Social Psychology PDF

Allport's textbook, Social Psychology (1924) Instead of sociological issues and themes, which is what had exclusively been researched so far… He emphasised individual behaviours and measurements of attitudes. Behaviourism argues that “...a child does not act upon the world, the world acts upon them....

Allport's textbook, Social Psychology (1924) Instead of sociological issues and themes, which is what had exclusively been researched so far… He emphasised individual behaviours and measurements of attitudes. Behaviourism argues that “...a child does not act upon the world, the world acts upon them...” Skinner believed our behaviour is shaped by learning operant conditioning: Repeat behaviour which is met with approval from others = reinforcement / repeat behaviour which is met with disapproval from others = punishment. People are more likely to act, feel, and think in ways that get rewarded Conditioning will focus a child towards gender- typical behaviour; child has absolutely no control over the behavioural outcome. The opposite is classical/evaluative/aversive conditioning, when attitude objects come to evoke positive or negative affect by association with affect-inducing events David Hume > attribution theory: Attribution deals with how individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience, as being either external or internal Adam Smith > emotions and morality: Morality isn’t something we have to calculate, but is natural and built into every social being Kurt Lewin > B = f(P, E): Human behaviour should be seen as part of continuum, with individual variations from the norm being a function of tensions between perceptions of self and environment. WEIRD = W – Western E – Educated I – Industrialised R – Rich D – Democratic Völkerpsychologie by Wundt: studies phenomena at collective level. Gestalt psychology: Looks at behaviour and thoughts as whole. Such as WWII “Obedience towards authority” (Milgram) People obey either out of fear or desire to appear cooperative with group “Opinions and Social Pressure” (Ash) conducted a famous experiment that highlighted the fragility of individual when confronted with the contrary opinion from majority. Some findings are universal, others not. For instance, people around the world find the same values e.g. kindness, loyalty, honesty important (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001) In contrast, people do not fall for the Muller-Lyer illusion in all societies. is an optical illusion consisting of three stylised arrows. When viewers were asked to place a mark on figure at midpoint, they tend to place it more towards the "tail" end. Findings in social psychology don't replicate well. We’d expect that around 5%, but in fact around 50% do not replicate in social psychology (OSC, 2015) Intergroup contact reduces prejudice (Allport, 1954) Found across range of target groups. Disasters increase prosocial behaviour (Drury, 2018; Rodriguez, 2006). In 9 of 10 public conflicts, at least 1 bystander, but typically several, will do something to help (Philpot, 2020). Lost wallets are more likely returned when they contain money (Cohn et al., 2019). Trust is negatively associated with loneliness (Rotenberg, 2010) Trust is positively associated with job performance and job satisfaction (Usikalu, 2010) Trust is positively associated with volunteering (Uslaner, 2005) “attitude”? Evaluation of (how good or bad something is) attitude object (people, things, ideas) Definition II? Attitudes can differ in Valence (whether they are positive or negative) & Moral conviction (the belief that something is moral or immoral) Attitude (One’s evaluation of the specific behaviour in question) Subjective Norm (One’s perception that important others will approve/disapprove of the behaviour & motivation to comply) Behavioural Intention (One’s aim to perform the behaviour ) Perceived Behavioural Control (One’s perception of how difficult it would be to perform the behaviour) “How much are your feelings about X connected to your core moral beliefs or convictions?” (Skitka, 2005): Our feelings can be mixed. Ambivalence, the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas on something. Attitude isn’t a value, which are more abstract ideals that guide people’s behaviour (e.g. security, tradition, success) They are mostly positive and future oriented, and influence our attitudes. Ideologies are interrelated with aspects concerning the social, economic or political system. Personality traits / stable tendencies drive how people tend mostly to behave, across situations. Social norms are Imposed by others upon the individual. Ego defence is when you project internally-held conflicts onto another [as means to protect self-esteem] e.g. dislike boss rather than consider own mistakes. Value-expression is expressing who/what. Conveys an identity that connects to groups. Observational learning: When see others are rewarded, we might adopt their attitudes, or avoid the attitudes held by those punished. Behavioural sources: when you don’t have a well-developed attitude, one infers their attitude by reflecting on action, rightly/wrongly (Bem’s self-perception theory) Mere Exposure Effect / familiarity: Tendency for repeat-exposure to object, even without any reinforcement, to increase liking for object. “The more we see it the more we like it” (Zajonc, 1968) Cover-story: investigate perception of foreign language. Presented Chinese language