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Unit 14
Social Psychology Lecture
Notes
Social Psychology
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The scientific study of how we think
_____________________________________
Social thinking involves thinking about others,
especially when they engage in doing things
that are ______________________
Persuasion
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____________________________________________________________
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The purpose is to change a groups attitude
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Richard Petty and John Cacioppo
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Two methods in which individuals can be persuaded.
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______________________________________________________
–
______________________________________________________
Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations
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Attribution Theory: Fritz Heider suggested that we have a tendency to give causal
explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either _______________________ or
the ____________________________________
Dispositions are enduring personality traits.
So, if someone is quiet, shy, and introverted, they are likely to be like that in a
_____________________________________________
A teacher may wonder whether a child’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality
(__________________________________________) or is a reaction to stress or abuse
(_____________________________)
Fundamental Attribution Error
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The tendency to __________________________ the impact of
__________________________ and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing
the _________________________________
We may see Joe as quiet, shy, and introverted most of the time, but with friends he is very
talkative, loud, and extroverted.
Attitudes and Actions
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A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way
_________________________________________________
If we believe a person is ______________, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an
______________________________________
Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors, including the external
situation, also influence behavior.
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon – the tendency for people who have first agreed to a
_______________________ to comply later with a __________________________Role Playing Effect – when people are ________________________, they tend to adopt role
__________________________________
Cognitive Dissonance – when our attitudes and our actions are ____________________
Self-serving bias- is people's tendency to attribute positive events to their own character but
attribute negative events to external factors.
The Halo Effect
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Created By _________________________________________
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Halo effect is a cognitive bias in which an _________________________________ of a
person, company, brand, or product influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that
entity's character or properties.
Social Influence
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The greatest contribution of social psychology is its study of
_______________________________________________________ and they way they are
molded by social influence.
Conformity and Obedience
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Behavior is ___________________________,
modeled by one followed by another. We follow
behavior of others to conform.
Other behaviors may be an expression of
compliance (_______________________)
toward authority.
Solomon Asch and Conformity
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_________________________ experiment
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Asch wanted to test conformity and how it was
effected by
_________________________________________________________________________
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Experiment: A participant was brought into the room with a group of actors. Everyone was
asked which line is longer. Everyone would state the wrong answer to see if the one participate
would agree and say the wrong answer.
Group Pressure and Conformity
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_______________________________________________________, adjusting our behavior
or thinking toward some group standard.
An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality.
Conditions that strengthen conformity
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One is made to feel _____________________________________
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The group has at least three people.
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The group is _______________________
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One admires the group’s status.
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One has no prior commitment to a response.
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The group observes _____________________________________
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One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard.
Obedience
 Compliance of person is due to perceived authority of asker
 Request is perceived as a ______________________
 Milgram interested in ___________________________________________________
 People comply to ______________________________. How would they respond to outright
command?
 Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of
________________________________________
 Participants were pressured to choose between following their standards and being responsive
to others.
Stanley Milgram’s Studies
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Teacher goes to another room with experimenter
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Shock generator panel – 15 to 450 volts, labels “slight shock” to “XXX”
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Asked to give higher shocks for every mistake learner makes a ________________________
Social Influence
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___________________________________________________________________________
Social Facilitation
Describe home field advantage:
Social Relations
§
§
Ingroup
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“Us”- people with whom one shares a _______________________________-
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Ingroup Bias – _________________________________________________________
Outgroup
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“Them”- those perceived as
________________________________
from one’s ingroup
How do groups affect our behavior?
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One person affecting another
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Families
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Teams
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Committees or Task Groups
Individual Behavior in the presence of others
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Social Facilitation – refers to improved performance on tasks in the ___________________
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Triplett (1898) noticed cyclists’ race times were faster when they competed against others than
when they just raced against the clock.
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Deindividuation – the loss of
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Effects of Group Interaction
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Group Polarization – enhances a group’s prevailing attitudes through a discussion. If a group
is ________________________________________________________________________
Group think
– A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group
overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.
– ______________________________________________
– ______________________________________________
– ______________________________________________
– Luke Skywalker conspiracy
Social Relations
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Does perception change with race?
Prejudice
 Simply called “prejudgment,” a
prejudice is an unjustifiable (usually
negative) attitude toward a group and
its members.
 Components of Prejudice
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o
o
How prejudice are people?
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Over the duration of time many
prejudices against interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and minorities have
_______________________________
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
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In vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists can feed ____________________________
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The Just-World Phenomenon – the tendency of people to believe the world is just, and
__________________________________________________________________________
Stereotypes and Schemas
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Stereotypes- A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of
_________________________
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Schemas- how we organize information in order to
_________________________________________________________________________
Aggressive Behavior
Bystander Intervention
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__________________________________________________________________________
Bystander Effect
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Tendency of any given bystander to be __________________________ to give aid if other
bystanders are _________________________
The case of Kitty Genovese: the bystander effect