Psyc chapter 14 text

seeks to understand, explain, and predict how out thoughts feelings, and behaviour influence and are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others

how people perceive and interpret themselves and others in their social world

relatively stable and enduring evaluations of things and people

• a model proposing that attitudes have three components:
• the affective component - how we feel toward and object
• the behavioural component - how we behav toward an object
• the cognitive component - what we believe about an object

• festinger
• proposed that when we hold two contradictory beliefs, or when we hold a belief that contradicts our behaviour, we experience a state of emotional discomfort, or cognitive dissonance
• want to remove the discomfort, one way to do so is modifying our existing beliefs.
• study with boring work where they were given 1 dollar or 20 dollars, people given 1 dollar reported "liking the task" also people who had to explain the task as if it was fun also later reported like the task better

a theory suggesting that when people are uncertain of their attitudes, they infer what the attitudes are by observing their own behaviour

the more specific an attitude, the more likely it is to predict behaviour

stronger attitudes predict behaviour more accurately than weak or vague attitudes

• people state attitudes that are socially desirable rather than accurate
• a problem researchers run into when studying attitudes

• technique where participants were hooked up to a fake lie detector and asked questions, compared to a control group who were not connected to a fake lie detector
• the fake lie detector group yielded more less socially desirable aswers

• an attitude of which the person is unaware
• an example of a problem researchers run into when studying attitudes

• a test that looks for implicit attitudes
• look at reaction time pairings for pleasant/unpleasant things

• multiple component effort
• 1. listening to persuasive messages arguing against prejudiced views toward a particular group
• 2. having people write arguments supporting an unprejudiced perspective
• 3. trying to reduce the affective reaction associated with a particular group by presenting information about them in neutral or non-affecting associated situations

generalized impressions about a person or a group based on the social category they occupy

• negative stereotypical attitudes towards an individual from another group
• strong relationship be stereotypes and prejudices

• humans generally categorize themselves in terms of similarities to come people and differences from others
• offers some insight into who we our
• our in group
• this categorization is though to be one of the man contributors to stereotypes and prejudice
• vs our out-group

• a theory of the formation prejudices 
• the amount of actual conflict between in groups and out groups determines the degree of prejudice or discrimination between those groups
• focuses on recent history

• a theory that emphasizes social cognitive factors in the onset of prejudice
• emerge through 3 processes:
• 1. social categorization - in which a person affiliates with a particular group as a way of figuring out how to act and react in the world
• 2. social identity - in which the person forms an identity within the group
• 3. social comparison, in which the group member compares the group favourably with other groups and in turn derives a sense of positive well being from looking at himself as superior in some way

• emphasizes the content of the message, emphasizing factual information and logical arguments to persuade.
• more effort on the receivers part, often used for matters of some significance
• careful and deliberate

• superficial information, feelings, impressions to persuade
• ex. how attractive the spokesperson is
• less likely to last than persuasion formed through the central route

• a message
• a source
• a receiver

• more likely to be persuaded by a source who is rated as more knowledgeable or more likeable
• if we think they are more similar to us
• credible - by presenting both sides of an issue
• interaction with the audience can also play a roll, smarter audience needs more logic, stupider needs more superficial

get someone to agree to something small, then up the anti. More likely to say yes once you've already said yes

make a huge request, then a more acceptable one.

• can be powerful
• must make receivers actually believe something bad is going to happen

• forewarning that you are going to try and persuade them will raise their defences - less likely to change their perspectives as much as those who are not told
• beginning with a weak argument will make subsequent arguments seem weaker

• casual explanations of behaviour that we make that we make to attempt to figure out why people, including ourselves, do things
• fall into two categories 
• 1. dispositional or internal - attributes focusing on peoples traits as the cause of their behaviour
• 2. situation or external - focus on environmental factors causing the behaviours

the tendency to use dispositional (internal) attributions to explain the behaviour of other people

the discrepancy between how we explain other people's behaviour (dispositionally) and how we explain our own behaviour (situationally)

the tendency people have to attribute their successes to internal causes and their failures to external ones

• social rules about how members of a society are expected to act
• explicit norms - are stated openly (stop at a red light
• implicit norms - not openly stated but we are still aware of them

are agreed on expectations about what members of a group do

are agreed on expectations about what members of a group out to do

a set of norms ascribed to a person's social position - expectations and duties associated with individual's position in the family, at work, in the community, and in other settings

• communal characteristics to women - that is, ones associated with the welfare of other people
• agentic characteristics to men - that is, those associated with assertiveness, control and confidence

