness, frankness, and clothing -Our situations determine our possibilities/ limitations -EX: attitude regarding same-sex relationships (Depending where yu live in the world can change how yu think about it. )

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Biological Roots (Popular theme)

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-Evolved cultural animal -The environment we evolved to thrive in is different than the one we live in now EX: Evolution picture

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We construct our reality (Popular theme)

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-we react differently because we think differently -There is an objective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values Ex: kill the bill vs health care reform now

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The duplex mind (Popular theme)

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-Automatic and nonconscious vs. controlled and conscious -A lot goes on that we are unaware of. EX: Count from one to 10 numerical vs alphabetical order..... automatic system comes into play...We don't think right left right left when we walk.

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Selfish impulse vs social conscience (Nature vs culture) (Popular theme)

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-Nature says, go, culture says stop

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What does the A in the ABC triad stand for?

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The A in the ABC triad stands for Affect (how people feel inside), how people feel about themselves, others, and various issues (attitudes)

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What does the B in the ABC triad stand for?

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The B in the ABC triad stands for Behavior (what people do, their actions) i.e. joining groups, helping others, hurting others, liking others, and loving others.

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What does the C in the ABC triad stand for?

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The C in the ABC triad stands for Cognition (what people think about), ex:what people think about themselves (self-concept), what people think about others (stereotypes), and what people think about various problems and issues in the social world (something like protecting the environment)

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What do social psychologists do?

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-Use the scientific method -All of the questions just proposed are empirical

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Empirical question

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-can be answered through systematic observation and experimentation -Best way to objectively assess reality. -A question answered through much research... using Data.

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(Focus on self) (Focus on conflict/ social interaction)

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-self esteem -self control -self-wareness -self-presentation pre justice & stereotyping -Group dynamics Post 9/11 anti-Arab sentiments Group Dynamics (e.g. social loafing) Important because they have the potential to illuminate your life, to make visible the subtle influences that guide your thinking and acting. Offers many ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence people, how to transform closed fists into open arms. Can positively affect your life.

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Social neuroscience

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-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.

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Culture

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

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Social representation

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

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How do human values influence social psychology?

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-Social psychologists' values penetrate their work in obvious ways, such as their choice of research topics and the types of people who are attracted to various fields of study -They also do this in subtler ways, such as their hidden assumptions when forming concepts, choosing labels, and giving advice. -This penetration of values into science is not a reason to fault social psychology or any other science. That human thinking is seldom dispassionate is precisely why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we are to check our cherished ideas against reality.

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Hindsight bias

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-The tendency to exaggerate after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it- all-along phenomenon. ex: On the evening of an important World Series game, your friend predicts that the Red Sox are going to win by a large margin. In fact, the Red Sox do end up winning the game, causing your friend to boast "I predicted it!"

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Is social psychology simply common sense?

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-Social psychology is criticized for being trivial because its documents things that seem obvious. -Experiments, however, reveal that outcomes are more"obvious" after the facts are known -This hindsight bias often makes people overconfident about the validity of their judgements and predictions

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Theory

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-An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events -summarize and explain facrs -imply testable predictions(hypoetheses)

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hypothesis

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A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exists between events

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How does labeling relate to bias in research and what are some examples of this?

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- Labeling one characteristic two different ways could make it look positive or negative -Value judgements, then are often hidden within our social psychological language- but that is also true of everyday language. EX: whether we label a quiet child as "bashful" or "cautious," as "holding back" or as "an observer," conveys a judgement. Ex: whether we label someone engaged in guerilla warfare a "terrorist" or a "freedom fighter" depends on our view of the case

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Why can't we just use common sense to tell us about social psychology?

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-Focus on 2 contradictory aspects.... experiments document the obvious.... its findings could be used to manipulate people -we invoke common sense after we know the facts -we do not expect something to happen until it actually does --This hindsight bias often makes people overconfident about the validity of their judgements and predictions

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Evolutionary theory vs theory of gravity

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Evolution is only a theory, but so is gravity. -ex: people says that gravity is a fact, but the fact is that your keys fall to the ground when dropped. Gravity is the theoretical explanation that accounts for such observed facts. Facts: agreed upon statements about what we observe Theories: Ideas that summarize and explain facts -Social psychologists organize their ideas and findings into theories. A good theory will distill an array of facts into a much shorter list of predictive principles. We can use those predictions to confirm or modify the theory, to generate new research, and suggest practical application.