characters [some repeatedly, sometimes 25 times] Participants simply observed the characters. After exposure, participants guessed whether each character had a positive of negative meaning in Chinese. RESULTS Repeated exposure didn’t provide any information about the characters or involve some reinforcement, but findings show increase of liking caused simply by exposure. Affective, not cognitive… Familiarity with faces, Participants came to laboratory, had several photos taken. Returned to lab 2 weeks later & brought a close friend. Both participants and friends, separately were shown two photos of participant. Uncertainty reduction: we are often uncertain how to respond to novel objects (uncertain = unpleasant) more familiar with an object, there is less uncertainty. Misattribution of perceptual fluency to liking. Perceptual fluency: when familiar with an object, we perceive and categorise it more quickly and with more ease than unfamiliar objects. Moral intuition (Haidt, 2001) argued we cannot always provide a rationale justification for attitudes: “I don’t know, I can't explain it, I just know it's wrong.” Some attitudes have a genetic component, are inherited from our parents e.g. attitudes imbued from moral conviction: allows for survival of self within group (Brandt & Wetherell, 2012) Self-Persuasion: People convince themselves they like what they do AFTER they did something. This is called the effect justification effect Effort Justification (Aronson & Mills, 1959): Embarrassment test, asked to join a discussion group. Participants volunteered to join ongoing discussion groups on sex. Supposed purpose: investigation of “group discussion process and dynamics”. Effort Justification: Severity of initiation was manipulated (how much it COSTs to join) – recording done privately. 3 conditions — Severe condition: read aloud 12 obscene words. Mild condition: read aloud 5 words related to sex but not obscene. Control didn’t have any conditions. Participants joined a discussion group then afterwards rated liking of discussion & group members. The severe “initiation” yielded higher liking of discussion and participants! Insufficient Justification (Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959) … Induce participants to perform a boring task, then ask participants to say it was really fun, LIE to next. Inducement to lie: $1 or $20. Larger reward made participant change attitude. Source attribution effect is based on conformation bias. Volunteers were 623 Americans, either Democrats or Republicans. Indicated how much they agreed with quotes from well-known politicians. There were 3 between-subject conditions: Quotes attributed to a famous Democrat, famous Republican, or unattributed. An overall attitude toward an object or person can influence subsequent judgements. We judge a the speaker, not what is said - “Liberals and Conservatives Are Similarly Motivated to Deny Attitude-Inconsistent Science” (Washburn & Skitka, 2017) Measuring implicit attitudes like reaction time measures. Measuring Explicit Attitudes like Self-report measures: A Likert scale is psychometric test named after its inventor, is commonly used in research questionnaires where participants read a number of statements and express how much they agree or disagree with each statement. Problem is there are socially desirable responses. People might respond in ways to make themselves look better. Measuring Explicit Attitudes. Luckily, there are workaround. Anonymise, include trick questions, include scale to measure tendency for responding in socially desirable way (and statistically control for this) Lie detection (e.g. reading into unnatural pauses, micro-expressions, inappropriate laughter) The bogus pipeline or fake-polygraph can be used. There are Non-Verbal Measures. Example is sitting further away from an individual whom you evaluate negatively. Rank order departments for budget cuts (Callan, Dawtry, & Olson, 2012) Rank of Geriatrics department was used as indirect measure of ageism. Typically an Implicit Association Test (IAT) assesses whether participants find it easier to associate a target with “good” or “bad” meanings. Participants “sort” items from the categories to left or right at the same time as “sorting” words with (assumed) good or bad meanings. Between 2007 to 2020, explicit race attitudes decreased by 98% in the USA. Implicit race attitudes also decreased, but only by 26% (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2022) It’s contested how well the IAT predicts discrimination level (Schimmack, 2021) Weak correlation with explicit measures. Does it measure discrimination or similarity? White people usually identify more with other white people and positive words. It’s possible to fake it (Fiedler, 2006) Attitude-Behaviour Link: When do attitudes predict behaviour? (1) When the attitude is strong (2) When the measures match [principle of compatibility] (3) In conjunction with subjective norms (4) When the person actually has the capacity to act (5) If multiple related attitudes and behaviour are combined (6) If situation is weak. Strong Attitudes are strong when there is extremity, value expression, personal significance, accessibility, direct experience. Compatibility Principle = Measures of attitudes and measures of behaviour must be matched in terms of generality. A measure of a broad, general attitude will predict a broad, general measure of behaviour that samples across most