• people are inclined to behave in ways that are consistent with the expectations of their roles
• aka woman are more socialable because society brings them up to think they are supposed to be

the tendency to yeild to social pressure

• studied conformity
• asked to pick which lines are the same length
• almost 75% when along with the wrong answer
• group unanimity was key - if even one person said something different it greatly reduced how much the participants went along with the group
• group size was also important - <4 didn't bring about a large conformity effect

• see it as bad and want to stand out
• collectivist cultures value fitting in with other people

the act of following direct commands, usually given by an authority figure

65% of people continued to 450xxx shock. predicted only 1% would

• 1. if a confederate served as a "co-teacher" with the research participant and refused to continue, over 90% of the real participants followed suit and disobeyed as well
• 2. the salience of a victim's suffering - it's obviousness - affected participants' obedience. i.e if they could see he was in pain, stopped
• 3. proximity to the victim affected obedience. If seated in room with the person getting shocked, less continued

how membership or participation in a group influences out thoughts and behaviours

• an organized, stable collection of individuals in which the members are aware of and influence one another and share a common identity
• interdependent

• optimal group size is dependent on the activity
• additive tasks, group productivity increases directly with group size. (ex. clearing snow from a driveway)
• conjunctive task, members are only as strong a their weakest member, more members doesn't necessarily increase productivity 
• disjunctive task, requires a single solution, bigger groups are better, more ideas and one person can be smartest and give best idea
• divisible task, the simultaneous performance of many different activities, large groups tend to be better

• an effect in which the presence of others enhances performance
• more research was done that showed simple tasked benefited from others, but complex tasks could be interfered with (arousal levels)
• more recently they have looked at peoples interpretations of and reactions to the presence of others. Lack of trust decreases contribution, as well as perceived disregard of ideas by other group members decreased.

• refers to the phenomenon in which people exert less effort on a collective task than they would on a comparable individual task
• most often in large groups
• men and people from wester cultures more likely to do
• a cohesive group will diminish the chance of social loafing

• when certain group members lack motivation to contribute
• feel isolated from the group
• calculate the cost of contributing as too high
• view their own contributions as unnecessary

• group members are each explicitly reminded of their uniqueness and importance
• they are given specific and challenging goals
• the output of each member is publicly identified
• when the members are given clear norms and comparison standards for their work

• when an initial tendency of individual group members is intensified following group discussion
• aka you like a band, you talk about liking a band, you like the band a lot now

• a form of faulty group decision making that occurs when group members strive for unanimity and this goal overrides their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action
• ex. kennedy, bay of pigs cuba ordeal
• group members experience an illusion of invulnerability and unquestioned belief in the groups inherent morality

• 1. strong similarity in group members backgrounds and ideologies
• 2. high group cohesiveness
• 3. high perceived threat
• 4. elevated stress
• 5. insulation from outside influence
• 6. a directive leader

• leader of the group should encourage members to air objections and doubts and should accept criticism of the groups judgements
• assign group members the roles of devils advocate
• outsides should be invited in to group meetings to challenge the groups core views and decisions 

self-sacrificing behaviour carried out for the benefit of others.

helping behaviours that are done to reduce one's own personal distress or receive rewards

• when people empathize and identify with the individuals in need
• when they take the perspective of the victim
• people who are generally trusting and outward-looking and who form secure attachments in their relationships

we are more likely to intervene when we are alone than when we are in a group after witnessing an injustice

• bystanders must:
• 1. notice the event
• 2. interpret the event as an emergency
• 3. feel personal responsibility for acting
• 4. consider what form of assistance is needed
• 5. implement action
• one explanation for bystander effect is that step 3 is disrupted, with large groups creating a diffusion of responsibility

theory that we get aggressive in response to frustration

• snubbing, gossip, excluding others
• woman more likely to do

• direct physical and verbal abuse
• men more likely to do

• operates at 3 levels
• 1. cognitively - we think certain things about the other person
• 2 affectively - we experience particular feelings towards the person
• 3. behaviourally - we act certain ways toward the person

• fondness and affection for another person
• five key factors
• 1. similarity
• 2. proximity
• 3. self-disclosure
• 4. situational factors
• 5. physical attractiveness

• how freud viewed love
• a transformation os sexual desire into a more socially acceptable form

attachment, caring, intimacy

• robert sternerg
• love is composed of:
• 1. intimacy - feelings that promote closeness and connection
• 2. passion - involves intense desires for union with the other person
• 3. commitment - refers to the decision to maintain the relationship across time

• sternerg
• high in intimacy and passon

• sternberg
• high on commitment and intimacy

• sternberg
• high on all, intimacy, passion and commitment

• sternberg
• high in commitment

the ultimate obsessive form of romantic love