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Field research

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-Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the lab. -non controlled -Varies by method

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Correlation research

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-The study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables. -Understand how variables are associated with one another -asking whether two or more factors are naturally associated -advantages: involving important variables in natural settings -disadvantage: ambiguous interpretation of cause and effect Example: -There will be a positive correlation between the number of times people wear black clothes and their aggression level. Example: ask how often wear black clothes and if happy or angry (scale) positive/ negative correlation -correlations indicate a relationship, but that is not necessarily one of cause and effect. -allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another. Think Can participants be randomly assigned to condition? (NO) Example: Are early maturing children more confident? Do school grades predict vocational success Correlational studies, sometimes conducted with systematic survey methods, discern the relationship between variables, such as between amount of education and amount of income. Knowing these two things are naturally related is valuable information, but it is not a reliable indicator of what is causing what or whether a third variable is involved. -We randomly assign participants to an experimental condition, which received the experimental treatment, or to a control condition, which does not. We can then attribute any resulting difference between the two conditions to the independent variable

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Experimental research

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-Studies that seek clues to cause -- effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant) -manipulating some factor to see its effect on another. Thank can participants be randomly assigned to condition? (YES) Example -Do students learn more in online or classroom courses -Does playing violent video games increase aggressiveness

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What does it mean for two variables to be positively correlated with one another? Negatively correlated with one another?

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-Positively: the two factors' scores rise and fall together -Negatively: as one factor score goes up, the other goes down

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What can correlation coefficients range from? What does the sign mean?

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-from -1.0 to +1.0 - the "-" sign means a negative correlation, the "+" sign means a positive correlation

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What is the 3rd variable problem with correlational research?

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Example : diet -A third variable might be involved in the situation that has not been taken into account. Therefore, correlational research allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another. X ----Y (1) X causes Y Y-----X(2) Y causes X Z----X Z----Y (3) Other factor causes it

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What are some of the unintended influences on survey research?

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-Unrepresentative Samples -Order of Questions(given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as the order of questions in a survey) -Response Questions(consider too the dramatic effects of the response options.) -Wording of Questions (Framing ...The precise wording of questions may also influence answers.) EX: think of surverys

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Random sampling

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-Survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion. -Used if researchers want to describe a whole population (which for many psychology surveys is not the aim) 95% accurate 3% EX: polls do not literally predict voting, they only describe public opinion at the moment they are taken. Public opinion can shift. 4 other potentially biasing influences: unrepresentative samples, question order, response options, question wording.

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Framing

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-The way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence people's decisions and expressed opinions. -EX: 30 percent fat, rather than 70 percent lean, 305 fat -EX: 95% Success 9 in 10 5% failure = 4 in 10

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What is the goal and what are the features of experimental research?

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-Studies that seek clues to cause--effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant) a) Why are these features important for achieving the goal of experimental research? 2 key features: - Control Manipulation of independent variable All other variables kept constant - Random Assignment of representative sample of participants These features are important because an experiment must be done under controlled settings in order to produce valid results

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What are independent and dependent variables?

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Independent-The experimental factor that a researcher manipulates Dependent- The variable being measured, so called because it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable A scientist studies the impact of a drug on cancer. The independent variables are the administration of the drug - the dosage and the timing. The dependent variable is the impact the drug has on cancer.

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Random assignment

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-The process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition. ie: remember random assignment helps us infer cause and effect random sampling helps us generalize to a population

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Mundane realism

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Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

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Experimental realism

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Degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves participants

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What is an operational definition and why is it important?

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-How you define a construct within an experiment -Some constructs are easier to define than others -What does it mean "to wear black clothes?" -What do we mean by "aggression?"

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What are Demand characteristics

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-Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected EX: dogs trained to detect explosives and drugs are more likely to bark false alerts in places where their handlers have been misled into thinking such illegal items are located.

