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					                                        PSYC2001 – Summary
 Chap 1
 + Social psychology has been charged with being (C) both trivial and dangerous.
 + Researchers hypothesize that people who drive SUVs are bullies. Researchers set up a hidden camera by a four-
 point stop sign and observe what kind of car/driver is more likely to stop fully and/or not yield to the other driver's
 right-of-way. What kind of study is this? (D) A correlational study.
 Chap 2
 + Anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action is termed (D) defensive
 Chap 3
 + Which of the below techniques has been shown to successfully reduce the overconfidence bias? Forcing people to
 consider disconfirming evidence.
 + Use of heuristics may lead to (A) biases.
 Chap 4
 + Actions expected of those who occupy a particular social position are called (C) roles.
 + Self-presentation theory argues that people will adopt attitudes consistent with behaviors in order to (D) create
 good impressions.
 + Which theory of behavior affects attitudes and gives rise to the overjustification effect? (D) self-perception
 + Your neighborhood Honda dealership announces a one-day sale of 2006 Honda Accord EXs for the outstanding
 price of $16,999. Excited at the prospects of owning a great car at a great price, you jump on your ten-speed bike
 with a cashiers check and ride to the dealership. Once you arrive, the salesman informs you that if you want wipers,
 floor mats, a radio, air conditioning, heat, and a passenger side mirror, the car will cost $19,900. You consent to
 buy the car at $19,900 even though you had hoped to buy it for $16,999. The salesman employed (C) the low-ball
 Chap 5
 + Compared with males, the average female (A) is more sensitive to smells and sounds.
 Chap 6
 + Milgram found (D) low-status people accept commands more readily than high-status people.
 + Cross-cultural replications of obedience studies have found the highest rate of obedience in (D) Munich.
 + If your parents tell you that you can't drink until you are 21, you may well go out drinking before then.
 Psychologists refer to this as (C) reactance.
 + Baumeister and others argue that a man may become frustrated over his restricted freedom if the woman he's
 trying to have sex with refuses his advances. Such a man may become sexually aggressive due to (A) reactance.
 + An increased desire for forbidden activities is often the result of (B) reactance.
 Chap 7
 + As a general rule, people respond better to a message that comes from (A) someone who's younger than they are.
 Chap 8

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 + In a strange but revealing experiment, Zajonc, et al. found that roaches are affected by the mere presence of other
 roaches in much the same way as humans are affected by the mere presence of other humans. These findings
 detracted from which theory of social facilitation? (B) drive theory
 Chap 9
 + At every employment stage, (A) weight discrimination exceeds all other forms of discrimination. (A) weight
 + Stereotypes are to _______________ as prejudices are to _______________. (D) beliefs; attitudes.
 + Social dominance orientation is a personality dimension characterized by (B) a motivation to have one's group be
 high in status.
 + Realistic group conflict theory holds that (B) competition between groups for scarce resources leads to prejudice.
 + Unequal status breeds _______________ (B) prejudice.
 + "We are all different; but they are all alike." This statement supports (B) outgroup homogeneity.
 Chap 10
 + Because you dislike one of your coworkers, you lie and tell others you overheard her saying how she disliked
 everyone at the office. This would be an example of what kind of aggression? (A) hostile.
 + Which theory of aggression argues that aversive experience leads to arousal which may lead to aggression
 depending on what consequences we expect? (D) social learning theory.
 + In exploring the subculture effect, Nisbett (1990, 1993) and Cohen (1996, 1998) found that American cities and
 areas occupied by ________________ have much higher White homicide rates than those populated by
 ________________. ( C) southerners; westerners
 + Which of the following is NOT a theory explaining why viewing violence causes violence.: Arousal Theory:
 Violent content can cause arousal which can spill over into violent behavior. Disinhibition Theory: Viewing
 violence can make violence seem legitimate and consequently lower our inhibitions towards violence. Imitation
 Theory: Viewing violence can prompt people to imitate what they watched. (D)All of these are theories explaining
 why viewing violence causes violence.
 Chap 11
 + Couples who are absorbed in one another—gaze into each other's eyes longingly and would be devastated to lose
 their relationship—are most likely experiencing (A) passionate love.
 + The two-factor theory of emotion holds that (B) physical arousal accentuates romantic responses.
 Chap 12
 Chap 13
 + You hear a rumor that a coworker has said something about you, so you snub them. As a result, your coworker
 does say something bad about you. This example shows (C) how mirror-image perceptions become self-fulfilling.
 + GRIT attempts to reduce conflict between two groups by (B) conciliation.

