Chapter 16 Social Psychology
Chapter 16: Social Psychology
Social Thinking
1.Social psychology studies what 3 aspects of our social world? 1. How we think about our social world (social thinking) 2. How other people influence our behavior (social influence) 3. How we relate toward other people (social relations)
Attribution: The Causes of Behavior
2.Distingush between personal (internal) attributions and situational (external) attributions.
Personal internal attributions infer that people’s characteristics cause their behavior. EX: “Bill insulted Linda because he is ride” or “My A on my midterm exam reflects my high ability. Situational external attributions infer that aspects of the situation cause a behavior. EX: “Bill was provoked into insulting …show more content…
Linda.” Or “I received an A because the test was easy.”
3. According to Harold Kelley, how does the consideration of consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus impact whether we make an internal or external attribution about someone’s behavior? (Check out Fig. 17.3!)
Consistency is when a person is asked if she/he likes something and they say it is terrible and a few weeks later you ask again and they have the same answer. The consistency is high. If a person dislikes only one course then distinctiveness is high, but if they think that all of their courses are terrible, then distinctiveness is low. If other people agree with the same person that something is terrible, then the consensus is high, but if they disagree with them, then the consensus is low.
4.What is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)? Give two examples of the FAE described in the textbook. What circumstances reduce the likelihood that we will show the FAE?
Fundamental Attribution Error is when we underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of person factors when explaining other people’s behavior. EX 1: if an assignment in a class is about physician-assisted suicide and you had the choice to either be for or against it, then your classmates will assume that your views are reflect your paper. EX 2: Your professor assigns you to either write a paper for or against physician-assisted suicide, you have no choice. Your classmates will still assume that your views reflect your paper even though they could be opposing what you HAD to write about.
5.What is the self-serving bias? How does self-serving bias relate to self-esteem? How does depression impact self-serving bias?
Self-serving bias is the tendency to make personal attributions for success and situational attributions failures. Mezulis and coworkers found that depressed individuals are much less likely than most people to display a self-serving bias. Indeed depressed people often display the opposite pattern- taking too little credit for successes and too much credit for failures-which helps keep them depressed.
6. How does the FAE differ between people in India vs. America?
Indians made more situational attributions, whereas Americans made more personal attributions
7. How do Asians differ from Americans in self-serving bias and the complexity of their views about the causes of behavior?
Asians living in their homelands are less likely to display self-serving attributions bias than are Americans or other Westerners. Modesty, for example, is highly valued in China’s collective culture, and Chinese college students take less personal credit for successful social interactions and accept more responsibility for their failures than do American students.
Forming & Maintaining Impressions
8. What is the “primacy effect”? Why does new information have to work harder to change our opinion about someone once we’ve formed an impression of them?
Primacy Effect refers to our tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person. Information has to “work harder” to change our opinion when we have formed a impression of them because, one we tend to be most alert to info we receive first. Second, because the initial information may shape how we perceive subsequent information.
9. Why is primacy a rule of thumb in impression formation?
Because we have remarkable capacity for forming snap judgments based on small amounts of initial info.
10. Mental schemas that we hold about a person can impact the way we interpret their behavior – give an example.
By telling a friend that the host of a party is cold or shy, you activate a set of concepts and expectations (your schema) for how such a person is likely to behave. The host’s behavior can be interpreted in many ways, but you fit his behavior into the schema that is already activated
11. What is a stereotype? Give an example of how a stereotype impacts how we interpret a person’s behavior.
Stereotype is a generalized belief about a group or category of people. EX: A nine-year old girl was shown on a videotape to participants in a study. In one study participants were told that she was wealthy and another study they were told she was poor. She displayed the same behavior and people who were told that she was poor said that she had less ability. 12. What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when people’s erroneous expectations lead them to act toward others in a way that brings about the expected behaviors, thereby confirming their original impression
Attitudes & Attitude Change
13. What are attitudes? What are some of the roles that attitudes play in our live, according to Fazios & Roskos-Ewaldson?
Attitudes are positive or negative evaluative reactions toward a stimuli, such as a person, action, object or concept.
Some roles that attitudes play in our lives according to Fazios & Roskos-Ewaldson are agreeing or disagreeing with a political part or a friends opinion of a movie.