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Informed consent

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An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate. -University ethics committees review social psychological research to ensure that it will treat people humanely and that the scientific merit justifies any temporary deception or distress. -Social psychologists sometimes stage situations that engage people's emotions. . -Must follow professional guidelines, aka informed consent, protecting them from harm, and fully disclosing afterward any temporary deceptions.

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What are the ways in which we evaluate a measure that we are using to assess a certain construct?

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-Validity -Reliability

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What does it mean to have an interaction of effects on a dependent variable? What is a main effect

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-Interaction of Effects: when the effect of one Independent Variable on the Dependent Variable depends on the value (or level) of the other Independent Variable -Main Effect: When an Independent Variable has an effect of similar magnitude and direction across levels of the other Independent Variables

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What are the pros and cons of correlational and experimental research.

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-Correlational Pros: Often uses real-world settings Cons: Causation often ambiguous -Experimental Pros: Can explore cause and effect by controlling variables and by random assignment Cons: Some important variables cannot be studied with experiments

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What is the spotlight effect?

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The belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are. EX: Student changes shirt/ spills coffee on themselves, and noone notices, but they think everyone does.

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What is the illusion of transparency and what does your book say about this and feeling nervous in front of others.

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-The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others. Example: If we're happy and we know it, then our face will show it and we assume others will notice. (Smiling, joy in the eyes, relaxed face) Another example relates to how we overestimate the visibility of our social blunders and public mental slips. When we accidently insult someone or say something embarrassing we may be mortified and agonize over it while others may have hardly even noticed and already forgotten about it.

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What is self awareness? What is the different between public and private?

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Self awareness- psychological state in which people are aware of their traits, feelings and behavior. It's one of the first components of the self-concept to emerge. Awareness of ourselves begins to emerge at around one year of age and becomes further developed by around 18 months. Public Self-Awareness: emerges when people are aware of how they appear to others. Often emerges in situations where people are at the center of attention such as giving a presentation to a class. We are aware that we are being watched and evaluated so we often try to behave in socially acceptable or desirable ways. Private Self-Awareness: When people become aware of some aspects of themselves but only in a private way. Seeing your face in the mirror is a type of private awareness. Feeling your stomach lurch when you realize you forgot to study for an important test or feeling your heart flutter when you see someone you like are also examples

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What are failings of our self-awareness?

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Discrepancies

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What are the different types of self? What happens when there are discrepancies between them?

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Actual Self - The person you are right now Ideal Self - The self it is your goal to be Ought Self - The self it is your duty to be Feared Self - The self you fear becoming Discrepancies: You are motivated to change something

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Self-Discrepancy Theory

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People's specific emotional reaction to a discrepancy depends on which self-guide they do not meet. Actual vs. Ideal Self (feel sad), Actual vs. Ought Self (feel anxious), Actual vs Feared Self (feel relief)

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What are the 5 ways that we learn about ourselves that we talked about in class (know their real names) and what are problems associated with them?

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Look through others- looking glass self: the way we imagine people seeing us. Problems: people's reactions don't always tell what they are exactly thinking. we love flattery and hate criticism - can give us a bias opinion of ourselves. not always accurate. social norms tell us not to give criticism. Looking Inside- Introspection - self-reflect: Constructing one's identity as an autonomous self. Process by which a person examines the content of his or her mental state and mind. Great at finding out what we are thinking. Problems: Not so good at explaining why we are thinking or feeling certain ways. Look at others- Social comparison Comparing yourself to others Problems: There are always people doing better or worse than you are Looking at Yourself: Independent Self Problems: behavior doesn't always interpret feelings appropriately. Looking at close others- Interdependent Self / Vicarious Self Perception Problems: Distance yourself from people who may make you look bad, (COREing)

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Social comparison

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

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What are upward and downward social comparisons? When might we use each?

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Upward Social Comparisons: Comparing yourself to someone who is better - Great for helping us set goals Downward Social Comparisons: Comparing yourself to who is worse - More motivated to do this because it makes us feel good

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What are BIRGing and CORGing? What is the function of each?

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BIRGing: Basking in Reflected Glory. We try to associate ourselves with people who will make us look good. Example: FSU National Champs: "We Won!" Lead to an increase in students want to come to FSU and be a part of our amazing school and winning FB team. COREing: Cutting off Reflected Failure. We try to distance ourselves from others who make us look bad.