domains. A specific attitude will predict a narrow measure of behaviour that is limited to one domain. Example: attitude to fitness vs. attitude to jogging. Perceived Behavioural Control. What influences perceived behavioural control? Environmental conditions, External threat, Lack of alternatives. Biological needs like addictions, Lack of time, Low self-efficacy What is culture? Culture is simply a large social group of individuals who normally are in geographic proximity with each other and share a common set of beliefs and values such as language, religion, and traditions (Stangor, 2004) Cultural psychology is study of how it reflects and shapes the mind “An effort to understand the [mind or culture] without considering the other is bound to reveal an incomplete picture” (Heine, 2011) Markus (< USA) Kitayama (< JAPAN) America: “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” / Japan: “the nail that stands out gets pounded down” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) Individualistic cultures — Western: Cultural belief that individuals are independent of each other. Value autonomy, self- sufficiency, personal rights, unique identity. Collectivist cultures — Eastern: Cultural belief that individuals are interdependent on each other. Value group well-being, harmony, common goals, shared values. Degree of individualism (or independence) vs collectivism (or interdependence) varies across cultures Analytic vs holistic perception (Nisbett and Miyamoto, 2005) Westerners: Attend to the salient object independently of its context. Easterners: Attend to the relationship between the object and the context in which it is located Causal attributions (Nisbett and Masuda, 2003) Westerners: Causal attribution will emphasise the properties of things. Easterners: Causal attributions will emphasise the context of things. Chinese are more comfortable with apparent contradictions than Americans Temporal perceptions (Gu, 2019) English speakers: past behind, future front. Chinese speakers: future behind, past front. Linear vs circular Object recognition in visual field (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001) Americans focus on salient focal objects. Japanese focus more on background context Bicultural individuals (Hong, 2000) Westernised Chinese students in Hong Kong. Cultural priming: American or Chinese primes. Findings - people who have internalised two cultures are capable of switching between then in response to different cultural settings Twenty Statements Task (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) A standardised measure of self-attitudes like personal characteristics, interpersonal relationships, physical characteristics, transcendent characteristics. Respondents are presented with a sheet of 20 numbered blanks and are asked to write 20 answers to the relatively simple questions. They are categorised dichotomously either as: 1) Consensual references or 2) Sub-consensual references (Ma and Schoenman, 1997) USA & Kenya: Differences between countries. Predicted that collectivist Kenyan cultures would have self-concepts involving more social components. Personal Characteristics Interpersonal style (how I typically act) and psychological style (how I typically think or feel) Roles and Memberships (social categories controlled by self): Kinship role, Occupational role, political affiliation etc Self-enhancement is motive to maintain a positive self-view without necessarily changing Self-improvement is motive to develop one’s abilities and become a better version of yourself Easterners self-enhance less (Heine & Hamamura, 2007) Spontaneously use more negative terms to describe themselves. Provide less inflated ratings of merits. Self-effacing social comparisons. More realistic about the future. Less self-serving attributions Easterners self-improvement more (Heine & Hamamura, 2007) Acknowledge rather than discount negative feedback. Persist more after failure than success. Consider tasks on which they fail more, so prone to self-criticism and subsequent corrective behaviour Self-enhancement is pan-cultural (Sedikides, 2003) Both Easterners and Westerners self-enhance on important traits. Self-enhancement is simply expressed very differently: private vs public; candid vs tactical Lexical approach (Allport & Odbert, 1936) The lexical approach will assume that important ways in which individuals differ are represented by words. Only a a small set of personality traits is believed ‘core’. Estimates range from 3 (Eysenck’s EPQ) to 16 (Cattell’s 16PF) Core personality traits — 18,000 trait words in English can be reduced by ‘factor analysis’ with cross-cultural support from 36 countries Uncorrelated with perceptions (Terracciano, 2005) These perceptions of national character may be generalisations from personal anecdotal experience Fiske’s 5 factor model: 1) openness to experience 2) conscientiousness 3) extraversion 4) agreeableness 5) neuroticism Indigenous approach: Chinese personality (Cheung, 1996/2003) — Created list of indigenous Chinese personality traits, for example by asking people from China to describe themselves and others 1) dependability 2) emotional stability 3) social potency 4) individualism 5) interpersonal relatedness Why stereotypes? Humans as cognitive misers rely on mental shortcuts known as heuristics. Stereotypes help us make sense of different groups more easily. Stereotype suppression takes effort. Exacerbated by factors that