14. Describe LaPiere’s classic study and what he found about the discrepancy between prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior.
He toured the US with a young Chinese couple, stopping at 251 restaurants, hotels, and other establishments. At the time prejudice against Asians was widespread, yet the couple-who often entered the establishment before LaPiere did-were refused service only once. Later he wrote letters to all the establishments asking of they would serve Chinese patrons. More than 90 percent of those who responded stated they would not.
15. The textbook lists 3 factors that impact when attitudes will most strongly influence behavior (in paragraphs that begin First, Second, Third...). What are these 3 factors and why is theory of planned behavior discussed in the first paragraph?
1. Attitudes influence behavior more strongly when situational factor that contradict our attitudes are weak. EX: conformity pressure my lead us to behave in ways that are at odds with our inner …show more content…
convictions.
2. Attitudes have a greater influence on behavior when we are aware of them and when they are strongly held. EX: When we act without thinking, or of impulse, or habit.
3. General attitudes best predict general classes of behavior, and specific attitudes best predict specific behaviors.
16. What is cognitive dissonance? How did subjects in Festinger’s experiment change their attitude to match their counterattitudinal behavior? How do people relieve dissonance without changing their attitude?
Cognitive dissonance theory people strive for consistency in their cognitions. Behavior that is inconsistent with one’s attitude is called counterattitudinal behavior, and it produces dissonance only if we perceive that our actions were freely chosen rather that coerced. People can reduce dissonance by finding external justifications or by making other excuses.
17. What is Bem’s self-perception theory? How does attitude change via self-perception theory differ from attitude change via cognitive dissonance? In what situations does dissonance theory best explain attitude change and in what situations is self-perception theory a better fit? How is attitude change via self-perception theory similar to attitude change via cognitive dissonance?
Self-perception theory we make inferences about our own attitudes in much the same way; by observing how we behave. One key difference is that only dissonance theory assumes that we experience heightened physiological arousal (tension produced by dissonance) when we engage in counterattitudinal behavior.
Persuasion
18. What are some of the purposes of persuasion?
Persuasion purposes are to influence our beliefs and attitudes so that we will vote for them, buy their products, do them favors, or otherwise behave as they want us to.
19.
What is communicator credibility and what are the two key components of credibility? What other traits of communicators have an impact on persuasion?
Communicator credibility is how believable we perceive the communicator to be and 2 key components are expertise and trustworthiness. Other traits that impact the influence of persuaders are physical attractiveness, likable, and similar to us (interest and goals)
20. Questions about the “message”: What is the two-sided refutational approach to presenting a message? When are we most likely to respond to an appeal that arouses fear?
The two-sided refutational approach is most effective because if an audience is initially disagrees with the communicator’s viewpoint or is aware that ere are 2 sides of the issue, a two-sided message will be perceived as less biased. We are most likely to respond to fear when the message evokes a moderate to strong fear and also provides people with effective, feasible ways to reduce the threat
21. What is need for cognition?
A message loaded with logical arguments and facts may prove highly persuasive to some people yet fall flat on its face with others. Some people enjoy analyzing issues; others prefer not to spend much mental
effort
22. Distinguish between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Which route has a more lasting impact on thoughts and behavior? How are people who differ in need for cognition affected differently by central and peripheral routes to persuasion?
The central route to persuasion occurs when people think carefully bout the message and are influenced because they find the argument compelling. The peripheral route to persuasion occurs when people do not scrutinize the message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as the speaker’s attractiveness or message’s emotional appeal. Attitude change in the central route tends to last longer and to predict future behavior more successfully. People with a high need for cognition tend to follow the central route and people with a low need for cognition are more strongly influenced by the peripheral route.
23. The candidate who was perceived to have performed best during the Nixon-Kennedy
Presidential debates depended on whether people listened to them on the radio or whether they watched them on TV (which was a new technology at the time). Nixon refused to “pretty up” for the camera and those watching TV thought that John F. Kennedy did a great job making his points in the debate. Those who listened to the radio were convinced Nixon had whomped Kennedy. Which medium (radio or TV) causes people to tend to focus on the central route and which medium tends to cause people to focus on peripheral factors?
TV causes people to focus more on peripheral factors and the Radio causes people to focus more on the central route.
