Social Psychology Final Review- definitions and concepts

Group:

three or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.

Social Roles:

shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave.

Group Cohesiveness:

qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members

Social Facilitation:

the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated

Social Loafing:

the tendency for people to relax when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated, such that they do worse on simple tasks but better on complex tasks

Deindividuation:

the loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can’t be identified (such as when they are in a crowd)

Process loss:

an aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving

Transactive memory:

the combined memory of two people that is more efficient than the memory of either individual

Groupthink:

a kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner

Group Polarization:

the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members

Great Person theory:

the idea that certain key personality traits make a person a good leader, regardless of the situation

Transactional leaders:

leaders who set clear, short-term goals and reward people who meet them

Transformational leaders:

leaders who inspire followers to focus on common, long-term goals

Contingency theory of leadership:

the idea that leadership effectiveness depends both on how task-oriented or relationship-oriented the leader is and on the amount of control and influence the leader has over the group

Task-oriented leader:

a leader who is concerned more with getting the job done than with workers’ feelings and relationships

Relationship-oriented leader:

a leader who is concerned primarily with workers’ feelings and relationships

Which type of leader is more effective in high-control work situations?

Task-oriented leader

Which type of leader is more effective in low-control work situations?

Task-oriented leader

Which type of leader is more effective in moderate-controlled work situation?

Relationship-oriented leader

Social Dilemma:

a conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone

Tit-for-tat strategy:

a means of encouraging cooperation by at first acting cooperatively but then always responding the way your opponent did (cooperatively or competitively) on the previous trial

Public good dilemma:

a social dilemma in which individuals must contribute to a common pool in order to maintain the public good

Commons dilemma:

a social dilemma in which everyone takes from a common pool of goods that will replenish itself if used in moderation but will disappear is overused.

Negotiation:

a form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict in which offers and counteroffers are made and a solution occurs only when both parties agree

Integrative solution:

a solution to a conflict whereby the parties make trade-offs on issues according to their concedes the most on issues that are unimportant to it but important to the other side

What happened in the experiment with the cockroaches and what does that tell us?

The individual cockroaches became faster at finding the dark tunnel when there were other spectating cockroaches. This tell us that the mere presence of others as an audience improves our performance on simple well-learned tasks.

What happens to us with the presence of others as an audience?

We become aroused which makes it easier to perform simple tasks but harder to learn new things or perform complex tasks

What is the differences between social facilitation and social loafing?

Social facilitation- others are watching you and it causes you to become aroused

Social loafing- you join others to get something does and it causes you to become relaxed

Why are people more likely to engage in activities that they normally would not when they cannot be identified?

They feel less accountable for their actions if they cannot be singled out and blamed

True or false: Deindivuation only leads to negative actions.

False

True or false: There is a weak relationship between personality and leadership abilities

True

What does the trucking experiment with ACME and BOLT tell us?

1. Threats do not work- in fact, they usually cause retaliation

2. Communication without trust does not help resolve problems

What does the skilled vs. unskilled shooters experiment tell us?

With no audience the skilled players did worse and the unskilled players did better than with an audience. This demonstrates social facilitation.

True or false: groups usually outperform individuals.

False

True or false: Individual effort decreases as group size increases

True

What variables influence deindividuation?

1. Group size

2. Arousal and diminished self-awareness

3. Anonymity

What does Deiner's Trick or Treating experiment tell us?

When trick-or-treaters where in a group and anonymous they were much more likely to take extra candy

What does the experiment with ranking the chess players chance of success tell us?

Groups makes riskier decisions than individuals do- known as the risky shift.

What does "Roger's dilemma" tell us?

Groups make decisions that can be more cautions than individuals do- known as the cautious shift

The risky shift and the cautious shift explains...

Group polarization

What causes group polarization?

1. Normative influence: We look to other group members for cues about what attitudes we should hold

2. Informational influence: We look to others as sources of information, and alter our attitudes accordingly

Prosocial behavior:

any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person

Altruism:

the desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper

Kin Selection:

the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection

Norm of reciprocity:

the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

Empathy:

the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them

Empathy-altruism hypothesis:

the idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain

Altruistic personality:

the qualities that cause an individual to help others in a wide variety of situations

In-group:

the group with which an individual identifies as a member

Out-group:

any group with which an individual does not identify

Urban overload hypothesis:

the theory that people living in cities are constantly being bombarded with stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it

Bystander effect:

the finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help

Pluralistic ignorance:

the case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not

Diffusion of responsibility:

the phenomenon whereby each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases

Communal relationships:

those in which people’s primary concern is with the welfare of the other person

Exchange relationships:

governed by concerns about equity- that what you put into the relationship equals what you get out of it

_____ refers to the tendency of people to perform better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when others are present.