limit available cognitive resources. Need for concrete, unambiguous models Stereotype threat (Steele, 2002) A situational predicament in which people are/feel themselves at risk of conforming to stereotypes about social group Self-fulfilling prophesy (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978) Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's study showed that children's performance was enhanced if teachers were led to expect this performance level. Equally, if teachers were led to expect a worse performance, it would be diminished. Impact of stereotypes: Rated their partner more negatively, Experienced more depressive emotions, Reported a sense of being depersonalised (Heider’s Attribution Theory, 1958) People explain observable behaviour with unobservable or motivated causes. People look for stable and enduring properties.People look for underlying cause of action: Internal – Something about the person External – Something about the situation (Kelley’s Covariation Theory, 1967) Attributing events to conditions that tend to be present when the event happens and that are absent when it does not. Distinctiveness, consistency, consensus Distinctiveness: Does action occur only with that entity, not with other entities? Consistency: Does action occur each time entity is present and in every context? Consensus: Does action also occur in other individuals? Highly rational model, but assumes we take accurate notes about particular actors/actions. People over-attribute events to internal causes with limited info, causing a fundamental attribution error Actor-Observer Bias (Malle, 2006) — Tendency for actors to attribute their own behaviours to situation and then for observers to explain behaviours in terms of personality traits. Separate effect was discovered, dubbed the self-serving bias in attribution, according to which actors will attribute their failures (Abramson, 1989) People with depression, generally have a ‘pessimistic attributional style’ Attributing negative events in their life internally (Beck, 1979) argued that Psychotherapeutic techniques can train you to stop unhealthy way of thinking (Orobio de Castro, 2002) Aggressive people prone to the ‘hostile attribution bias’ which is seeing innocent acts by other people as intentional provocation (Lansford , 2006) Children aged five who interpret behaviours this way considerably more likely to become quite aggressive, within 12 years (Fincham, 2002) People who attribute partner’s behaviours to internal factors are less forgiving and furthermore not as satisfied with marriage (Haynes, 2008) Training people to explain their performance in terms of changeable instead of trait-based factors leads to favourable results Components of persuasion: source (the origin), message (content and method), target (recipient/audience) Example of persuasion: health advertisement - fear appeals, goal to attract most attention whilst being relevant to audience Two routes of persuasion: central route - careful attention to message or argument quality / peripheral route - attention on superficial characteristics Persuasion: a message that changes a person's attitude or behaviours Compliance: behaviour as result of a direct request - Robert B Cialdini Principles of compliance: friendship/liking, commitment/consistency, scarcity, reciprocity, social validation/norms, authority Norm of reciprocity: the rule that obliges us to repay others for what we have received from them, even if it was not requested Door-in-the-face technique: start with an unreasonably large request, wait for other party to say no, then lower your request to something reasonable Contrast effect: Smaller request seems reasonable. People feel obligated to reciprocate the concession, lowering the offer Foot-in-the-door technique: or norm of consistency is rule that obliges us to be consistent in our behaviour. Start with a small request, wait for the other party to say 'yes' then ask for an additional request. people feel obliged to keep consistent, more likely to comply to larger request they would have rejected Lowball technique: commitment: once we have made a commitment we feel pressure to follow through. Have people commit to a course of action, wait until they say 'yes' then make the request more costly; adding previously hidden details. First request should not be too small, second request not too large Matching hypothesis: Message more persuasive if content matches recipient Need for Affect McGuires’ Attitude Inoculation: process of resisting strong persuasive arguments by getting practice fighting off weaker versions of same arguments (Maio, 2001): Motivation to approach or avoid emotion-inducing situations. (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982): Target recipient/audience characteristics. Need for Cognition is tendency for people to enjoy thinking (Haddock, 2008): “New beer brand tastes delicious” then “New beer contains real fruits” First message more appealing to people high in Need for Affect Second message more appealing to people high in Need for Cognition What is group? There’s no single definition but many. Ingroup: The groups that we belong to Outgroup: The groups that we don’t belong to. 3-12 people, see themselves and seen by others as unit, somewhat interdependent, embedded in larger systems like a university (Guzzo & Dickson, 1996) Stereotype: A simplified but widely shared belief about characteristics of group and