Social Thinking
1.Social psychology studies what 3 aspects of our social world? 1. How we think about our social world (social thinking) 2. How other people influence our behavior (social influence) 3. How we relate toward other people (social relations)
Attribution: The Causes of Behavior
2.Distingush between personal (internal) attributions and situational (external) attributions.
Personal internal attributions infer that people’s characteristics cause their behavior. EX: “Bill insulted Linda because he is ride” or “My A on my midterm exam reflects my high ability. Situational external attributions infer that aspects of the situation cause a behavior. EX: “Bill was provoked into insulting …show more content…
Linda.” Or “I received an A because the test was easy.”
3. According to Harold Kelley, how does the consideration of consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus impact whether we make an internal or external attribution about someone’s behavior? (Check out Fig. 17.3!)
Consistency is when a person is asked if she/he likes something and they say it is terrible and a few weeks later you ask again and they have the same answer. The consistency is high. If a person dislikes only one course then distinctiveness is high, but if they think that all of their courses are terrible, then distinctiveness is low. If other people agree with the same person that something is terrible, then the consensus is high, but if they disagree with them, then the consensus is low.
4.What is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)? Give two examples of the FAE described in the textbook. What circumstances reduce the likelihood that we will show the FAE?
Fundamental Attribution Error is when we underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of person factors when explaining other people’s behavior. EX 1: if an assignment in a class is about physician-assisted suicide and you had the choice to either be for or against it, then your classmates will assume that your views are reflect your paper. EX 2: Your professor assigns you to either write a paper for or against physician-assisted suicide, you have no choice. Your classmates will still assume that your views reflect your paper even though they could be opposing what you HAD to write about.
5.What is the self-serving bias? How does self-serving bias relate to self-esteem? How does depression impact self-serving bias?
Self-serving bias is the tendency to make personal attributions for success and situational attributions failures. Mezulis and coworkers found that depressed individuals are much less likely than most people to display a self-serving bias. Indeed depressed people often display the opposite pattern- taking too little credit for successes and too much credit for failures-which helps keep them depressed.
6. How does the FAE differ between people in India vs. America?
Indians made more situational attributions, whereas Americans made more personal attributions
7. How do Asians differ from Americans in self-serving bias and the complexity of their views about the causes of behavior?
Asians living in their homelands are less likely to display self-serving attributions bias than are Americans or other Westerners. Modesty, for example, is highly valued in China’s collective culture, and Chinese college students take less personal credit for successful social interactions and accept more responsibility for their failures than do American students.
Forming & Maintaining Impressions
8. What is the “primacy effect”? Why does new information have to work harder to change our opinion about someone once we’ve formed an impression of them?
Primacy Effect refers to our tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person. Information has to “work harder” to change our opinion when we have formed a impression of them because, one we tend to be most alert to info we receive first. Second, because the initial information may shape how we perceive subsequent information.
9. Why is primacy a rule of thumb in impression formation?
Because we have remarkable capacity for forming snap judgments based on small amounts of initial info.
10. Mental schemas that we hold about a person can impact the way we interpret their behavior – give an example.
By telling a friend that the host of a party is cold or shy, you activate a set of concepts and expectations (your schema) for how such a person is likely to behave. The host’s behavior can be interpreted in many ways, but you fit his behavior into the schema that is already activated
11. What is a stereotype? Give an example of how a stereotype impacts how we interpret a person’s behavior.
Stereotype is a generalized belief about a group or category of people. EX: A nine-year old girl was shown on a videotape to participants in a study. In one study participants were told that she was wealthy and another study they were told she was poor. She displayed the same behavior and people who were told that she was poor said that she had less ability. 12. What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when people’s erroneous expectations lead them to act toward others in a way that brings about the expected behaviors, thereby confirming their original impression
Attitudes & Attitude Change
13. What are attitudes? What are some of the roles that attitudes play in our live, according to Fazios & Roskos-Ewaldson?
Attitudes are positive or negative evaluative reactions toward a stimuli, such as a person, action, object or concept.
Some roles that attitudes play in our lives according to Fazios & Roskos-Ewaldson are agreeing or disagreeing with a political part or a friends opinion of a movie.
