Social Psychology
Festinger
Social Comparison Theory
Ways in which people make social comparisions
Reasons for doing so
Consequences
Self-Evaluative
Rationally evaluate own ability and clarify own beliefs
Cognitive Dissonance
Peoples Behavior & Attitudes not in harmony
To Resolve
Lots of anxiety
Change attitude
Stop behavior
Change Beliefs about discrepancy between them
Much Harder
Social Control & Self-Regulation
Self Control
Resisting temptation or impulse in service of more important long term goals
Self-Regulation
Ways the self monitors things that will block you to plan around
Planning
How other affect you
Bystander Effect
People less likely to help stranger as crowd gets bigger
Diffuse responsibility
The more dangerous & clear-cut the danger, the more likely bystanders are to offer aid
Statistics
Rate goes down
Female
Good Looking
Young or Old
Empathy
Similar person
Rate goes up
Person in own fault
Cant figure out whats going on
Cost to you to help
Conformity
Tending of people to bring attitudes & behaviors in line with group norms and pressures
Two types of motivation & influence
Informational
Normative
Follow crowd rationally
Follow crowd for approval
Group Think
Counter-productive/disastrous decisions made as a result of group members not wanting to appear disloyal to leader
Deindividualization
Lessening of self-awareness & identity when in a group, reduces concern about how your behavior will be evaluated by others
More anonymous, less accountable for our behavior in groups
Disastrous consequences in social situations
Esp. when given power over others
Altruism
Offering help to others without expectation of immediate results
Two causes
Proximate (Immediate) empathy
Ability to take another's perspective
Ultimate
Evolutionary
How do we explain groups?
Attribution
Explain behavior in terms of characteristics of person, situation, or interaction of the two
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Attribute people's behavior to internal dispositions, while ignoring possibility that behavior may be influenced by situational factors
Actor-Observer Bias
Actor behavior due to situational while others behavior is dispositional
Intergroup
Stereotype & Prejudice
Stereotype
Attribute clusters of traits to specific categories of individual
Prejudice
Inappropriate application of stereotype to individual