 + Reactance = a motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our
 freedom of action
 + Two factor theory of emotion = arousal X its label = emotion

                                              PSYC2001 wk 2 summary
 + Social psychology = how the self thinks about, relates to, and influences others
 + The defining difference between social psychology and sociology: sociology tends to use surveys and participant
 observation, whereas social psychology uses lab groups and experimental theory.
 + 1951 – Dartmoth Match – example of a study illustrating people colouring their judgements (infractions in a
 football game) based on their loyalties/biases
 + 1946 – Jean-Paul Sartre: humans are “first of all beings in a situation”
 + Social representations = socially shared beliefs - widely held ideas and values, including our assumptions and
 cultural ideologies. They help us make sense of the world.
 + Mundane realism – degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations
 + Experimental realism – the degree to which an experiment absorbs/involves participants.

                                             PSYC2001 summary wk 3

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 + Illusion of transparency = the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can easily be seen by others
 + Self schemas are mental templates or representations, beliefs about the self that guide the processing of self-
 relevant information
 + self-reference effect = the tendency to process efficiently and remember well information related to one’s self.
 + Your social identity depends on your ‘social’ self, a salient part of your identity that is group dependent, and
 group membership (when in a smaller group surrounded by a different larger group, we are more self conscious
 about our social identity)
 + The looking glass self – what matters for our self concept is not the way that others see us, but the way we
 imagine they see us
 + Self knowledge = explaining and predicting our behaviour (Nisbett and Schacter, shock and pills), predicting our
 + Wegner = illusion of free will – if we think we’re doing it, we will (i.e. hands and mirror, I Spy mouse)
 + Dual self-esteem model: explicit vs implicit self esteem. Constancy between implicit and explicit high self esteem
 leads to secure, less defensive and less prejudiced behaviour.
 + Dual attitude model = our automatic implicit judgements about something often differ from our consciously
 controlled explicit judgements.
                                                  PSYC2001 summary wk 4
 + Belief perseverance = Survival of a falsehood: if you implant a belief, participants explain why they would
 believe it, then the belief itself is discredited, they’ll still ascribe to it because they have explained it.
 + We judge our world by way of:
         - Intuitive judgments: uncontrolled judgments, mediated by schemas, emotional response and expertise.
         - Overconfidence: ignorance of ignorance breeds overconfidence. The three ways to overcome the
              overconfidence bias are:
                 o Prompt feedback re judgments
                 o Break the task down into its component elements
                 o Get people to think of at least one good reason why their judgment might be wrong
 + Controlled processing = ‘explicit’, thinking that is deliberate, reflective and conscious
 + Automatic processing = ‘implicit’, thinking that is effortless, habitual and without awareness – roughly
 corresponds to intuition
 + Schema = mental templates that intuitively guide our perceptions and interpretations
 + Attribution Theory: dispositional vs situational attributions, internal or external
 + Behavioral confirmation = a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social expectations lead them to
 behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations
 + Spontaneous Trait Inference = if we talk about a trait in others, people intuitively attribute that trait to us
 + Heuristic = a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.
 + Representiveness heuristic = the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary evidence, that someone or
 something belongs to a particular group if they resemble a typical member of that group

                                               PSYC2001 summary wk 5
 + Bateson conducted experiments re moral hypocrisy:
 + Theory of planned behaviour = most dominant in modern attitude research people’s conscious decisions to
 engage in specific actions are determined by three factors:
 - Attitude toward behaviour - Subjective norms - Perceived behavioural control
 This theory may be criticized because it does not allow for spontaneous, unintentional behaviour or habits
 + Dissonance theory -> attitude CHANGE
 + Self-perception theory -> attitude FORMATION
 + Self-affirmation theory (Steele) = people experience a threat to self-image after engaging in an undesirable
 behaviour. People with high self-esteem engage in less self-justification…
 + Classical conditioning = when a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that naturally evokes an emotional
 response (learning through association): may contribute to but does not fully explain affective components of
 attitude formation
         - Cacioppo et al – classical conditioning is a more powerful determinant of attitude formation when little
 knowledge is available about the attitude object
 + The three conditions where attitudes predict a given behaviour are:

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        (1) When other influences on attitude statements and behaviours are minimised
        (2) When the attitude is specifically relevant to the given behaviour
        (3) When the attitude is potent
                                             PSYC2001 Summary, wk 6
 + Norms = standards for accepted and expected behavior, regulate behavior and act as informal social controls,
 usually based on a degree of consensus (think gestures and their meanings, and pedestrian interactions [ Patterson et