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What differentiates BIRFing and CORFing from upward and downward comparisons?

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Upward and downward comparisons relate to how we see ourselves, BIRGing and COREing relate to what actions we take.

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What are the motives for seeking self-knowledge and which motive tends to be the strongest?

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Appraisal Motive: Desire to learn truth about oneself Consistency Motive: Desire to get feedback that confirms what person already believes about oneself or herself. Self-Enhancement Motive: Desire to learn favorable or flattering things about the self. Self-Enhancement Motive is the strongest motive, appraisal is the weakest.

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self concept

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what we know and belief about ourselves

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self-schema

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beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information

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What are the self-enhancement and better- than-average effects?

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Self-Enhancement Effect: Type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and maintain self-esteem. "I am better than everyone else." Better-than-Average Effect: Many people believe that they will become even more above average in the future. "If I am good now, I will be even better in the future."

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What were the examples of the self-serving bias that were given in class?

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Self-serving biases: tendencies to see oneself favorably. Self-Serving attributional bias, egocentric bias, above-average effect, unrealistic optimism / optimistic bias, false consensus effect, and false uniqueness effect.

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What is self-esteem?

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-Self-Esteem: Our overall self-evaluation. It sums all of our self-schemas and possible selves. (Your opinion of yourself. High self-esteem is a good opinion of yourself and low self-esteem is a bad opinion of yourself.) Correlates closely with: "what others think of me and my group" in collectivist cultures

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What is the sociometer theory of self esteem?

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Self-esteem is a measure of social acceptability. The sociometer is a "gauge" that tells us if we are being accepted. It is the innate need to belong. People who feel accepted by others have higher self-esteem.

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social comparison

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Evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others. He got an A i got a B. I am dumb

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Planning fallacy

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The tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task ex: study for a test

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Impact bias

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Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion causing events

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Dual attitude system

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-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. Habits change slowly.... with practice thought new habits can replace old ones.

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What is the terror management theory of self esteem?

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-People exhibit self-production emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices when confronted with reminders of their morality) -This theory argues that humans must find ways to manage their overwhelming fear of death. The reality of our own death, motivates us to gain recognition from our work and vales. like being able to live on.

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What are the positive and negative things associated with high self esteem?

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Positive: Fosters initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings. Negative: High self esteem and narcissism are the most aggressive. -someone with a big ego who is threatened or deflated by social rejection is potentially aggressive. -Teen males who engage in sexual activity at an "inappropriately young age" tend to have higher than average self-esteem. So do teen gang leaders, terrorists and men in prison for committing violent crimes.

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What is the false consensus effect?

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The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors. -On matters of opinion, we find support for our positions by overestimating the extent which others agree. Also, business students asked to make decisions about ethical dilemmas overestimated how many other students made the same choice.

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What is the false uniqueness effect?

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The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors. We serve our self-image by seeing our talents and moral behaviors as relatively unusual. Dutch college kids preferred being part of a larger group in matters of opinions such as politics (false consensus) but wanted to be a part of smaller groups in matters of taste such as music preferences (false uniqueness).

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What is self handicapping?

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Protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure. Imagine you are chosen to participate in a "drug and intellectual performance" study. You guess the answers to some difficult aptitude questions then are told you did great (way better than anyone else in the study). You are then presented with 2 drugs, one that will aid intellectual performance and one that will inhibit it. Most students would chose the inhibitory drug thus providing an excuse for an anticipated poorer performance. They have something to blame the wrong answers on.

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How does culture affect perceptions of the self?

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Humans will go to varying degrees of action to leave the desired effect on other people that we want. To different degrees, we note our performance and adjust it to our culture and surroundings to create the impressions we desire and that others socially accept

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What is self presentation Who does it Why do people do it

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Self-Presentation: the act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or impression that corresponds to one's ideals. It refers to us wanting to present a desired image to other people (external audience) and to ourselves (internal audience). We excuse, justify, or apologize as necessary to shore our self-esteem and verify our self-images

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What are the implications of self presentation for conducting research?

