ECON 1000 Study Guide - Final Guide: Giovanni Fava, Haloperidol, Biofeedback
Chapter 13 - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology: branch of psych concerned with way individuals thoughts, feelings,
behaviours are influenced by others
- 6 broad topics: personal perception, attribution processes, interpersonal attraction,
attitudes, conformity and obedience, behaviour in groups
Personal perception: forming impressions of others
- Effects of physical appearance
- Cognitive schemas
- Stereotypes
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Subjectivity in person perception
- Evolutionary perspective
- Perception can be influenced in various ways: sociable, friendly, poised, warm,
competent
- “Baby-faced people appear to be more honest”
- Social schemas: organized clusters of ideas about categories of social events and
people; categorize into types
- Stereotyping: assuming people have certain characteristics because of their
membership in a group; gender, age, ethnic, occupational
- Prejudice: negative attitude towards a person, discrimination: action
- Person perception = subjective
- Stereotypes lead people to what they expect to see, overestimate how they
- Biases adaptive in ancestral past
- Spotlight effect: tendency to assume social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it
actually does
- Asymmetric insight: tendency to think that you know more about peers than peers know
about you
Attribution processes: explaining behaviour
- Attributions: internal vs external
- Biases in attribution: fundamental attribution error, defensive attribution, self-serving bias
- Cultural influences: individualism vs collectivism
- Attributions: inferences that people draw about causes of events, others’ and your
behaviour
- Internal attributions: ascribe causes of behaviour to personal dispositions, traits, abilities,
feelings
- External attributions ascribe causes of behaviour to situational demands and
environment contraints
- Harold H. Kelley (1973): theory identifying important factors considered in making
internal/external attribution (covariation)
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- Fundamental attribution error: observer’s bias in favour of internal attributions explaining
behaviour
- More likely to attribute own behaviour to situational causes and others to
dispositional causes
- Defensive attribution: tendency to blame victims for their misfortune, one feels less likely
to be victimized
- Self-serving bias: tendency to attribute one’s success to personal factors and one’s
failure to situational factors
- Cultural influences on attributional tendencies
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
- Key factors in attractions: physical attractiveness, matching hypothesis, similarity,
reciprocity, romantic ideals
- Perspectives on love: Hatfield & Berschied - passionate vs companionate love,
Sternberg - intimacy and commitment, Hazan & Shaver - love as attachment
- Interpersonal attraction is positive feelings towards one another (liking, friendship,
admiration, love)
- Physical appearance is important in attraction and love (early stages of dating). Being
physically attractive appears to be more important for females than males. Matching
hypothesis says males and females of same attractivesness will choose each other
- Byrne’s research : similiraty causes attraction, Davis and Rusbult: attraction can foster
similarity, with dating partners experiencing attitude alignment.
- Couples tend to be similar in age race religion social class personality education
intelligence, attractiveness and attitudes. Personality similarity associates with marital
happiness
- Reciprocity is liking those who show that they like you. When your partner helps you feel
good about yourself, self-enhancement (phenomenon) occurs. Studies show people
seek feedback that matches their self concepts which is called self verification.
- Berscheid and Hatfield distinguished passionate and companionate love.
- Passionate love : complete absorption in another that includes sexual feelings
and ecstasy of intense emotion
- Companionate love : warm, trusting affection for another whose life is intertwined
with ones own.
- Cultures vary in their emphasis on passionate love as prerequisite for marriage.
- Robert Sternberg expanded the distinction on passionate, companionate love.
- Companionate love : intimacy (warmth closeness and sharing) and commitment
(intent to maintain relationship in spite of difficulties and costs)
- Hazan and Shavers theory says that love relationships in adulthood mimic attachment
patterns in infancy, with better relationships in those who have better attachments as a
kid (good parenting = good love later)
- Cross cultural similarities theory : certain characteristics are attractive because they are
indicators of reproductive fitness.
Attitudes: Making Social Judgements
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- Three components to attitudes
- Cognitive, affective and behavioural
- Attitudes and behaviour
- Source, message, and receiver
- Theories of attitude formation and change
- Learning theory
- Dissonance theory
- Self-perception theory
- Elaboration likelihood model
- Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations of objects of thought. Attitudes and
behaviours are not consistent because attitude strength varies since it only creates
predispositions to behave in certain ways
- Many factors that influence attitutude change
- Credible, expert, trustworthy, likable and physically attractive person stimulates
attitude change
- Persuasion is undermined when a receiver is forewarned
- Attitudes may be shaped through classical, operant and observational
conditioning/learning.
- Festinger’s dissonance theory : inconsistent attitudes cause tension, people alter
attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance.
- Self perception theory : people infer their attitudes from their behaviour.
- Elaboration likelihood model : central routes (people carefully ponder the content and
logic of persuasive messages) to persuasion yield longer lasting attitude change than
peripheral routes (persuasion depends on non message factors such as attractiveness
of the source).
- Attitudes
- Explicit attitudes we hold consciously and can easily describe
- Implicit attitudes are covert and expressed in subtle automatic responses
Conformity and Obedience : Yielding to Others
- Conformity : Solomon Asch (1950s)
- Normative Influence vs Informational Influence
- Conformity = yielding to social pressure
- Solomon Asch did experiment with cards to prove people conform to even wrong
answers
- Group sizes influence conformity, larger groups = increasing conformity
- Group unanimity influences conformity; if one person doesnt go with the group, people
are less likely to conform
- Normative influence is conforming to be liked
- Informational influence operates when looking for guidance from others in amigious
situations
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Document Summary
Social psychology: branch of psych concerned with way individuals thoughts, feelings, behaviours are influenced by others. 6 broad topics: personal perception, attribution processes, interpersonal attraction, attitudes, conformity and obedience, behaviour in groups. Perception can be influenced in various ways: sociable, friendly, poised, warm, competent. Social schemas: organized clusters of ideas about categories of social events and people; categorize into types. Stereotyping: assuming people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a group; gender, age, ethnic, occupational. Prejudice: negative attitude towards a person, discrimination: action. Stereotypes lead people to what they expect to see, overestimate how they. Spotlight effect: tendency to assume social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it actually does. Asymmetric insight: tendency to think that you know more about peers than peers know about you. Biases in attribution: fundamental attribution error, defensive attribution, self-serving bias. Attributions: inferences that people draw about causes of events, others" and your behaviour.