                                               PSYC2001 summary wk 7
 + Culture = large social group of individuals who are normally in geographic proximity with each other and usually
 share a common set of social norms. Not formed for any particular goal, you don’t usually choose if you join or
 leave them. Tend to be relatively unorganised, but a status hierarchy designates some as leaders.
 + Organisations = large social groups that exist to produce products / provide services. They share many of the
 social functions and similar influences on self concept and behaviour as cultures (social hierarchies, social
 comparisons, social identities). They show strong pressures to conformity, members often develop a strong sense of
 social identity.
  + Social representations = a pattern of beliefs, values, norms, and practises that are shared by the members of a
 culture and that provide meaning for that culture. They are developed and maintained within a culture by way of
 social influence.
 DYNAMIC SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY = people develop their own opinions in large part through their
 interactions with others
 + Beliefs are determined through the force (function of strength, immediacy, number of people who agree) or
 impact of others
 + False consciousness = the acceptance of one’s own low status as part of the proper and normal functioning of
 + Crowd = collection of a large number of individuals who come together in a common place for a common
 + Norm theories = individuals who are deinduviduated are sometimes less likely to be influenced by social norms
 that normally restrain deviant behaviour, but they are not entirely unaware of group norms.

                                               PSYC2001 summary wk 8/9
 + Active social influence = social groups influence their members directly through behaviour and communication.
 Group members will use influence to bring members in line with social norms.
 + Sherif (1935, 1936) – autokinetic effect study:
 + Asch (line study – this time correct answer was obvious)
 + Sherif and Asch studies lack mundane realism – further studies were done in more naturalistic settings, i.e. binge
 eating in sororities (crandell) = two sororities differed in prevalence of binge eating. The more popular girls were
 closer to the norm, regardless of what that norm was.
 + Shachter (1951) investigated reactions to opinion deviance:
         - mode (always expressed opinion in agreements to group) – was most liked
         - deviant (always adopted opposite opinion to groups) – was least liked, most communication directed to
         - slider (initially disagreed, then agreed with group opinion) -
 + MILGRAM – college students etc. predicted noone would administer the shock – psychiatrists predicted 0.1%
         - 65% of participants obeyed up to the maximum
         - All obeyed up to 300 volts (where psychiatrists had predicted 30% defection)
 + Baron, Vandello, and Brunsman (1996) – task importance: in the easy task, participants conformed less when the
 decision was important, in the difficult task, people conformed more when the task was important.
 + Social Impact Theory (Latane, 1981) = the amount of social influence that others have depends on their strength,
 immediacy and number, to those they are trying to influence: Influence = ƒ(Strength x Immediacy x Number): you
 can use a lightbulb analogy: each successive individual adds less and less to the overall effect (one lightbulb is
 more effective in producing overall change in light levels than the second one)

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 + Eisenberger study = computer-generated ball throwing, inclusion and exclusion conditions, took fMRI of people
 engaging in game
                                               PSYC2001 summary wk 10
 + Persuasion = attitude change via external message (cognitive dissinence is attitude change via an internal
 + Elaboration likelihood model: there are two ways a persuasive message can cause attitude change, each differing
 in the amount of cognitive elaboration or effort they require. The ELM focuses on the information processing
 consequences of persuasive messages.
 + The sleeper effect = the delayed effectiveness of a persuasive message from a noncredible source.
         - i.e. Hovland and Weiss (1951) = same article about nuclear submarines, two different authors with
             different bias. Immediate effect was high credibility source led to greater persuasion, but four weeks
             later showed non credible source also leading to greater persuasion.
         - Kelman and Hovland repeated above study, but found that reminding people of the original source of the
             information removed the sleeper effect.
 Social facilitation may be explained by:
         - Drive theory (Zajonc, 1965) – the mere presence of others increases physiological arousal: this increases
             the tendency to make a dominant (well learned) response – it is not the complexity of the task per se, but
             how well the task is learned (complex tasks are usually less well learned).
                  o Michaels et al supported the learning level hypothesis in their pool player study
         - The evaluation- apprehension theory: concern over being judged by others effects task competence:
             Cottrel et al found participants show no social facilitation when the audience is blindfolded BUT this
             approach can’t explain social facilitation in animals
         - Distraction-conflict theory: heightened arousal occurs due to conflict between the task at hand and
             attending to others in the immediate surroundings
 + Social loafing = the tendency of people to reduce their effort toward a common goal when they pool their efforts.
 Only occurs when individual efforts cannot be individually judged.
         - Latane (1979) – six blindfolded participants in a semi-circle, were told they were shouting together
             (wore earmuffs), shouted less loudly when they believed others were shouting with them.
         - Diffusion of responsibility – your own contribution is lost in the crowd, you are less personally
             responsible for the outcome, thus you put in less effort.

