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What are the 3 current focuses of Social Psychology?
1. cognitive approaches; 2. evolutionary theories; 3. cultural theories
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What loss did humans incur as a result of the division of labour & move from primary-group society to secondary-group society?
our close social relationships
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Why do people in modern society spend so much money on non-utility items?
buying identity due to loss of social identity
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What are the 4 main theories of sociability?
1. evolutionary; 2. learning-reinforcement; 3. social comparison; 4. social exchange
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What is the problem with naive empiricism?
No amount of observation ever amounts to a (scientific) certainty
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Why does shared social knowledge tend to be vague, uncertain & second-hand?
Because none of us are experts & personality & opinions come into it a lot
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What is easier to read, basic or complex emotions?
basic because they tend to be universal
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What is facial-feedback hypothesis?
Ekman's idea that we do not just smile because we are happy - smiling also causes happy emotions
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What is differential accuracy (in terms of person perception)?
The accuracy of perceiving a person's individual, unique characteristic
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People in a positive mood made positive ratings of themselves & a testing partner (on video). What did people in a negative mood do?
Made negative judgments of themselves but not a testing partner
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What is the theory that says human beings automatically make shape & form of what they see, rather than what is really there?
gestalt theory
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The term for attributing favourable characteristics to a person who has one salient, favourable characteristic you have already observed?
The halo effect
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What are 3 examples of the halo effect?
1. Inferring height on successful people; 2. giving higher/lower marks to essays based on name of author; 3. inferring friendliness on attractive people
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What influence does primacy effect have on person perception?
informationa about a person that comes first, causes the later information to be interpretated in light of the initial information
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In what situations may the recency effect's influence on person perception be overrided by recency effects?
When the perceiever is requested to pay equal attention to all information, or to with-hold judgment until the end
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Why do we expect people to behave in a positive way, in the absence of any other information (positivity bias)?
Because we assume people will adhere to social norms
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Why is any negative information in our person judgments overemphasised relative to positive information (negativity bias)?
Because it violates social norms so we assume it to be more informative about the person
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Implicit personality theories are?
Private theories about peop - including assumptions about which characteristics are correlated with others. Partly individual, partly cultural
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What are the most common types of person protypes & stereotypes?
ethinic, cultural & racial
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What types of social conditions can lead to stronger & more negative stereotypes of minority groups?
Times of social conflict
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What is the secret of success in the social world?
The ability to accurately predict other people's behaviour so we can behave appropriately
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What are examples of stable vs unstable internal causes of behaviour (Weiner)?
ability vs effort
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What are examples of stable vs unstable external causes of behaviour (Weiner)?
situation vs luck
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What are the 2 main kinds of attributional errors?
cognitive or motivational
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What are saliance effects?
whatever we are looking at tends to get causal bias
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What is just-world bias?
a motivational bias where we tend to blame victims for events so we can believe the world is still just & the same thing won't happen to us
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Are people generally more productive individually or in groups?
Individually
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What are some of the biggest problems for group productivity? (clue - 4 things)
1. production blocking; 2. evaluation apprehension; 3. social loafing; 4. social matching
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What is stereotype accuracy? (in person perception)
recognising the type
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What are the influences on person perception accuracy? (3 things)
1. influence of expectations; 2. cognitive effects (eg, mood); 3. perceiving relationship conflicts
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What are heuristics?
mental shortcuts
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What are some heuristics people use?
representativeness; false consensus; anchoring; availability; priming effects; counterfactuals
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What are counterfactuals (heuristics)?
what might have been
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What is representativeness (heuristics)?
judging by resemblance
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What is anchoring (heuristics)?
starting estimates have greater effects
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What is atomistic (mechanical) theory in impression formation?
'cognitive algebra' the notion of stable trait theories
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What is Kelley's 3 dimensional co-variation model? (attribution processes)
consistency (in same situation), consensus (how other's behave), distinctiveness (different behaviour in other situations?)
