Exam 4 Study Guide Answers.doc

- Proximity ? the tendency to be attracted to people you see more frequently Festinger ? people living closer in apartments became closer Deindividuation ? loosening of normal constraints on behavior when in a crowd, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts Conformity ? Baron: participants picked criminals out of line-up in groups of four with three confederates; many times would go with the group - SELF VERIFICATION: Self-handicapping ? creating an obstacle to your performance to have a ready-made excuse for failure Ex: drinking the night before a test and blaming failing on that SELF ESTEEM: Downward social comparisons ? comparing yourself to worse-off others Ex: I made a 70 on the exam, but Sam made a 65. - BELONGINGNESS: BIRGing ? Basking In Reflected Glory of in-group achievements Ex: ?I may suck, but we won the game!? ? They are mental structures used to organize knowledge about the social world - Examples: Person Schema ? contains info about the characteristics of people Self Schema ? contains info about the self The distort our perception and memory and we often make our schemas come true ? You have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently with people?s original expectation, making the expectations come true Ex: Classroom of equal kids administered an exam. Teachers were told which ones were bloomers and which ones were not bright. Teacher gave special attention to those she thought smarter and less to the others and at the end of the year the ?bloomers? turned out smarter and the ?less bright? were less bright. Ex: Women are perceived to be worse at math than men. When told this before a test, the women got down on themselves and more nervous and ended up doing worse. - Affect ? Behavior ? Cognition - A ? Prejudice ? negative feelings toward a group B ? Discrimination ? unjustified negative behavior toward a member of a group C ? Stereotype ? identical characteristics are assigned to all group members - Self Concept: A ? Self Esteem B - Knowledge of action C ? Beliefs about the self ? Attribution: we automatically apply it to the ability or to the task Stereotyping: we automatically assign characteristics to all group members Persuasion: we automatically push people to believe in whatever we already believe ? Ex: Driving home and once you get there, not realizing you had actually been driving : Counting to Ten Ex: Driving in an unlit city you are unfamiliar with : Listing the numbers one through ten in alphabetical order Automatic- telling someone your name when asked Controlled- telling someone what you had for lunch when asked - Encoding ? we easily learn stereotype-consistent behavior and ignore stereotype inconsistent behavior Confirmation biases ? the tendency to ?count? stereotype consistent info, and ignore inconsistent info - Groupthink- when maintaining group cohesiveness is more important than good decision making ? they describe how we explain other peoples? behavior; give us an idea of how people really are like and what motivates them to act as they do; important because if wrong can hurt us Ex: Correspondence bias- believing that people?s behavior corresponds to their personalities (?That guy who tripped is clumsy?) Ex: Self-serving biases ? attributing positive to internal causes and negative to external causes Ex: Belief in a just world- people get what they deserve ? Attitudes through social learning such as religious beliefs Conformity ? when asked to pick a criminal out of a lineup with four members and three confederates, participant went along with the confederates Deindividuation - loosening of normal constraints on behavior when in a crowd, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts ? Thoughts: Cohesive groups can lead to bad decision making Feelings: Groups can lead to a sense of invulnerability Behavior: Social Facilitation - tendency to perform well on easy tasks and poorly on complex tasks in the presence of others ? Stereotypes: ignoring beliefs inconsistent with our own stereotypes Attitudes: Self-Esteem: we use downward social comparison and compare ourselves to those worse off - Self Esteem: Individualist: Collectivist: Group Membership: Individualist: Collectivist: Conformity: Individualist: Collectivist: ? Attitude: Consumer behavior ? choosing between coke and pepsi Prejudice: Subtyping ? ?fencing off? those who don?t fit stereotype, and original stereotype remains intact Social Cognition: Social Perception - we form perceptions and make inferences about people - Self perception- inferring information about the self by observing your own behavior Downward social comparisons ? comparing yourself to worse-off others Social loafing- the tendency to perform poorly on easy tasks and well on complex tasks in group settings