Exam 3 Study Guide (Social Psych) PDF

EXAM 3 STUDY GUIDE Chapter 12: Aggression Aggression Definition ○ What is aggression? Intentional behavior aimed at causing physical or psychological pain to another person. Violence us a specific type of aggression that involves the intention to choose extreme harm...

EXAM 3 STUDY GUIDE Chapter 12: Aggression Aggression Definition ○ What is aggression? Intentional behavior aimed at causing physical or psychological pain to another person. Violence us a specific type of aggression that involves the intention to choose extreme harm ○ What is NOT aggression? Aggression doesn’t include thoughts, hurting yourself, accidents, and helping. The act doesn’t have to be successful to be considered aggression, the intentions is what is important Types of aggression ○ Hostile aggression vs. Instrumental aggression: Hostile aggression is aggression steeming from feeling anger with wanting to cause pain to someone else. EXAMPLE: You push people that are on your way because they got you annoyed and they are on your way. Instrumental aggression is aggression that is done as a means to achieve some goal other than causing pain. EXAMPLE: Mostly any sport aggression that happens during the game since their goal is to win. ○ Physical aggression vs. Relational aggression: Physical aggression is using physical force to harm someone or something including hitting, kicking shoving, or any other physical violence. EXAMPLE: Men use more phsyical aggression than women. Such as men pinching another men during a fight. Relational aggression is when it involves harming someone through manipulation or damage to their relationship or social status like spreading rumors, excluding someon from a group, or other forms of social manipulation. EXAMPLE: Women use this type of aggression more than men. ○ What do we gain from aggression? Cope with annoyance (it helps you deal with things or people that irritate you), gain rewards/status (you get something you want or to climb up the social ladder.), protection (keep yourself or others safre from harm) Theories of Aggression ○ How we measure aggression: Self report (perticipants complete questionnaires or surveys where they report their own aggressive thoughts, feeling, and behaviors). Shock experiment (paricipants are given the option to deliver electric shocks to other, with the intensity and frequency of shocks indicating levels of aggression). Hot sauce paradigm (participants are asked to prepare a dish for someone else, and the amount of hot sauce they add is used as a measure of aggression). Causes of aggression: ○ Physiological: Fight or flight, when your body’s natural reaction to danger it prepares you either to confront the threat (fight) or run away (flight). Establish dominance and achieve status, aggression can be used to show power and gain respect or higher social status. Alcohol and drugs can lower your inhibitions and increase impulsivity which can lead to aggressive behavior. ○ Learning: Social Lerning Theory: People learn social behavior in large part through observation and imitation of others and by cognitive processes such as plans. expectations, and beliefs Bandura’s Bobo Doll Study: Experiemnt in early 1960’s where children would watch adults intereact with a Bobo doll (a big inflatable toy). There were three groups: one saw the adults bejave aggressively towards the doll by kicking etc., the other saw adults playing non-aggressively, and the third saw no interaction at all. 88% who watched aggression were aggressive. 0% who didn’t watch aggression were aggressive. Lasted 8 months later – 40% who saw aggression were still aggressive. Frustration-aggression theory: the perception that you are being prevented from attaining a goal, increases the probability of an aggressive response. (when people feel frustrated/blocked from achieving a goal, they are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior.) It explains hostile aggression ○ Social norms: aggress to save face in response to threat to sel-esteem, status, or respect, most problematic if threat is public and long term. (people become aggressive to protect their self-esteem, status, or respect when they feel these are threatened. This reaction is especially problematic if the threat is public and lasts for a long time). ○ Environmental: high temperatures associate with more aggressive driving, increased number of assaults, murders, riots. Unplesant odors can increase frustration and lead to aggressive behavior. Stressful noises can heighten stress and trigger aggression. Being overcrowded places can make people feel stressed and anxious, leading to aggressive actions. ○ Cues: are signals or stimuli in the environment that can trigger specific thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Experiment: in 1967 Leonard Berkowitz and Anthiny LePage did a study calles Weapons effect where participants were angered by a confederate. After being mad the participants were placed in a room with a table that had either weapons or non aggressive objects, the participants were then given the opportunity to administer electric shocks to the confederate as a measure of aggression. ○ Rational Consideration: is aggression that is used as a means to achieve a goal, rather than out of anger or frustration. Construal is high reward, low risk, when  people perceive that the benefits of aggression behavior outweigh the potential