Social facilitation

in the Prison Study, guards became sadistic n prisoners became submissive and withdrawn, all in under a week. this study suggest that

social roles can take on a power that causes people to become deindividuated

True or false: A reasonable hypothesis would be that the social loafing effect is strong in Western cultures

true

group polarization tends to occur bc individuals can present themselves in a more __ light by taking more __ positions than the norm of the group

positive; extreme

deindividuation suggests that when people are part of a crowd

more likely to act in an impulsive and deviant manner

Whereas _____ specify how all group members should behave, ___________ specify how individuals in particular positions should behave.

norms; roles

In order to predict whether the presence of others will help or hinder performance, one needs two pieces of information: whether ___ and whether ___

individual performance can be evaluated; the task is simple or complex

According to social psychological reasoning, a large "student body" is not a social group because

each student cannot possibly interact with all other students and they don't depend on one another in any way

How do norms differ from roles? Norms _____, whereas roles _____

apply to all group members; apply to specific group members

According to the persuasive arguments interpretation, group polarization happens because

others bring up perspectives or issues that the individual hadn't considered

one reason that deindividuation often leads to impulsive or destructive behaviors is that the presence of many other people can make people

forget their internal values or moral standards

In order to avoid the phenomenon of groupthink, the leader of a group should

form subgroups that discuss the problem separately

True or false: the presence of other members of a species elicits the most dominant response

true

Research suggests that men are more likely than women to interpret __________ situations as provocative and thus to respond aggressively

ambiguous

_____ theory can be used to explain why participants will derogate victims after they have done those victims physical or psychological harm

Cognitive dissonance

True or false: vicariously discharging aggressive impulses reduces aggression

False

___ reflects the idea that if people can "aggress" in harmless ways, built up aggressive energies will diminish, reducing the odds of further aggressive behavior

Catharsis

Teresa punches a pillow every time she feels aggression building up toward her younger brother, and this makes her feel relieved and more relaxed. y?

catharsis

Hostile Aggression:

the act of aggression stemming from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain

or injury

Aggression:

The intentional action aimed at doing harm or causing pain

Instrumental Aggression:

The intention of to hurt the other person as a means to some goal other than

causing pain

What is Eros and Thanatos? (Freud)

Sigmund Freud theorized that humans are born with an instinct toward life called Eros, and an equally powerful instinct toward death called Thanatos

The Evolutionary Argument;

Psychologists have recently argued that aggression is genetically

programmed into males because it enables them to perpetuate their genes

Amygdala;

The area in the core of the brain associated with aggressive behavior

Serotonin;

A chemical substance that occurs naturally in the midbrain which has an inhibiting effect on impulsive aggression

testosterone;

A male sex hormone which can lead to increased aggression with increased levels

Frustration Aggression Theory;

People’s perception that they are being from attaining a goal will

increase the probability of an aggressive response

Aggressive stimulus;

an object that is associated with aggressive responses which might increase

the probability of aggression

Social learning theory;

We learn social behavior by observing others and imitating them

Script;

Ways of behaving socially that we learn implicitly or subconsciously from the culture

Catharsis;

The notion that by performing an aggressive act, watching others engage in aggressive

behavior, or engaging in a fantasy of aggression relieves built-up aggressive energies and reduces the likelihood of further aggressive behavior

What does the Kitty Genovese murder help explain?

The bystander effect

The negative state relief hypothesis tells us that ___ and ___ ___ = more helping

sadness; reduced SE

A country called Asukistan has just entered a war with a neighboring nation. According to research, how would the citizens of Asukistan react?

Their own homicide rates will increase

_____ occurs when a person is thwarted on the way to an expected goal or gratification

Frustration

Hostile aggression differs from instrumental aggression in that instrumental aggression

involves inflicting pain as a means to an end

The goal of _____ aggression is to inflict pain; the goal of _____ aggression is to achieve some other outcome

hostile; instrumental

What does the experiment with Carol, the psychology student, tell us?

Empathy has a big effect on whether or not people will help

True or false: a greater similarity makes people not help each other

false

True or false: watching prosocial TV can help people become more proscoial

true

True or false: Displaced outward, Thanatos becomes aggression toward others.

true

The levels of punishment found to be effective in the studies with Norwegian schools and bullying are fairly mild, consistent with the principles of

cognitive dissonance

A steady diet of violent television fare can encourage aggression in children who are consequently _________ respond aggressively in real life.

primed to

John and Sam get into a fistfight in the middle of a gun shop. The presence of the guns would be an example of

aggressive stimuli

According to comments made by Bandura in a video we viewed in class, the chief factor influencing aggression is

cognitive processes, such as construals, attributions, and outcome expectancies

True or False: Conserving water during a drought is a good example of a commons dilemma?

True

True or false: Donating to a public television station is a good example of public goods dilemma

true

True or false: In general, when it comes to jury size, twelve heads are better than six

true

True or false: Lawyers should present their case is witness order to the jury

False, lawyers should present their case in story order

True or false: police should make sure everyone in the lineup resembles the witness's description of the suspect

False

In the "calculator theft" scenario, we learned that the student jury

believed the eyewitnesses, even when their identifications were inaccurate

True or false: psychologist would recommend that "Make sure that the lineup contains a wide variety of people who look quite different from each other."