                                               PSYC2001 Summary, wk 11
 + Predjudice = a preconceived negative judgement of a group and its individual members, negative attitude toward
 members of specific social groups. Consists of both cognitive and affective components, often supported by
 negative stereotypes.
 + Stereotypes = beliefs about the personal attributes of a group, i.e. Germans are hardworking. Problems arise when
 stereotypes are generalised, or are just plain wrong – this is when they lead to prejudice and discrimination
 + Discrimination = negative behaviour directed toward members of social groups who are the object of prejudice.
 + There are two types of prejudice:
         - Motivational: group achievement plus ingroup bias raise social identity and pride, thus self esteem
         - Cognitive: individual achievement plus self serving bias raises personal identity and pride, thus self
 + Minimal group paradigm – tjafel – participants allocated to groups on arbitrary basis, showed a persistent
 tendency to allocate more points to their own group than the out group even though the categories were
 meaningless, there had been no interaction between the groups, and no past relationship between the groups. Thus
 mere categorisation is apparently sufficient to elicit an in-group bias BUT belief similarity can increase
 + Terror management theory = people’s self protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more
 strongly to their cultural world view and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.
 + Cognitive sources of predjudice include categorisation (classifying people into groups – minimal group paradigm
 studies), distinctiveness (illusory correlation between distinctive events and distinctive minorities), attribution (self
 serving bias, group serving bias)
 + Outgroup homogeneity effect = perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup
 members. They are all alike, we are more diverse.

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                                               PSYC2001 summary, wk 12
 + Reward theory of attraction = we like those whose behaviour is rewarding to us, or if we associate them with
 rewarding events (conditioning). A relationship continues as long as it provides more rewards than costs.
 + Social exchange theory – helping is driven by a desire to maximise our outcomes and minimise our costs.
 Helping is therefore based on self interest, and can be rewarding because it relieves personal distress and brings
 social approval (and thus increased self-worth). It can also be dangerous. Thus we’re likely to help when the
 potential rewards outweigh the potential costs.
 + Mood management hypothesis = people use helping to tactically manage their moods (Baron’s mall study found
 people are more likely to help if there is a nice odor nearby – we help because we want to maintain our good mood,
 have positive expectations about the consequences re helping, we have positive thoughts) BUT this can be
 cancelled out if the cost of helping is too high
 + Evolutionary theory – what is important is the survival of the individual’s genes, not the individual. Kinship,
 inclusive fitness. Burstein et al found that close relatives are indeed helped more. A criticism for this approach is it
 offers retrospective explanations and lacks hard evidence.
 + Both social exchange and evolutionary theories are based around self interest.
 + There is debate as to whether true altruism exists. Bateson believes it does, sometimes….
 +Pluralistic ignorance – bystanders to an emergency trying to look poised give misleading cues that no help is
 needed (bystanders serve as a source as to whether there is an emergency – informational influence)
 +Bystander effect – tendency for each group member to dilute personal responsibility for acting by spreading it

                                             PSYC2001 Summary, wk 13
 + Peacemaking = condition marked by low levels of hostility and aggression, and by mutually beneficial
 + Simplistic thinking (Janis, 1989) – conflict impedes rational thinking. Even the mere expectation of conflict
 reduces creative problem solving and increases rigidity of thought.
 + Integrative agreements = win-win agreements that reconcile both parties’ interest to their mutual benefit,
 compared with comprimises, in which each party sacrifices something important, integrative agreements tend to be
 + Non-zero sum games = games in which outcomes need not sum to zero. With cooperation, both can win, and
 without cooperation both can loose.
 + GRIT = Graduated and Reciporicated Initiatives in Tension Reduction = a strategy designed to de-escalate a

 Major themes of this course have been:

        Situations exert a much more powerful influence on behavior than we realize.
        Examples of the power of the situation, and our failure to recognize it include:
        - Persuasion in advertising - obedience to authority         - bystander nonintervention
        - social facilitation          - stereotype threat           - proximity and attraction
        - the fundamental attribution error                          - self- fulfilling prophecies

        People see themselves (and everything associated with the self) in a very positive light.
        Phenomena that demonstrate self-enhancement include:
        - Self-enhancement          - in-group favoritism       - similarity and attraction

        Thought tends to be more rationalizing than rational
        People rationalize the following:
        - their own behaviour (cognitive dissonance, actor/observer bias)
        - the status-quo (just world beliefs)
        - status advantages (social dominance orientation)
        - group differences (stereotyping)

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