risks, they are more likely to engage in instrumental aggression. Violent media and aggression: desensitization when repeated exposure to violent media reduces emotional responses to real-life violence making people less sensitive to aggression. Arousal can happen when viewers misinterpret their physiological reactions to media as feelings of aggression. Modeling and imitation, individuals mimic aggressive behaviors they observe in media thinking these behaviors are okay. Media also teaches social norms that aggression is viable response to conflict. Beliefs in dangerous world, makes people perceive threats more readily and react aggressively. Media can shape beliefs about outcomes, making people think that aggression leads to positive results reinforcing aggressive behavior. Reducing Aggression: Catharsis: The idea that if you “let out” your anger by acting aggressively or watching others be aggressive, you will feel better and be less likely to get angry. Aggressive drive is reduced when one “releases” aggressive energy. Doesn’t release pent-up emotions,makes you more aggressive (bandura) ——————————————————————————————————————— Chapter 8: Conformity Conformity vs Obedience vs Compliance: conformity: doing what others are doing. change in behavior due to the real or imagined influence of others. Obedience: doing what someone asks you to do. Compliance: doing what someone asks you to do without believing in it. Social influence ○ Informational social influence vs normative social influence: informational social influence need to know what is right, see other people as a source of information, think their interpretation of an ambiguous event will be better or more appropriate than our interpretation. Normative social influence conform to be liked or accepted by others, person needs to fit in.People will still conform when the group is really,obviously wrong. Public compliance means that people might change how they act to fit in with a group, even if they don't really believe in what the group stands for. So, they might go along with the crowd but still hold their own opinions Yet, cognitive dissonance is when someone feels uncomfortable because their actions don't match their beliefs. To feel better, they might change either what they do or what they believe. ○ Social norms: implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors,values, and beliefs of its members.  Injunctive vs Descriptive norms: injunctive norms is the belief about how we should behave. People’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others. Descriptive norms is the belief about how we actually behave. People’s perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others. ○ Asch’s line study: Experiment conducted in the 1950’s about investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence a person to conform. In the study participants were asked to match the length of a line on one card to one of three lines on another card. Each participants was placed in a group with other people (people part of the experiment) who intentionally gave incorrect answers. The results showed that a significant number of participants conformed to the incorrect majority at least once, demonstrating the power of social influence and the impact of group pressure on individual judgemnt. This experiment showed how people often conform to fit in with the group, even when they know the group’s decision are wrong. Osea de que sabian los participantes que estaba mal pero aun asi elijieron la respuesta incorrecta porque los otros lo hicieron ○ Social influence Techniques Foot-in-the -door technique: social influence strategy in which getting people to agree first to a small request makes them more likely to agree later to a second, larger request. (Getting someone to agree to a small request first makes them more likely to agree to a bigger request later) Door-in-the-face technique: Social influence strategy in which first asking people for a large request that they probably will refuse makes them more likely to agree later to a second, smaller request. (asking someone for a big favor that they will likely say no to make them more likely to say yes to a smaller faver afterward) Obedience: changing behavior because of a direct command form someone to do so. (changing your behavior because someone tells you to do so). ○ Obedience to authority: complying with a person or group perceived to be a legitimate authority. (Following orders from someone who is seen as having real power or control). ○ Milgram’s obedience study: Stanley Milgram in the 1960’s conducted a experiment to see how far people would go in obeying an authority figure, even if it meant harmin others. Participants were told to give electric shocks to another person (who was an actor but they didn’t know) whenever they answered a question wrong. Many participants continued to administer shocks, even at dangerous levels, (the experimenter was sitting in the same room as the participant and the actor was in another room, also at the beginning the actor said he had heart problems) just because they were told to by an authority figure.  ○ Variations of Milgram’s study: There were three teachers (participants), two of whom were confederates. One confederate was instructed to read the list of word pairs and the other to tell the learner whether his response was correct. The participants’s job was to deliver the shocks, increasing their severity with each error, as the original study. The results from this one was that participants only 10% of the participants gae the maximum level of shock. Seeing the other peers disobey made it much easier for the actual participants to disobey too ○ Replicating Milgram’s study: The milgram’s study was not ethical since the participants described as a “twitching, stuttering wreck who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse. ○ Situational factors that increase obedience: 1. Relieved of responsibility (they don’t feel personally responsible for the consequences of their actions, they’re more likely to obey orders), 2. Clear who is in charge (when it’s obvious who the authority figure is, people tend to follow their commands more easily), 3. Gradual escalation of commands (staring with small, easy-to-follow orders and gradually increasing them makes people more likely to continue obeying), 4. No time to think (when people are given orders quickly and don’t have time to reflect, they’re more likely to comply without questioning) Consequences of conformity and obedience ○ Attitude change: Changing how you feel or think about something. There are two types: public compliance which is when you go along with what others are doing or saying in public, even if you don’t really believe it. You are just trying to fit in or avoid conflict. Private acceptance: conforming to other people’s behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right. You truly think they are right. Sometimes your behavior doesn’t match your beliefs, and this creates an uncomfortable feeling called dissonance and to get rid of it you might have yo change your beliefs to match your behavior. ○ Resisting conformity: Standing firm in your beliefs and actions, even when there is pressure from others to change. It is about staying true to yourself and not just going along with the group. Ways to resist conformity: realizing whats happening, be aware when you are starting to conform just because others are, get a partner in devinance, find someone who also disagrees with the group. Having an ally makes it easier to stand your ground, desire individuation, whnting to be unique and true to yourself can motivate you to resist the pressure to conform and stick yo your own belifs ○ Reducing obedience:Remove physical presence of authority figure, encourage group dissent and questioning, remind people of individual responsibility ——————————————————————————————————————— Chapter 9: Groups 1. What is group? 2 (3/book) or more people who interact and are interdependent (interact-contact/ interdependent-influence others to fulfill needs and goals) ○ Components of a group: Social norms vary by group (different groups have different norms), role shared expectations about how particular people are supposed to behave, example: boss and employee valued differently. Cohesiveness, qualities that blind people together and want to stay members, high cohesiveness is crucial because it helps the group function efficiently and maintain stability. ○ Cohesiveness: Small groups are more likely to form close bonds, making the group feel more supportive. Effort required to gain entry when joining a group requires effort or is seen as an achievement, members value their membership more and feel a stronger connection to the group. Identification with group, when members strongly identify with the group’s values and goals, they feel a sense of belonging and are less likely to leave, evem if there are other options available. ○ How do groups influence us? Teaching norms, stereotype and social norms. Rules about what is accepted, what people are like and what the expectation are for a particula group of people. Providing membership benefits 2. Social facilitation ○ Social facilitation: When people are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated, the tendency to perform better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks. (Having an audience helps with things you are good at but makes tough tasks even harder) ○ When does the presence of other people energize us? When other people are around, it can give us an extra boost of energy. Sometimes, we perform better in the presence of other people.We often perform better on tasks that are easy or well-practiced when other are watching yet for harder tasks the presence of others can make us more nervous and may lead to worse performance ○ Causes of social facilitation: Three theories: first, the presence of other people makes us more alert. Second, people are often concerned about how others are evaluating them (evaluation apprehension). Third, we need to be alert when in the presence of others, except that it focuses on the idea that any source of distraction, it prevents overthinking but it disrupt concentartion (distraction). ○ Evaluation apprehension: concern for how others are evaluating us. You feel as if the other people are evaluating you, you will be embarrassed if you do poorly and pleased if you do well. Social loafing:tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individual accountable. (When you are in a group and no one is checking your work, you might slack off on easy stuff but put in more effort on hard tasks) ○ When performance improves, when it gets worse:  ○ Causes of social loafing: diffusion of responsibility, feel less individual responsibility. Free rider effect, low input, high benefit which means that some people may contribute less expecting others to do the work while still benefit from the group success. Sucker effect, avoid being the “sucker” who does all the work with no recognition ○ Decreasing social loafing: ‘ make individual contributions identifiable, set clear, goals, increase group cohesion, emphasize the importance of the task Deindividuation: the loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can’t be identified (such as when they are in a crowd). Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension, occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad, feel less accountable for actions, increases obedience to group norms. Social roles: shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed t behave ○ Stanford prison study: a study where volunteers (college students) were assigned roles as either guard or prisoners in a mock prison setting. This study was to see the effects of perceived power and authority. After a few days the participants starting to take their rols into extreme ways, with guards displaying abuseve behavior and prisoners showing signs of severe stress and helplessness. This experiment was supposed to last two weeks, but was terminates after only six days due to the alarming behavior exhibited. This experiment wasn’t ethical. ○ Preventing deindividuation: Identify individuals by name, avoid use of uniforms, allow people to express themselves individually rather than part of a group. Group decision-making: groups tend to make better decisions if it rely on expertise, stimulated by each others’ comments. Make worse decisions if they fall into groupthink ○ Groupthink: when the group is more concerned about reaching and agreement than making a correct decision. It increases with highly cohesive group, isolation, directive leader, stress, and poor decision-making procedures. Symptoms of groupthink: beliefs that group is unvulnerable (group feels invincible and think they can do no wrong), moral (group thinks it is morally superior), better than other groups (group sees itself as better than others), unanimous (illusion that everyone in the group agrees) Overcoming groupthink: Impartial leader (leader shoul remain neutral and not take sides to encourage unbiased discussion and diverse viewpoints), discussion without leader present (group discussions without the leader to allow members to express their opinions freely withou feeling influenced or intimidated), encouragement of discussion and debate (promote open discussion and healthy debate to ensure all perspectives are considered and critically evaluated), include outside experts (bring in external experts to provide fresh insight and challenge the groups consensus), form subgroups (breake the group into smaller subgroups to discuss the issue separately  and then share their conclusions), secret ballots (use anonymous voting methods to gather honest opninins and decisions without the fear of judgement or peer pressure). ○ Group polarization: people become more extreme after conversation instead of reaching a middle ground Causes of group polarization: Two reasons: persuasive arguments, all individuals bring the group a set of arguments supporting their initial recommendadtion. Social comparison, when people discuss an issue in a group, they first check out how everyone feels, individuals support the group’s values and also present themselves in a positive light. Social dilemma- when the best action for an individual will have harmful effects on everyone if chosen by most people ——————————————————————————————————————— Chapter 10: Attraction and Relationship Interpersonal attraction - it is related to the propinquity effect ○ Opposites attract? Or birds of a feather flock together? research evidence demonstrates that it is overwhelmingly similarity and not complementarity that draws people together ○ Benefits of social relationships: attachment/comfort/security, social interests and attitudes, reassurance of worth, help in times of nedd, guidance/advice, someone to take care of Liking ○ Propinquity: the more we see and interact with the person, the more likely they are to become your friend. Experiment: the westgate west apartment study showed that close people become more friendly, people who lived closer to stairs and mailboxes liked more ○ Familarity: we typically associate positive feelings with things that are familiar, like comfort food, songs we remember from childhood, and even certain corporate logos. Mere exposure effect: the finding that the more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it. Study: Bring friend and picture of friend, researcher created mirror picture asked participant and friend which version they liked better, friend chose the mirror picture, participant chose the original picture ○ Similarity: Like people similar to ourselves, same attitudes, values, personality, demographics, style and experiences. Example: birds of a feather flock together. Marching principle: attracted to people in our range. It happens across variety of attributes and over time we become more similar.  ○ Reciprocal liking: we like people who like us (self-fulfilling prophecy- when what you expect to happen comes true because you acted in a way that made it happen) Physical attractiveness ○ What is beautiful is good stereotype : physically attractive individuals are often perceived to have positive traits. It is associated to ve sociable, extroverted, socially competent, sexual, happier, and assertive. This steareotype heavily influences first impression. They also perceived as vain and materialistic ○ Blind date study: 752 students at U of MN during orientation, couples spent few hours together, at the end they had to ask if they wanted to spend moe time ○ Contrast effect ‘going home alone’ effect: phenomenon aften studied in social psychology related to attractiveness perceptions throughout the night at social gathering such as bas or parties. Relationships : state of mutual awareness and interdependence between 2 people. ○ What constitutes a relationship? Both have to believe in relationships, and emotional bond and commitment ○ Types of relationships Communal: relationships which peoples primary concern is being responsive to the other person’s needs. It is long term and it doesn’t track to owing. Exchange: They are governed by need for equity. Like to be repaid immediately for a favor, feel exploited when our favors are not returned, keep track of who is contributing to the relationship, being able to help the person has no effect on our mood. It is shorter-term and it tracks to owing ○ Types of love Compassionate love: the feeling of intimacy and affection we have for someone that are not accompanied by passion or physiological arousal () Passionate love: An intense longing we feel for a person accompanied by physiological arousal ○ Theories of relationship satisfaction Social exchange theory: the idea that people’s feelings about a relationship depend on their perceptions of its rewards and costs, the kind of relationship they deserve, and their chances for having a better relationship with someone else. (people’s feelings about their relationship depends on what they get out of teh relationship versus what they have to put in, what kind of relationship they think they deserve, whether they think they can find a better relationship with someone else). Equity theory: concerned about fairness in relationships. Satisfied when relationship is equal and unsatisfied if under-benefit in the large costs and get few rewards, over-benefit if few costs, large rewards  Desired loving behaviors: not just a cost-benefit ratio or fairness, but a specific type of behavior matter. Satisfied if you receive actions that make you feel loved. Four areas of desire: relationship support (providing emotional, physical, and logistical support to a partner), scripting (engaging in verbal expressions that reinforce the relationship such as saying “I love you” offering compliments and reassuring your partner of your commitment), caring actions (performing thoughtful acts taht show genuine care and consideration, like planning special activities, small surprises, or acts of kindness tailored to the partner’s preferences, physical intimacy/sex (significant aspect of many romantic relationships that fosters closeness and deepns emotional bonds). ○ Relationship maintenance: stable relationships based on positive illusions, false memories, positive attributions, and willingness to compromise. The happiest marriages are the least rational ones. ——————————————————————————————————————— Chapter 11: Prosocial Behavior Prosocial Behavior vs. Altruism: Prosocial behvaior is any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person regardles of the helper’s motives, it could be empathy, duty, or even personal gain. Altruism is the desire to help someone else without thinking consciously about your own self-interests, no benefit, maybe costs, no expectations for anything in return. Helping behaviors ○ Why do people help? Norms: can influence us to engage in helping. Norms can also inhibit helping. Reciprocity norms: The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future Social responsibility norm: we help those who need our help without expectation of anything in return Personal influences: The individual traits and characteristics that affect how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. Empathy for others: if you can feel and understand what someone else is going through, you are more likely to help them because you feel their pain or joy. Altruistic personality enjoy helping or feel a need to help. Need for social approval, if you like being recognized and appreciated for your actions, you might be more motivated to help other to gain approval and feel valued  ○ Bystander effect-Darley and Latane’s decision tree helping behavior: The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help. Darley and Latane’s tree of helping behavior is 1. Notice the event 2.interpret as emergency (pluralistic ignorance: bystanders assume nothing is wrong because no one else is concerned) 3. Take responsibility (diffusion of responsibility: there are other people who can help and maybe someone else is more qualified. Attribution: it is the victim’s own fault they’re in this mess) 4. Know how to help (lack of knowledge or resources) 5. Help ○ How to help: 1. Make the situation clear, 2. Make someone take responsibility, 3. Help them help you and make it easy and tell them how they can help as safe and as easy as possible Altruism ○ Definition of altruism: The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper. ○ Does altruism really exist? Idk I guess it is debatable, the example the teacher used was the Friends episode with phobe and joey when Joey is helping in the teleton