Download LEARNING OBJECTIVES To demonstrate mastery of this chapter

 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
To demonstrate mastery of this chapter, the student should be able to:
OBJECTIVE 15.1 — Define social psychology; discuss our need to afflilate, including a
description of Schachter’s classic experiment on affliliation; and describe the social comparison
theory, including how meaningful evaluations take place.
OBJECTIVE 15.2 — Define interpersonal attraction; describe how the following factors
influence interpersonal attraction: a. physical proximity; b. physical attractiveness, including the
halo effect; c. competence; and d. similarity, including homogamy; and discuss the effects of
varying degrees of self-disclosure on interpersonal relationships.
OBJECTIVE 15.3 — Discuss Rubin’s studies of romantic love, including the differences between
loving and liking, the differences between male and female friendships, and the concept of mutual
absorption; and describe the field of evolutionary psychology and how this field of study explains
the different mate selection preferences of males and females.
OBJECTIVE 15.4 — Discuss the following dimensions of being in a social group: a. social roles,
including ascribed roles, achieved roles, and role conflict; b. group structure; c. group
cohesiveness, d. in-groups and out-groups; e. status; and f. group norms.
OBJECTIVE 15.5 — Discuss the process of attribution, including the difference between external
and internal causes; explain the fundamental attibution error and the actor-observer bias; and
describe gender differences in attributing success.
OBJECTIVE 15.6 — Define social influence; explain the three major forms of social influence;
describe Asch’s experiment on conformity and the personal characteristics that make some
people more susceptible to group pressures; explain how groupthink may contribute to poor
decision-making and list ways to prevent it; and describe how the following factors affect
conformity: a. group sanctions, b. the importance of the group, c. the number of group members,
d. the unanimity of the group, and e. the power of an ally.
OBJECTIVE 15.7 — Explain how compliance differs from conformity; discuss the following
methods of gaining compliance: a. foot-in-the-door, b. door-in-the-face, and c. low-ball technique;
and describe how knowing these strategies can protect a person from being manipulated.
OBJECTIVE 15.8 — Describe Milgram’s study of obedience; discuss how each of the following
factors affected the degree of obedience in Milgram’s follow-up experiments: a. prestige of the
authority, b. distance between the teacher and the learner, c. distance from the authority, and d.
group support; and give examples of “crimes of obedience” in world events and everyday life.
OBJECTIVE 15.9 — Discuss the following aspects of assertiveness training: a. the three basic
rights, including the concept of self-assertion; b. a comparison of assertive, non-assertive, and
aggressive behaviors (Table 15.2); and c. assertiveness training, including the importance of
practice, using rehearsal and role-playing, the principle of overlearning, and the broken record
technique.
OBJECTIVE 15.10 — Define attitude; describe the belief, emotional, and action components of
an attitude; list and give examples of six ways in which attitudes are acquired; and explain three
reasons why people may exhibit discrepancies between attitudes and behavior, and how
conviction affects attitudes.
OBJECTIVE 15.11 — Explain the difference between membership groups and reference groups,
including how one’s point of reference affects attitude change; and define persuasion and explain
how the characteristics of the communicator, audience, and message affect attitude change.
OBJECTIVE 15.12 — Explain cognitive dissonance theory; list five strategies for reducing
dissonance (Table 15.3); and describe how the amount of justification affects the amount of
dissonance felt and why people are especially likely to experience dissonance after causing an
event that they wish hadn’t happened.
OBJECTIVE 15.13 — Differentiate between brainwashing and other persuasive techniques;
describe the techniques used in brainwashing; indicate how permanent the attitude changes
brought about by brainwashing are; and describe how cults are able to recruit, convert, and
retain their members and how cult leaders differ from true spiritual leaders.
OBJECTIVE 15.14 — Differentiate between the concepts of prejudice and discrimination;
describe how prejudice may be a form of scapegoating; distinguish between the two sources of
prejudice, personal and group prejudices; and explain how prejudice can be considered a general
personality characteristic by discussing the following: a. the authoritarian personality, b.
ethnocentrism, c. the use of the F-scale to measure authoritarian beliefs, and d. how authoritarian
beliefs are learned as children.
OBJECTIVE 15.15 — Describe the shared beliefs that tend to trigger intergroup conflict; explain
the characterisitcs of social stereotypes and how they can amplify the conflict between groups;
describe symbolic prejudice; and explain how some elements of prejudice appear to be
unconscious.
OBJECTIVE 15.16 — Describe Jane Elliot’s experiment in which prejudice was caused by status
inequalities; explain how reducing the complex American society into two oversimplified
stereotypes, “red and blue states,” has led to an increase in between-group prejudice; and
describe how more frequent equal-status contact between groups in conflict could reduce
prejudice and stereotyping.
OBJECTIVE 15.17 — Describe the summer camp experiment in which superordinate goals were
used to help reduce the conflict between the two groups; and explain how superordinate goals can
be applied to reduce global conflict and to reduce prejudices within ordinary classrooms through
the jigsaw classrooms and their goal of mutual interdependence.
OBJECTIVE 15.18 — Define aggression; and discuss the role of each of the following in
aggressive behavior: a. instincts and why psychologists question this theory; b. biology, including
physical factors and the effects of drugs and alcohol; c. the frustration-aggression hypothesis; d.
aversive stimuli, including the activation of internal and external aggressive cues and the weapons
effect; and e. social learning theory.
OBJECTIVE 15.19 — Explain how television can teach new antisocial actions, serve as a
disinhibiting factor, cause desensitization to violence, increase aggressive thoughts, and make one
more prone to aggress when faced with frustrating stiuations or cues; and list seven ways in
which parents can buffer the impact of television on children's behavior.
OBJECTIVE 15.20 — Define prosocial behavior; describe the Kitty Genovese case in terms of
bystander apathy; explain how the presence of other people can influence bystanders’ willingness
to help; describe four conditions that need to exist before bystanders are likely to give help;
discuss factors, such as heightened and emotional arousal and the empathy-helping relationship,
that make one more likely to help; describe how one can “de-victimize” oneself and be more likely
to receive help; and give examples of some “everyday heroes.”
OBJECTIVE 15.21 — Define the term multiculturalism; discuss eight ways in which a person can
become more tolerant; and explain how a person can develop cultural awareness.