Introducing Social Psychology - A brief history of social psychology

17 important questions on Introducing Social Psychology - A brief history of social psychology

What is the name of the phenomenon where the presence of others may improve/worsen the performance of a task?

Social facilitation

What causes the phenomenon of social facilitation during the performing of a task?

The presence of members of the same species (so: other people)

What is the phenomenon of social loafing within a group of people performing a task together?

A motivation loss in a group that happens when group members reduce their individual effort because their individual efforts are not identifiable to the group performance (EX: more effort when pulling a rope on your own vs with others)
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What is the name of the consistency theory that assumes that individuals want their social perceptions (beliefs, values, attitudes) to be consistent or balanced called?

Balance theory

What is the meaning/position of an individual in a larger system of social forces according to Kurt Lewin's field theory?

An element in that system

What is name of the longitudinal field study of social influence that showed how political attitudes of initially conservative female students changed over time towards the liberal attitudes that were predominant on the college campus, which became a classic, called?

Bennington study by Newcomb

What does the covariation theory say about observers and behavior?

That observers work out the causes of behavior by collecting data about comparison cases

How can observers according to the covariation theory say anything about the causality between factor-effect by collecting data (observations of when the effect occurs)?

There are different factors (person, situation) that can covary with the observed effect. If a factor covaries with the effect (they occur together continuously) in all the collected data (observations of when the effect occurs), an individual can see the factor as the cause of the effect

What is the name of the theory by Kurt Lewin that proposed a framework in which individuals were represented as elements in a larger system of social forces?

Field theory

What are the types of theories called that propose that people want consistency and congruence (compatibility, harmony) among their beliefs, values and attitudes?

Consistency theories

What are the types of theories called about how individuals can deduce/theorize the underlying 'causes' of other peoples' or their own behavior?

Attribution theories

What happened in the (first) crisis in social psychology?

It was a crisis of confidence (1960-later decades) in which social psychologists questioned the values, methods and scientific status of their discipline, which they eventually overcame

What had caused the (first) crisis in social psychology?

2 papers published by social psychologists that respectively questioned the attitude towards the discipline ('fun and games') and the scientific value of the discipline, at a time when the collective self-esteem of social psychologists was already low

What is the name for the factors that one social psychologist (Orne) had said social research experiments to contain, which would help subjects to guess the hypothesis and change their behavior accordingly to be 'good subjects', thus making the experimental method unreliable to social psychology?

Demand characteristics

What is the name of the phenomenon that one social psychologist (Rosenthal) said social research experiments to contain, where the experimenter's expectancy would influence the behavior of the subjects, thus making the experimental method unreliable to social psychology?

Experimenter expectancy effect

What is the name of the consistency theory that assumes that individuals want their social perceptions (beliefs, values, attitudes) to be consistent or balanced called?

Balance theory

What is the name of the attribution theory that says that an observer of a behavior works out the cause of the behavior by collecting data on the effect and its factors in comparison cases (when the same effect occurs)?

Covariation theory

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