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People express more modesty when their self-flattery is vulnerable to being debunked.

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What is self-monitoring and when is it good, when is it problematic?

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Self-Monitoring: Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance. People who score high on a scale of self-monitoring tend to adjust their behavior in response to external situations. This can be problematic because high self-monitors are less committed to their relationships, more likely to be dissatisfied in their marriages, more likely to espouse attitudes they don't actually hold, and are less likely to act on their own attitudes. Low self-monitors care less about what others think. They are more internally guided and thus more likely to talk and act as they feel and believe.

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What is self-regulation and what else is it known as?

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Self-Regulation: self-control or willpower. 3 major parts: 1. Overriding short-term desires in favor of long-term benefits (impulse control) 2. The active management of one's many needs and goals. 3. Any process of monitoring and altering one's responses (thoughts, feelings, behaviors)

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What were the findings of the marshmallow self-control study? What long term implications are there?

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Gave four year olds marshmallows and studied the delay of gratification. Kids that were able to wait and not eat the marshmallow before given another one got unlimited marshmallows due to their self-control. Self-control kids score higher on SAT. In the long term it predicts good relationships, success (more so than IQ), less criminality, and better mental health.

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What is the limited resource model of self-control and what are implications of this?

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All types of control rely on ONE limited energy source. Behavior control, thought control, emotion control, and impulse control. Example: Suppressing thoughts about a topic makes it difficult to squeeze a hand grip for a long amount of time. -Suppressing emotional reactions to a movie makes it difficult to solve word problems. -Resisting chocolate and eating radishes makes it difficult to persist in attempting unsolved puzzles.

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What can happen when self-regulation fails?

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Eating behavior, drug and alcohol consumption, STD's, domestic abuse

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What are attributions and when do we make them?

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-Attribution: an explanation why we or others engaged in a certain behavior -Often made when behavior seems out of place?

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What are internal and external attributions, and what do they explain?

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-Internal attributions: Dispositional (e.g., he loves to dance) -External attributions: Situational -Behavior and its justification

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What does the Jones ; Harris (1967) pro-Castro/ anti castro study say about the types of attributions we make?

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-If individuals dictate an opinion that someone else must then express, they still tend to see the person as actually holding that opinion.

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What is the fundamental attribution error?

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-The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (Also called correspondence bias because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition.)

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What is actor-observer bias? How is it related to the fundamental attribution error?

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-Tendency to make internal attributions for others behaviors "Jon kicked the dog because he's an *******" -Tendency to make external attributions for our own behaviors "I kicked the dog because it had rabies and was about to bite me"

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When do we attribute our behavior to external versus internal causes? (Sedikides et al 1998) How does this relate to self-serving biases from when we talked about the self.

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-Group or personal success = internal -Group or personal failure = external -Self-serving bias Taking credit for successes (internal attributions) Blaming other people/factors for failures (external attributions)

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What is Kelley's covariation model? What are the three types of relevant information we need, and what do they predict?

answer

-1. Consistency Does the actor behave similarly in this situation on other occasions? Does Claire always throw coffee in Joe's face? YES = High consistency -2. Distinctiveness Does the actor behave similarly in other situations? Does Claire throw coffee in everyone's faces? NO = High distinctiveness -3. Consensus Do others behave similarly in that situation? Do other people throw coffee in Joe's face? YES = High consensus -Judges what type of attribution: internal, external, ambiguous -External: High consistency, high distinctiveness, high consensus (everyone does this all the time in only this situation: all of my students leave my class early, but they don't leave anyone else's class early) -Internal: High consistency, low distinctiveness, low consensus (you are the only one who does this and it's in every situation: you are the only one to leave early, and you leave every class early) -Ambiguous: Low consistency ("IDEK THO")

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What is the overconfidence phenomenon?

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-Tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs (e.g., humor, grammar).

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What is confirmation bias? How may this relate to how we seek out information?

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-tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions -People will typically try to confirm their theories but don't try to disconfirm them

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What are heuristics and when do we use them?