members. Prejudice: A negative, affective pre-judgement about group and individual members. Discrimination: Negative treatment of individual because of membership to group. Social Influencer can be incidental or deliberate Social Facilitation “A social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance” (Bond and Titus, 1983) Being in presence of others improved performance, people do better around others than when alone (Norman Triplett, 1898) He arranged for 40 children to play a game that involved turning a small fishing reel, quickly as possible. He found that those who played the game in pairs did better. Exercise, Co-action, Competition, Audience effects = Social Facilitation (Ernst Meumann, 1904) Presence of others leads to arousal (alert/anxious) Arousal makes dominant response more likely, Response you’re most likely to make. Dominant response is usually correct for simple, well-learned tasks, Incorrect for complex tasks. Presence of others > Arousal > Enhanced performance on simple tasks > Impaired performance on complex tasks (Robert Zajonc, 1965) Social Loafing is “tendency for individuals to expend less effort working collectively than when working individually” (Karau and Williams, 1993) Rope pulling task. Being in presence of others worsened individual task performance, Less effort in a group than when alone (Max Ringelmann, 1913) Social Loafing is effected by group size, when people feel their own contribution can be identified, or feel as though it makes a difference 1 = 100% 2 = 93% 3 = 85% Social Conformity: “A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure” (Kiesler & Kiesler, 1969) The convergence of one’s thoughts, feelings or behaviours with an external standard. These can be Private: attitude/opinion change in line with others / Public: overt behaviour change, not attitude/opinion change (Solomon Asch, 1956) Hypothesis = Ambiguous task would lead to group norm. Unambiguous tasks would be independent of group norms. This wasn’t the case. Based on visual discrimination task in 1951. Groups of 7-9 male participants. Just one real participant Participants to match lines with the test line. Alone: 99% success rate 74% conformed 26% didn’t conform. On average, participants conformed on 37% of trials. Informational influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Normative influence to conform with the positive expectation of others (norms) to gain social approval or avoid social disapproval. Group size increased the conformity, this peaked at 15-members. Effect of size depends on nature of influence. Group unanimity, Conformity reduced if group not unanimous. Supporters reduce conformity. Dissenters and Deviates also reduce the subsequent conformity. Conforming can be useful or appropriate but sometimes not. Idiosyncrasy credits describe an individual's capacity to acceptably deviate from group expectations. Groupthink (Janis, 1972/1982) Group’s need for agreement and consensus leads them to make faulty or ineffective decisions instead of best solution to problem. E.g. Bay of Pigs invasion, escalation of Vietnam War, failure to prepare for Pearl Harbour attack. Highly cohesive groups with similarity between members. Often disagreement construed as lack of friendship and respect. Group leader has opinion on issue takes a side. Absence of procedures for discussion and decision-making alienates some individuals. Group isolated from external influences and believes their motives have valence and conviction. Janis’ evidence was obtained using retrospective accounts. Causal directions between some variables not clear. Solution to Groupthink (Rose, 2011) Establish impartial leadership, Each person instructed to prioritise doubts, Involve subject matter experts, Include second-chance meetings to revisit/question decisions made. Challenge known group-norm that disagreement disrespect, Emphasis on finding best not minimally acceptable solution, play the Devil’s advocate. Minority influence happens when a majority is persuaded to accept the beliefs of minority (Serge Moscovici, 1976) Too much emphasis placed on power of majority. A minority can influence a majority. Asch had agreed. Made the distinction between compliance and conversion. Compliance is common in conformity studies, whereby they publicly conform to group norms but privately reject them. Conversion involves how a minority can influence the majority; involving both public and private acceptance of different view (i.e. internalisation) Via informational social influence, leading to re-examination of views. In order for success, the minority group must be consistent and unbiased as part of zeitgeist. (Nemeth, 1977) Mock jury paradigm with 7 civil & criminal. When a majority verdict [2/3rds] vs unanimous verdict [100%] was necessary, they had to hear out minority. A unanimous decision rule actually may have a greater effect on minority influence in civil than in criminal ones. With unanimity, the deliberations lasted much longer and involved more conflict. Recalled more evidence Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif, 1966) — The Robbers Cave experiment: intergroup conflict/cooperation among 22 boys. Initially separated into 2 groups, they developed group identities. Introducing competitive tasks led to hostility between groups. Later, cooperative tasks reduced this conflict, highlighting role of shared goals in resolving group tensions… Can be traced back to Marx’ work on class