the study of how a person's thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the actual, implied, or imagined presence of others.

Self Knowledge

1) What forms your self-concept?

2) When the self-concept is attended to, what does this lead to?

1) information about yourself forms self-concept

2) when the self-concept is attended to, this leads to self-awareness.

Self Schema

1) What is it?

2) In what types of cultures does it differ?

1) Cognitive aspect of the self concept, consisting of an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about the self

2) Collectivist vs. Individualistic

Collectivist vs. Individualist cultures

Collectivist: identity of the individual is regulated to an extent, by what is acceptable in culture - self-schemas are INTERDEPENDENT

Individualist: identity of the individual is not regulated by what is acceptable in culture - self-schemas are INDEPENDENT

Self-esteem

-sociometer

Evaluative aspect of self-concept

-self-esteem is a sociometer, an internal monitor of social acceptance or rejection.  Those with high self-esteem have sociometers that indicate a low probability of rejection, and therefore they don't worry about how others perceive them.  Those with low self-esteem have sociometers that indicate a high probability of rejection, so they are highly motivated to manage their public impressions

Attitude

-Formation:

1) Exposure effect

2) Conditioning

the evaluation of an object, event, or idea.  Can be explicit or implicit.

1) How often we're exposed to an attitude

2) Attitudes that are reinforced

3) Particular to a society

One of the 1st social psychologists who observed the behavior of Marian Keech and her followers that believed the world was going to end.  When this did not happen, the cult believed that their faith spared the world.

-What was found was that the cult tried to make sense of the situation when what they believed was going to happen did not happen, instead of accepting that they were wrong.

The perceptual inequality that occurs when there is  a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior.

This leads to anxiety, which then leads to a change in attitude or behavior.

eg - Marian Keech's cult believed the world was going to end.  When it didn't happen, they changed their attitude to compliment their first attitude instead of contradicting it (they weren't wrong, it's just that their faith spared the world).

Persuasion

1) Elaboration Likelihood Model

The active and conscious effort to change attitudes through the transmission of a message. This can be how members of a group can influence attitudes of other individuals within that group.

1) a theory of how persuasive messages lead to attitude changes

Impressions

*Non-verbal

Attitude developed on the fly

*

facial expressions - commicate with face: watching eyes, mouth movement

body language - posture: rigid vs. relaxed, respect to proximity

Wason Selection Task

It is easier for individuals to solve problems of social interaction

Attributions

1) Personal

2) Situational

3) Just world hypothesis

Causal explanations for why events or actions occur.

1) attributions based on personal characteristics

2) not specific to individuals, but situations

3) People get what they deserve

Fundamental Attribution Error - 2 eg???

Overemphasize personal factors, underemphasize situation

eg - Stanford Prison Experient: Just said the people designated to be gaurds are just bad people without considering the situation

eg - Abu Ghraib: Just said gaurds are bad people when they were told that the prisoners were all terrorists and that's why they had to treat them that way

Bias

1) Correspondance Bias

2) Actor-observer Discrepancy

1) Believe other people will react in the same way we do

2) attributions are biased depending on whether or not you are the observer or the actor. eg - getting a bad grade on the test might seem okay if you are the one that had a bad break up the night before the exam as opposed to an outsider that just thinks you didn't study enough

Stereotypes

1) definition

2) what they can lead to

1) Cognitive schemas that organize information about people based on their membership in certain groups

2) Prejudice, racism, ingroup favoritism: use stereotypes to attribute favorable traits to people in your group - maintain cohesion of group. Adaptive, group loyalty

Self-fulfilling Prophecy - aka?

aka Pygmalion Effect: People come to behave in ways that confirm their own or others' expectations, leading to the formation, perpetuation of stereotype

Social facilitation

The presence of other individuals can enhance performance (eg biking better when with friends, even if it's not competitive)

Social Loafing

-how can we prevent it?

Reverse of social facilitation in that people work less hard in a group than alone.

-preventative measure: distribute responsibilities

Group Think - eg?

when individual group members do not raise questions in order to get along with the group - eg challenger space shuttle - a few people identified problems but were ignored and labeled as trouble makers.  The pressure to make the deadlines pushed them to launch the shuttle anyway; the result was that the problems were real and the quest failed.

Social Norms - eg?

expected standards of conduct, which we use to influence our behavior

eg being able to wear your spidey costume to dinner at home, but knowing that it is not okay to wear that costume when you're going out to dinner.

Conformity

1) The Asch Task

2) Influences

Altering one's opinions or behavior to match those of others or to match social norms

1) 1 participant and 5 confederates (person who works with the researcher who pretends to be a participant) were asked to look at a group of lines and choose the longest one.  The confederates chose a line that was not the shortest, but 75% of the time, the participants conformed to the confederates even tho the line they chose was obviously not the longest one.

2) Group Size, Unanimity, Fear of Exclusion

Obedience - eg?

- Reducing obedience

Following orders given by an authority - eg Milgram Experiment: participants were told to electrically shock confederates in a memory learning experiment.  Wrong answers resulted in electrical shocking, which increased in voltage with each wrong answer.  Only a few participants dropped out after hearing the "pain" they caused, but most made it to the end.

-closeness to victim, distance from authority (increase distance, decrease obedience), increase responsibility

Agression

-evolutionary aspects

Any behavior or action that involves the intention to hurt someone

-resources (territory/food), mates, outsiders, social order (dominance heirarchy)

Prosocial behavior - aka?

aka altruism: acting in a way which benefits others

-Providing help without benefit or reward (can't be explained by simple models)

Cooperation

1) Prisoner's Dilemma

2) Tit-for-tat

People are more likely to cooperate w/ others, but this can change depending on impression of other individuals (eg if seem threatening, then people will tend to reciprocate)

1) if both prisoners stay silent than each will serve only a minimum of time in jail as opposed to one person betraying causing on to be set free and the other to serve years or both betray and both serve years. 

2) initial cooperation, then reciprocate the opponent's previous action

Bystander Intervention Effect - aka?  2 eg?

aka Deindividuation: Failure to offer help when observing someone in need.  The more bystanders there are, the less help. 

eg. Kitty Genovese was murdered outside her apartment with 38 witnesses and not one called the police because each individual thought someone else would call. 

Subject and confederates were put in a room to complete a questionaire. While smoke filled the room, confederates stayed and subjects that were with confederates also stayed, while those that were alone left the room.

Causes of the Bystander Effect

-Diffusion of responsibility (key component, won't feel responsible)

-fear of social blunders (if response is socially inappropriate, won't do it)

-anonymity can be maintained

-avoidance of harm to self

Influences of friendships

situational and personal factors such as:

-similarity of attitudes

-positive personal charateristics: sincere, honest, loyal (we perceive them as such, even if they really aren't)

-physical attractiveness (implicit): more likely to become friends w/ someone who's physically attractive.  Same with mother - more attractive infants get more taken care of. 

Physical attractiveness is an indicator of health and fitness

2 Stages of love

1) Passionate

2) Companionate

1) A state of imense longing and sexual desire

2) A strong committment to care for and support a partner - based on friendship, trust, respect, intimacy

often there is a transission from passionate to companionate love.