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-A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgements. -mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of events efficient and of decisions

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what does your book state about embodied cognition? be able to generalize its examples to other situations?

answer

-The mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments. -After holding a warm drink, people become more likely to rate someone more warmly and behave more generously. -After receiving a cold shoulder treatment, people judge the experimental room as colder than do those treated warmly. -Physical warmth accentuates social warmth, and social exclusion literally feels cold.

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What does the text state about how we reconstruct memories and our past behaviors? Do we tend to be accurate?

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-Tend to be inaccurate -We reconstruct our distant past by using our current feelings and expectations to combine information fragments. -We can easily (although unconsciously) revise our memories to suit our current knowledge. -misinformation effect: Incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it.

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What does the schawarz (1991) study state about heuristics?

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-People asked to produce 6 examples of assertiveness seemed all around more assertive than those asked to produce 12?

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What is the availability heuristic? How does it affect our judgments of the likelihood of events?

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-a cognitive rules that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace. -Tendency to estimate the likelihood of event by how easily instances of it come to mind. -The more easily we recall something, the more likely it seems.

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What are the limitations of the availability heuristic?

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-Our emotions can affect how we make snap judgments due to the presence - or lack there of - of hope?

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What is the simulation heuristic?

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-Tendency to be influenced by the ease with which you can imagine (or mentally stimulate) an event

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What is anchoring and adjusting? How does this influence our judgements?

answer

-Anchoring and Adjustment: Tendency to be influenced by a starting point (anchor) when making decisions -We may make false judgments about or have false expectations for the future based on the starting point of the situation?

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How does the conjunction fallacy affect how likely that we judge the occurrence of combinations of events?

answer

-Conjunction fallacy: Believing the combination of two events is more likely than one event itself -We believe it's more likely to happen than is true.

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What all drives the false consensus effect?

answer

-Representativeness Heuristic Tendency to estimate the likelihood of an event by how well it matches your expectations THTHTHTHTHT TTTTTTTTTTT Partly due to base-rate fallacy -False Consensus Effect Overestimating number of people who share one's opinions and beliefs "Everyone loves social psychology!" Reason? Anchor and Adjustment Self-Esteem Availability

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What does the text state about illusory correlations and the gambler's fallacy?

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-Illusory Correlations: Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists. When we expect to find significant relationships, we easily associate random events, perceiving an illusory correlation People easily misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs -Gambler's fallacy: illusion of control, gamblers attribute wins to their skill and foresight and losses become "near misses" or "flukes" (#DODnipslip2014). -Illusion of Control: Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are.

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How does priming affect our thoughts and behaviors?

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-Priming: the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. Activating particular associations in memory. -Your prejudgments/prior experiences have striking effects on how you perceive and interpret events.

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What are self-fulfilling prophecies? Be able to relate these to both the rats in a mazy and the bloomers example?

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-People's expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their beliefs (RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE). -Maze bright/Maze dull study: rats originally put in inescapable maze, when put in escapable maze they already believed they couldn't get out and it ended up coming true -"Bloomers" Study - led to believe certain children would "bloom" (and they did amirite?)?

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Belief Perseverance

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Persistence of one's initial conceptions, such as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.

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Controlled processing

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Explicit thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious

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Automatic processing

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Implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to intuition

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counterfactual thinking

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Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn't

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regression toward the average

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the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average.

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misattribution

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mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.

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attribution theory

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The theory of how people explain others' behavior for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives and attitudes) or to external situations.

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dispositional attribution (internal)

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attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits

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situational attribution (external)

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attributing behavior to the environment

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spontaneous trait inference

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An effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior

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What are the basic components or ideas of evolutionary theory and how do they contribute to evolution?

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-3 major components to evolution: heritability, variation, natural selection -Heritability: a large percentage of genes passed on from parents -Variation: a small percentage of genes change randomly -Natural Selection: some variations are more beneficial for survival than others, determines which random variations are passed on through heredity

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What is sexual selection and how is it a more specific type of natural selection?

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Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which some individuals out-reproduce others of a population because they are better at securing mates.

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What is the EEA and how does it inform social psychology?

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Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness: • Referring to a different time period • We have evolved to live in a different time period. • Traits back then aren't necessarily adaptive today.

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What are the ways in which the EEA differs from today's environment and how does this affect our social psychology?