conflict. Intergroup conflict arises from need to procure scarce resources. Typical for ‘zero-sum’ situations: Limited jobs, food or land Phase 1: Group Attachment — Assigned to separate groups, Located at opposite ends of park, Fun activities, Unaware of another group Phase 2: Intergroup Competition — Series of contests between groups, prizes for winners and escalation based on ethnocentrism like taunts Phase 3: Intergroup Reconciliation — Cooperation tasks from tug-of-war to games which require intergroup formation Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) People want to feel good about themselves, Given that the ingroup is part of their self- concept, they show a preference towards their groups. One way is through social comparison. Social comparison of groups increases perceived difference, usually in favour of ingroup. Self-categorisations make people see themselves as part of the ingroup and evaluate themselves and others according to the prototype Realistic Conflict Theory: Groups are principally collective is working to achieve common goals. Conflict stems from competition over finite resources. Most important resources are material or political. Groups strive for high amount of resources. Individual motivation is material, security, affiliation Social identity theory: groups are principally social categories. Conflict stems from the desire to feel positive about the ingroup. Most important resources are symbolic markers of esteem. Groups strive for relative resources and superiority. Individual motivation is self-esteem, meaning, understanding the self Minimal Group Paradigm (Tajfel & Wilkes, 1963) A C E G I: Group Klee B D F H J: Group Kandinsky. People in your group typically like the work by Klee over that by Kandinsky. People in your group typically like the work by Kandinsky over that by Klee. The Minimal Group Paradigm asked can mere group categorisation be enough to solicit ethnocentrism and intergroup conflict? Key findings: Ingroup members receive more than outgroup members, Ingroup members are favoured over outgroup members in relative terms. When does social identification lead to discrimination? Three key factors: 1) Status position of in- and outgroup 2) Legitimacy/stability of status position 3) Group boundaries [permeable or not] Intergroup Contact Theory (Allport, 1954) Bringing groups together improves relations. There are Four optimal conditions 1) Equality of status 2) Common goals 3) Intergroup cooperation 4) Support of authorities, law … (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) meta-analysed the Effectiveness of contact in presence/absence of Allport’s optimal conditions. Reduced prejudices even if/when conditions were not optimal Counter stereotypes: White Americans’ levels of implicit prejudice and stereotyping of Black people reduced after Obama’s election (Plant, 2009) Black people’s performance on academic tests showed a subtle but statistically significant increase after the Obama election result (Marx, 2009) Participants read statement supporting multiculturalism vs assimilation. Supported multiculturalism (Richeson & Nussbaum, 2004) Collective action: Coordinated actions of disadvantaged group members to change intergroup relations Collective apology/restitution: acknowledging moral responsibility to make amends for past. Government apologised in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Accept responsibility, show remorse, admit the injustice has occurred and offer to ‘make reparations’ Historical Perspectives of Self: William James’ constituents: 1) The Material Self - Body, family, things 2) The Spiritual Self - Emotions, desires, will 3) The Social Self - Interactions with others, Multiple divergences. The “Looking Glass Self” (Charles Horton Cooley) is described as reflection of how we think we appear to others. Symbolic Interactionism = how people create meaning through their interactions with others. We care about what other people think! Therefore, we’re motivated to adjust ourselves to expectations, perceived from others. The “Generalised Other” (George Herbert Mead) Any time an actor tries to imagine what is expected of them, they are taking on the perspective of the generalised other. Self-concept: The COMPLETE set of beliefs people have about themselves. Self-schemas: The DISTINCT, separate beliefs about oneself that collectively form the self-concept. Individual traits, skills, goals, fears, etc. Self-Schematic: The specific trait is important to them, and, therefore, makes up a larger part of their self-concept. Self- Aschematic: The specific trait is NOT important to them, and, therefore, makes up a smaller part of their self-concept. Self-Concept Clarity: The extent to which self-schemas are clearly and confidently defined, consistent with each other, and stable across time. Multiple Role Theory: More roles = more chance for growth, opportunities, better well-being…but also possibility for failure. Self-esteem: A person’s subjective appraisal of the self as intrinsically positive or negative. Contingent self-esteem: Sources of self-esteem vary by person. Some elements of someone’s self-concept might not be very important to overall self-esteem levels. ‘diary study’ is method used to collect qualitative data about user behaviours, activities, and experiences overtime MCQ PRACTICE… 1) Markus and Kitayama, 1991 distinguished between two types of self-construals = Independent / Interdependent 2) Who