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What is Schachter's two-factor theory of emotion?
idea that emotional experience is a 2-step process: experience phsyiological arousal; then seek an explanation for it
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What is the process of communication (3 steps)?
encoding (sender), message (channel), decoding (receiver)
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What does it mean to say language is indexical?
the meaning is dependent on indexes (shared knowledge/context)
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What are mirror neurons?
neurons that responding when we perform an action & see someone else perform the same action (basis of empathy)
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Why do people join groups? (group formation & function)
satisfy needs (eg, belonging, safety), reach goals they cannot alone, boost self-identity
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What do groups function through? (group formation & function)
roles (expected behaviour), status (social standing), norms (rules for behaviour), cohesiveness (forces that cause members to stay in group, eg desire for status)
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What is sociometry?
patterns of liking within groups (between people/members)
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What is drive theory?
arousal increases dominant responses, so what you do well you will tend to do best in front of others
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What are the potential sources for the arousal in the presence of others? (social facilitation)
1. mere presence; 2. evaluation aprehension; 3. distraction conflict (1 & 3 also apply to animals)
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Is the tendency to social loaf stronger in men or women?
men - women tend to be higher in relational interdependence (tendency to focus on personal relationships with others)
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Is social loafing stronger in Western or Asian cultures?
Western - Asians tend to have an interdependent view of the self (way of defining oneself in terms of relationships to other people)
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What is bystander apathy theory?
That situation factors, not personality, determine helping (as bystanders increase, likelihood of helping decreases)
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Is there a strong relationship between personality & leadership abilities?
no, numerous studies have found weak relationships between them
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What is the 'great person' theory of leadership?
leadership is not a trait but depends on the situation
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What are the 2 basic leader types according to the contingency theory of leadership?
task-oriented leader & relationship-oriented leader
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What is group polarisation?
The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members
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According to Janis's theory, groupthink is more likely to occur when the group is:
highely cohesive, isolated from contrary opinions & ruled by a directive leader
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3 ways to improve group decisions:
encourage dissent, call on outside expert opinion, ensure group pools all availble information
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What are some dangers of groupisms?
encourages social fragmation, increases intergroup conflict, legitimises extreme groups, coflicts with individualism, group-based compensatory effects
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What is deindividuation?
The loosening of normal constraints on behaviour when people can't be identified - increases impulsive & deviant acts
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What are the environmental conditions leading to reduced self-awareness & deindividuation?
anonymity, high arousal levels, focus on external events, close group unity
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What are some benefits of groups?
Creating social support & changing behaviour, motivating individuals to achieve better performance, providing social support
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What are the 2 routes to discrimination?
1. Beliefs & stereotypes, leading to stereotypes; 2. Ingroup-outgroup, leading to prejudice (both then leading to discrimination)
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What are the 3 different views of prejudice?
as personality (xenophobia); as (learned) attitude; as intergroup emotions
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What are the 2 psychodynamic explanations of prejudice?
low self-esteem/self-esteem threat & frustation-anger theory (displaced anger)
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What are the characteristics of Authoritarian Personality Syndrome?
Conventionalism, submission to authority, moral aggression, rigidity/stereotypic thinking, 'toughness' & cynacism, projectivity
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What are 2 contemporary prejudiced personality measures?
Right-wing authoritarianism & Social dominance Orientation
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What is Ambivalence amplification caused by?
conflict between egalitarian values & negative attitudes towards disadvantaged group
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What is aversive prejudice?
ambivalence caused by being aware of unjustified negative feelings towards an outgroup
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What is the "contact hypothesis"?
reducing intergroup prejudice through cooperative contact
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What are the ingroup outgroup attributional biases?
positive behaviour of ingroup attributed to internal factors, negative behaviour to external factors (and vice-versa for outgroups)
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What can we do about the gap between indigenous Australians & the rest of us?
Partnerships
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