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Sweet and fatty foods were very rare back then, so that reflects why we crave them so much now.

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What is Error Management Theory and how is it adaptive?

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We are biased to make errors in the more adaptive direction • Play it safe! • False positive: Over-attending • Miss: under-attending

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What percentage of our individual variation does genetics predict?

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40-50%

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Who wins in the Nature vs. Nurture debate?

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FALSE DICHOTOMY • Neither win, the effect of one factor depends on another factor

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How does our environment affect our Genes/Biology and vice versa?

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People react differently in different situations • People choose/create their environments • Epigenetics - environment influences gene expression • Neural networks affected by use

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What is Culture ?

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The enduring behaviors ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from generation to generation.

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Why is Culture so beneficial for our species?

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• Survival: humans rely on other humans for survival, division of labor • Progress: culture allows learning to be passed on from one generation to the next.

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How much influence do peers have on determining a person's Behavior and Personality?

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Peers are much more influential than parenting • Peer influences about 40-50% of behavior and decisions.

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What is Cultural Psychology?

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Branch of psychology that studies how thoughts, emotions, and behavior differ across cultures • Collectivist vs. Independent Cultures

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What does your book say about Norms and Cultural Similarity? (from book)

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• Norms: Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do - what is normal.) • Cultural Similarity: Cultures differ, however, beneath the veneer of cultural differences, cross-cultural psychologists see "an essential universality" in the following: universal friendship norms, universal trait dimensions, universal social belief dimensions, universal status norms, the incest taboo, norms of war.

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What are the two types of Cultures that are typically studied in Cultural Psychology?

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Collectivist Independent

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How are Collectivist Cultures characterized and what societies tend to have each kind?

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• More focus on external reasons for behavior • More focus on connection with others -Eastern and African: Collectivist

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How are Independent Cultures characterized and what societies tend to have each kind?

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• More focus on internal reasons for behavior • More focus on being different from others -Western-minded: Individualistic

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What are the two types of cultures that are typically studied in cultural psychology, how are they characterized and what societies tend to have each kind? What does the Sedikides study predict for different cultures?

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Sedikides: self-enhancement; some traits were focused on self (e.g., unique, self-reliant, independent), some traits were focused on interacting with others (e.g., cooperative, loyal, respectful). Predicted that American/Individualistic cultures saw themselves being better than others at self-related traits, Japanese/Collectivist cultures saw themselves at being better than others at others-related traits.

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What was the example given in the book about the way the environment can actually change the norm of that environment?

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-the different foods eaten by different cultures?

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What are the biological influences of sex on behavior?

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Male and females are similar at conception, biological sex is determined at 7 weeks.

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What are the major gender differences found in research?

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In gender role development, women tend to be more passive than men. They tend to strive to help others, and take care of people and things more. The men, however, tend to strive for power positions. In one study it was estimated that the women interrupted the man who was speaking five times less, than she would have interrupted her counterpart.

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What are the criticisms of advances made in "gender equality?"

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Why can't women just be women and men just be men?

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Are there more differences between the genders or between individuals?

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Individuals... there are usually more differences amongst women than between men and women

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Attitude

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a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often rooted in one's beliefs, and exhibited in one's feelings and intended behavior)

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implicit association test (IAT)

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A computer driven assessment. the test uses reaction times to measure people's automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. Easier pairings (and faster responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious associations

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role

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a set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to bahave

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foot- in-the-door phenomenon

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the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a lager request example: walk my dog..... water plants.

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lowball techniques

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A tactic for getting people to agree to something. people who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it

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cognitive dissonance

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tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. For example: dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favoring one alternative despite reasons favoring another.

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Selective exposure

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the tendency to seek information and media that agree with one's views and to avoid dissonant information

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insufficient justification

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reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient"

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self-perception theory

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the theory that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs.

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facial feedback effect

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the tendency of facial expressions to trigger corresponding feeling such as fear, anger, or happiness

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overjustification effect

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the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing

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self affirmation theory

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-a theory that people often experience a self image threat after engaging in an undesirable behavior. -b they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. threaten people's self-concept in one domain, and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain

Social Psychology Unit 1 Exam 1 (Chapter ) – Flashcards

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