PSYC 1F90 Chapter 16: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Culture: An ongoing pattern of life that is passed from 1 generation to the next
-we occupy a position in the structure of a group
Social Role: patterns of behavior expected of people in various social positions
Ascribed role: assigned role, not under personal control (eg. son, adolescent)
Achieved Role: voluntary, attained by special effort (eg. teacher, wife)
-roles allow us to anticipate what others will do
Role Conflict: 2 or more roles conflict with each other
2 Dimensions of a Group
1) Structure: network of roles, communication pathways
2) Cohesiveness: degree of attraction among group members, strength of desire to
remain in group
In-groups: groups with which a person mainly identifies
Out-groups: groups which we do not identify
-attribute positive characteristics to in-groups, negative characteristics to out-groups
Social Status: level of social power and importance
-more likely to comply with request made by high-status person
Norms: widely accepted (often unspoken) standard for appropriate behavior
Social Influence: 1 person’s behavior is changed by the actions of others
Social Cognition: process of thinking about ourselves and others in a social context
-norms are often based on perceptions, not the actual truth
Social Comparison: comparing your actions, feelings, opinions, or abilities to those of
others
Social Comparison Theory (Festinger): group membership satisfies need for social
comparison
Downward comparison: contrasting yourself with someone who ranks lower on some
dimension
-upward comparisons can be used to improve skills, but can be dangerous
Attribution: the process of making inferences about the causes of one’s own behavior,
and that of others
-can be internal (within the person) or external (outside a person) cause
-sensitive to how consistent (changes very little on different occasions) and distinctive
(only under specific circumstances) a behavior is
-to deduce causes, we take the actor, the object being acted on, and the setting into
account
Situational demands: pressures to behave in certain ways in particular setting and
social situations
-strong situational demands cause us to downgrade/discount internal causes to explain
behavior
-when many people act alike, there is consensus in their behavior
-implies behavior is externally caused
Fundamental Attribution Bias: tendency to think our own actions have external
causes, actions of others have internal causes Attitude: mixture of belief and emotion that predisposes a person to respond to
respond to things in a negative way
-attitudes are expressed through beliefs, emotions, and actions
3 Components of Attitudes:
1) Belief Component: What you believe about an object/issue
2) Emotional Component: Your feelings towards it
3) Action Component: Your actions towards various people, objects, institutions
Ways of Acquiring Attitudes
-direct contact (personal experience)
-chance conditioning (takes place by chanc
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