rst identi ed the phenomenon of groupthink that sometimes occurs in social group = Janis 3) Simpli ed but widely shared beliefs about a characteristic of a group and its members are known as = Stereotypes 4) The con gural model of person perception distinguishes between = Central and peripheral traits 5) What is the theory asserting that people have a deep-seated need to perceive the world as: people get what they deserve and deserve what they get? = Just world 6) What is a factor that does not promote cooperation, according to social psychologists? = if people value their own interest more than the common interest 7) The characteristics that are essential for making a person who they are known as = true self 8) Which of the following is true about self- discrepancy theory? = People want their actual self to be as close as possible to their ideal and ought selves 9) Children with an avoidant attachment style are likely to grow into adults who = enjoy more one night stands fi fi fi fi ≠ Social Identity Theory: Refers to part of individual’s self-concept which derives from signi cant they attach to membership of group (Tajfel, 1978) Self-Perception Theory: That people learn about the self by examining their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours Self-Discrepancy Theory: Focuses on people’s own perceptions of discrepancies between their actual self and their perceived selves Regulatory Focus Theory: Asserting that people have two distinct self-regulatory systems – promotion which make people more approach-oriented in constructing the self, and — prevention which make people more cautious and avoidant in constructing the self Social Comparison Theory: Arguing that in order to learn and de ne the self, people compare themselves with others. Positive and negative patterns Control Theory of Self Regulation: People test and measure the self against privately created standards and regulate their behaviours to align with these Self-evaluation maintenance model: People only maintain their self-esteem in situations where they engage in upward social comparisons Independent view of self: Individual related concepts, Opportunities for self-enhancement, Self-concept clarity Interdependent view of self: Group membership, Opportunities for self-improvement, Traits manifest in present moment Self-enhancement: We focus on traits, which make us feel good – and sometimes we exaggerate them or blame things on external forces Self-improvement: We focus on characteristics that can improve and focus on how to progressively get better at them Internal loop: More positive emotions = higher self-esteem, More positive self-schemas + Flexible evaluation of self-schemas = higher self-esteem External loop: Inversely… Social Exclusion > Reduced Self-esteem > Aversive emotions > Modify behaviour, seek re-inclusion Prosocial behaviour: Bene ts someone else. Action that is positively valued by society. Different people, different motives, different situations Antisocial behaviour: Harms someone else. Action that is negatively valued by society. Different people, different motives, different situations Helping Behaviour: Action that is performed to bene t a person without the explicit intention bene tting the self. Casual/ Emergency helping Altruism: Action that is performed to bene t a person without bene tting the self. However, altruistic behaviour can actually be detrimental to helper Bystander Intervention: Act of helping a person in danger or distress by people who are not intentionally or knowingly the cause Pluralistic Ignorance: People wrongly assume, from other peoples' actions, they endorse a particular norm Diffusion of Responsibility: Perceiving that someone else probably will intervene to help in the situation Social dilemma: situation in which the interest of individual are presently at odds with the interests of group Cooperate: Sacri ce the individual interest for group. Defect: Pursue the individual interest at expense of group The Prisoner’s Dilemma: The prisoner's dilemma is part of game theory, a thought-experiment that involves two rational agents, each of whom can either 1) cooperate for mutual bene t or 2) betray their partner for individual reward (Cooperate or defect, based on trust) The Public Goods Dilemma: social dilemma where all people can benefit from a collective resource, a public good, regardless of contribution weight The Commons Dilemma: social dilemma in which people's short-term selfish interests are presently at odds with long-term group interests Kin Selection Theory: Acting differently towards members of species depending on extent of genetic relatedness to self Reciprocal Altruism: Acting to help others with the assumption they would help you in return, if needed Good mood’s effect on pro-sociality: Participants at shopping male Used pay phone½, found a 10p coin in the phone, ½ did not nd a 10p coin. Those who found the coin more likely to help someone in need (Isen & Levin, 1972) Bad mood’s effect on pro-sociality: Donation bin placed near confessional, ½ participants went to confession, while the other half waited just outside. Donations were higher for those with opportunity to donate prior to confession (Harris, 1975) Justice: Concern with the ideology where people treat each other, as they are entitled or deserve to also be treated Distributive Justice: Concern with the apportionment of privileges, duties, and goods in consonance with the merits of