Social Psychology: Understanding how we interact with people
Attributions:
Judgements about the cause of a persons behavior
First Impressions:
-Quick assessments
-Focus on key traits/behaviors
-Are persistent
Halo effect:
-When one characteristic greatly affects overall impression
-i.e Being beautiful creates assumptions like being nice or smart too
Dispositional:
-Suggest that behavior is caused by things under their control
-i.e Personality, past actions, other internal factors
Situational:
-Behavior is caused by things not under their control
-i.e Other people's actions, other unknown circumstances, external factors
Biased Attributions
Correspondence Bias:
-When behavior is explained as dispositional even when it can be explained by situation
-i.e Thinking a cashier is friendly even though it's their job to be nice
Fundamental Attribution Error:
-Behavior explanation focus on dispositional factors and ignore situational factors
-i.e Thinking bad things about someone who cut you off even though you don't know the reason for it
Actor-Observer Bias:
-Emphasize dispositional attributions to explain behavior of others
-Emphasize situational attributions about yourself
-i.e Thinking you did bad on a test b/c of teacher while thinking everyone else did b/c they didn't study
Self-Serving Bias:
-Attribute success to dispositional factors while attributing failure to situational factors
-i.e We won team bout b/c of my skills
-We lost bout b/c other players weren't focused
Just-World Belief :
-Current situational factors used to judge a person's disposition
-Good things happen to good people
-Bad things happen to bad people
-People get what they deserve
Attitudes:
-Favorable/unfavorable evaluations that predispose behavior
-Helpful in making decisions/influence behavior
Basic Elements of Attitudes:
-Affect(emotion)
-Behavior
-Cognition(beliefs)
Formed By:
-Personal experience
-Social interaction
-Learning
-Genes: twins tend to have the same attitudes about things
Cognitive Dissonance:
Uncomfortable state that occurs when behavior and attitudes don't match up
Persuasion:
When we change attitude in response to info given by others
Elaboration Likelihood Model:
Predicts response to persuasive messages by distinguishing between the central/peripheral persuasion
Central Route
-Focuses on actual arguments like statistics
-Uses Critical Thinking
Peripheral Route
-Focuses on cues
-i.e Style of the persuasive message
-Manner in which message is presented
-Emotional Appeals
-Speaker Characteristics:Who's giving the message
Prejudice:
Prejudgment/attitude, usually negative, of another person
Group Processes
Social Facilitation:
-Presence of other people change our performance
-when performing a new skill-> performance bad(i.e screwing up a speech in front of people)
-When performing a well-practiced skill,->performance improved(i.e comedian improving bc of laughs of audience)
Social Loafing:
-Reduced motivation/effort by individual in a group
- i.e Tug of War: Most don't go all out bc they think everyone else will
Group Polarization:
-Intensifying attitude following discussion w/ others
- i.e Saying smoking is bad, others agreeing w/ you so you say smoking should be banned
Group(don't)think:
-When group members suppress/ignore dissenting/different opinions for the sake of group cohesion, which leads to flawed decision making
- i.e Google glasses makers didn't listen to safety concerns so created bad decisions
Deindividuation:
-Immersion of an individual within a group leading to anonymity
-Feeling they're incognito in crowds
- i.e people rioting and breaking into stores
- People trampling over people during Black Friday
Social Norms:
-Unwritten rules for behavior
- i.e Holding the door for people, keeping their distance, minding their own business
Conformity:
Conforming to social norms to fit in to a group and not get rejected
Compliance
-A request of an individual who has no authority
- Encourages creation of friendships
- We comply to requests to people we want to build relationships with
Reciprocation
-Feeling obligated to give back to someone who has given us something
Door in the Face Method
-When the requesting person starts off with a high amount then goes to the low amount of what they want
- i.e Someone asking to donate $100 to just $5 a month
Consistency
-Wanting to be consistent with others
Foot in the Door Method
-Starting with a low request and then followed by a larger request
- i.e Wanting to donate $5, then 6, 7, 8, etc.
Low-Balling Strategy
-When an initially favorable deal is revised to be less favorable, usually after the person is committed
- i.e Adding more to the price of the car after the buyer is committed to buy