14. Describe LaPiere’s classic study and what he found about the discrepancy between prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior.
He toured the US with a young Chinese couple, stopping at 251 restaurants, hotels, and other establishments. At the time prejudice against Asians was widespread, yet the couple-who often entered the establishment before LaPiere did-were refused service only once. Later he wrote letters to all the establishments asking of they would serve Chinese patrons. More than 90 percent of those who responded stated they would not.
15. The textbook lists 3 factors that impact when attitudes will most strongly influence behavior (in paragraphs that begin First, Second, Third...). What are these 3 factors and why is theory of planned behavior discussed in the first paragraph?
1. Attitudes influence behavior more strongly when situational factor that contradict our attitudes are weak. EX: conformity pressure my lead us to behave in ways that are at odds with our inner …show more content…
convictions.
2. Attitudes have a greater influence on behavior when we are aware of them and when they are strongly held. EX: When we act without thinking, or of impulse, or habit.
3. General attitudes best predict general classes of behavior, and specific attitudes best predict specific behaviors.
16. What is cognitive dissonance? How did subjects in Festinger’s experiment change their attitude to match their counterattitudinal behavior? How do people relieve dissonance without changing their attitude?
Cognitive dissonance theory people strive for consistency in their cognitions. Behavior that is inconsistent with one’s attitude is called counterattitudinal behavior, and it produces dissonance only if we perceive that our actions were freely chosen rather that coerced. People can reduce dissonance by finding external justifications or by making other excuses.
17. What is Bem’s self-perception theory? How does attitude change via self-perception theory differ from attitude change via cognitive dissonance? In what situations does dissonance theory best explain attitude change and in what situations is self-perception theory a better fit? How is attitude change via self-perception theory similar to attitude change via cognitive dissonance?
Self-perception theory we make inferences about our own attitudes in much the same way; by observing how we behave. One key difference is that only dissonance theory assumes that we experience heightened physiological arousal (tension produced by dissonance) when we engage in counterattitudinal behavior.
Persuasion
18. What are some of the purposes of persuasion?
Persuasion purposes are to influence our beliefs and attitudes so that we will vote for them, buy their products, do them favors, or otherwise behave as they want us to.
19.
What is communicator credibility and what are the two key components of credibility? What other traits of communicators have an impact on persuasion?
Communicator credibility is how believable we perceive the communicator to be and 2 key components are expertise and trustworthiness. Other traits that impact the influence of persuaders are physical attractiveness, likable, and similar to us (interest and goals)
20. Questions about the “message”: What is the two-sided refutational approach to presenting a message? When are we most likely to respond to an appeal that arouses fear?
The two-sided refutational approach is most effective because if an audience is initially disagrees with the communicator’s viewpoint or is aware that ere are 2 sides of the issue, a two-sided message will be perceived as less biased. We are most likely to respond to fear when the message evokes a moderate to strong fear and also provides people with effective, feasible ways to reduce the threat
21. What is need for cognition?
A message loaded with logical arguments and facts may prove highly persuasive to some people yet fall flat on its face with others. Some people enjoy analyzing issues; others prefer not to spend much mental
effort
22. Distinguish between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Which route has a more lasting impact on thoughts and behavior? How are people who differ in need for cognition affected differently by central and peripheral routes to persuasion?
The central route to persuasion occurs when people think carefully bout the message and are influenced because they find the argument compelling. The peripheral route to persuasion occurs when people do not scrutinize the message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as the speaker’s attractiveness or message’s emotional appeal. Attitude change in the central route tends to last longer and to predict future behavior more successfully. People with a high need for cognition tend to follow the central route and people with a low need for cognition are more strongly influenced by the peripheral route.
23. The candidate who was perceived to have performed best during the Nixon-Kennedy
Presidential debates depended on whether people listened to them on the radio or whether they watched them on TV (which was a new technology at the time). Nixon refused to “pretty up” for the camera and those watching TV thought that John F. Kennedy did a great job making his points in the debate. Those who listened to the radio were convinced Nixon had whomped Kennedy. Which medium (radio or TV) causes people to tend to focus on the central route and which medium tends to cause people to focus on peripheral factors?
TV causes people to focus more on peripheral factors and the Radio causes people to focus more on the central route.