False

True or false: law officers are no better at identifying who is lying than college students

true

True or false: in poor viewing conditions, the juror would Trust the eyewitness without considering the viewing conditions

true

True or false: the retrieval stage of memory is affected by the typical lineup procedure

False; it is the retention stage

when people look at same-race faces, they focus on _____________, whereas when they look at different-race faces, they focus on _________________.

features that distinguish individuals from each other; features that distinguish the races from each other

unanimous verdicts are desirable because this requirement encourages jurors to

consider the evidence more carefully

Social psychological research has revealed a _______ relation between eyewitness confidence and accuracy

weak postive

Lawyers should arranges his witnesses so that he can explain his clients' actions to create sympathetic schemas in the jurors' minds to create;

story order

Considerable social psychological research has demonstrated that jurors tend to

overestimate the accuracy of eyewitnesses

True or false: Police should Present the suspect and foils sequentially to minimizing "false identification" by an eyewitness

True

Acquisition:

Noticing and attending to the particular information out of all of the information

available

Storage:

the process by which people store in memory information they have acquired from the environment

Retrieval;

Recalling the information stored in their memories. Only a subset of the information

available at one phase makes it to the next stage in the process; eyewitnesses can be inaccurate because of problems at any stage

Own-race bias;

people are better at recognizing faces that are of the same race as they are. The

information that we take in is influenced by familiarity with it; unfamiliar things are more difficult to recognize than familiar things

Reconstructive memory:

Memories can be distorted by information encountered after an event has

occurred

Source monitoring:

The process by which people try to identify the source of their recollections.

People often get mixed up about where they heard or saw something.

Polygraph:

A machine that measures people’s physiological responses; when these

machines are used in lie detection, polygraph operators attempt to tell if someone is lying by observing how that person responds physiologically while answering questions

Cognitive interview:

A technique where a trained interviewer tries to improve eyewitnesses’

memories by focusing their attention on the details and the context of the event. Research finds that this technique may increase errors and confabulations.

Recovered memories:

Recollections of a past event, such as sexual abuse, that had been forgotten or

repressed; a great deal of controversy surrounds the accuracy of such memories

False memory syndrome:

Where the memory is objectively false but which people believe occurred. This is especially likely to occur when another person suggests that the events occurred.

Deterrence theory:

Argues that people refrain from criminal activity because of the threat of legal

punishment, as long as the punishment is perceived as relatively severe, certain, and swift.

Procedural theory:

People’s judgments about the fairness of the procedures used to determine outcomes

such as whether they are guilty or innocent of a crime. People who feel they have been treated fairly are more likely to comply with the law than others

True or false: victims of crimes usually have problems in the acquisition of memory of crimes

true

If a single juror disagrees with the rest, what is likely to happen during deliberations?

The single juror will change his or her mind and vote with the majority

when people experience empathy with another in need, _____ motivates helping

helping others independent of self-interest

True or false: people always help regardless of how much of a rush they are in

false

The ______ hypothesis refers to the idea that people will often help to alleviate their own sadness and distress.

negative-state relief

A # of studies have revealed that doing well on a test can incre helping. These findings suggest that there is a __ relation btwn _ & helping.

positive; positive mood

pluralistic ignorance is most likely to affect witnesses

interpretation of an event as an emergency

A woman's car is stuck in the snow and she needs a push to get free. Hector is more likely to stop to help her out because _____

the situation calls for an act of chivalry

diffusion of responsibility is most likely to affect witnesses'

sense of obligation to intervene

According to evolutionary psychologists, we help others because of factors that have become ingrained in our genes: the reciprocity norm, ___, and ___

kin selection; the ability to learn to follow norms and customs

Prejudice

a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people, based solely on their membership in that group

Stereotype

a generalization about a group of people in which certain traits are assigned to virtually all members of a group, regardless of actual variation among the members

Discrimination

unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because of his or her membership in that group

Out-group homogeneity

the perception that individuals in the out-group are more similar to each other (homogeneous) than they really are, as well as more similar than the members of the in-group are

Illusory Correlation

the tendency to see relationships, or correlations, between events that are actually unrelated

Ultimate attribution error

the tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people

Stereotype threat

the apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype

Blaming the Victim

the tendency to blame individuals for their victimization, typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair place

Self-fulfilling prophecy

the case whereby people (1) have an expectation about what another person is like, which (2) influences how they act toward that person, which (3) causes that person to behave in a way consistent with people’s original expectations

Realistic Conflict Theory

the idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination

Scapegoating

the tendency for individuals, when frustrated or unhappy, to displace aggression onto groups that are disliked, visible, and relatively powerless

Institutionalized Racism

racist attitudes that are held by the vast majority of people living in a society where stereotypes and discrimination are the norm

Institutionalized Sexism

sexist attitudes that are held by the vast majority of people living in a society where stereotypes and discrimination are the norm

Normative Conformity

the tendency to go along with the group in order to fulfill the group’s expectations and gain acceptance

Modern Racism

outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly maintaining prejudiced attitudes

Mutual Interdependence

the situation that exists when two or more groups need each other and must depend on each other to accomplish a goal that is important to each of them

Jigsaw Classroom

a classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small, desegregated groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material and do well in class

Social Psychology Final Review- definitions and concepts

Psychology 321 with Kilianski at Rutgers University - New Brunswick/Piscataway

About this deck

About StudyBlue

Sign up (free) to study this.

About this deck

About StudyBlue