individual /best interest of society Procedural Justice: Concern with fairness of the procedures that resolve disputes and allocate resources Entitlement: Is someone entitled to X? Based on laws, customs, principles. Deservingness: Does someone deserve X? Based on their good/bad behaviour Principles of Distributive Justice (Deutsch, 1975) Equity: Outcomes should be proportional to merit and contribution Equality: Resources should be distributed equally Need: Focus should be about what people need to survive and thrive Four Pillars of Procedural Justice 1) Fair process 2) Transparent actions 3) Opportunity for disagreement 4) Impartial decision making Social exchange theory: want to maximise personal bene ts and minimise the personal costs Just world theory: People have a deep-seated need to perceive the world as ‘just place’ where people get what they deserve / deserve what they get The group-value model: People care about the status and respect they receive within groups. The fairness of processes, an indicator of status System justi cation theory: People’s dependence on social systems for wealth and security makes them justify those systems and falsely see them as being fair. These help understand why people may support /oppose social justice initiatives that put their own stability into uncertainty Loneliness can increase risk of death by 26% As bad - smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Worse - than obesity. Associated with fatal and degenerative illness Averageness Effect: The nding that people prefer average or prototypical faces to faces that have distinctive features. WHY do people nd average faces more attractive? (1) Prototypicality (2) Symmetry … Prototypicality of Average Faces: We see a lot of faces – hundreds/thousands over a lifetime. Combine faces to create our image of prototypical face, then compare new faces that we see to self-generated image. We justify ones attractiveness based on relation of new face to prototypical face. Average faces are generally more symmetrical and people nd symmetry more attractive Matching Phenomenon: Tendency for individuals to choose a partner who is similar to themselves in terms of attractiveness Proximity Effect: Being or living close to others can facilitate attraction and relationship formation (Back, 2008) Randomly assigned students seats in college classHad to sit in those seats for entire term Liked the person they sat next to more than people who they didn’t Does repeated exposure always increase liking? (Montoya, 2012) Liking continues to increase until 62 repetitions, but after this point additional repetitions lead to declines in liking. Over-exposure reduces the proximity effect overtime Need to Af liate: The motive to seek and maintain relationships with others Affect: Emotional state consisting of feelings and moods Similarity: People nd others more attractive if they are similar to themselves in ways other than level of attractiveness Reciprocity: Does the other person like you too? Do they like other people you like? Do they dislike people you also dislike? Social Exchange Theory: How we feel about our relationships depends on perceptions of: 1) Rewards we gain from the relationship 2) Costs we incur from the relationship 3) If this is relationship we deserve or could do better Equity Theory: People are happiest in equal relationships. People aren't just looking at rewards and costs, but also to concerns with fairness Reinforcement affect model: We like people who are present when something good happens to us, even if they don’t have anything to do with it Types of Love: Passionate - Characterised by intense physical and emotional feeling. Companionate - Characterised by deep caring or affection Study of Arranged vs. “Love Marriages” from India: 50 couples are Measured in Years of Marriage and Score on Love-Scale. Counter-intuitively Arranged marriages = higher satisfaction in marriage. This was replicated with Indian then American couples Brunswick’s Lens Model (1956) serves as framework for the relationship between the environment and perception, which is mediated probabilistically by cues that are used to form impressions. Underlying construct (what she is really like) Observer judgment (the impression of what she is like) Appearance: Halo effect (Lorenzo, 2010) — Beautiful is seen as good. External not indicator of internal. Effect on accuracy in first-impressions Configural model of person perception (Solomon Asch, 1946) “We look at someone and immediately a certain impression of his/her character forms itself within us” A holistic impression that integrates small number of important cues (central not peripheral) Morality = Key to ‘impression updating’ Central traits determine the content and function of others… Central = cold/warm; intelligent/unintelligent Peripheral = polite/blunt (Wishner, 1960) Central traits have stronger correlations with others, compared to peripheral traits I.E. Morality, sociability, intellectuality (Willis & Todorov, 2006) Morality judgements from faces form as fast as 100ms. More time did not alter initial impression, just confidence in them (Clark & Clark,1947) Classic doll study: Method: Black kids aged 3-7 offered Black or White dolls (otherwise they are identical) Results: Most reject Black doll, Significant even at 3-years-old… 59% agreed that Black doll “looks bad”, Majority said White doll has “nice colour” fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi