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Social Psychologie

Q: What two types of identities are there and how are they different?

The two types of identities are; personal identity social identity. The personal identity is your unique identity , this is how people see you, what your self-description is and when you are alone with them and social identity talks about your group identity.

Q: When do we gloss over individual differences and what two types of social groups are there?

The two social groups are; In groups - groups you belong to Out groups - groups you don't belong to. We gloss over the individual differences of people when we see/talk about people who are in out-groups, or groups we don't belong to.

Q: What is a stereotype and how can stereotype threat be considered as choking under pressure?

A stereotype is any schema or a set of beliefs we have about a group of people , which may be categorized by gender, age, country, religion etc. The stereotype threat is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy negatively. Like the idea that women are better at maths or black people don't know how to read, when you believe these things you will actually perform better or worse depending on the treat. They've found that girls do better in tests taken by women and blacks fare better at tests by blacks.

Q: What are the three levels of stereotype, and what is the difference between them?

Public; what we say to others about a group Private; what we conciously believe but don't say to others Implicit; Mental associations about groups

Q: Why are public and private stereotypes considered explicit stereotypes, and how are implicit stereotypes identified?

Public and private stereotypes are considered explicit stereotypes because the person consciously makes judgements on other people, and both are measurable by forms of questionnaires. Implicit stereotypes can be identified by the implicit association tests, where you may be tested with race and good and bad words. Implicit race bias has been found in european and japanese children from 6 years old.

Q: What evidence shows that implicit prejudice can cause police offers to shoot at black suspects more readily than white suspects and how can you decrease implicit prejudice?

White people in general perceive black people to be more hostile, violen t, and therefore may think they're grabbing guns and/or violent weapons faster. In a study of categorising non+threatening objects, white people made fewer mistakes and categorised threatening objects faster after seeing black faces. Implicit prejudice is based on conditioning, and it can be counter-conditioned by diversity training , however what was most succesful during tackling implicit prejudice was gaining black friends and building relationships with them.

Q: What do we see as social pressure, and what are the terms that define positive social pressure and negative social pressure?

Social pressure is considered a set of psychological forces that are exerted on us by other's judgements, expectations or demands, whether real or imagined. Social facilitation is when being watched improves performance. Social interference is when being watched worsens performance.

Q: What was Zajoncs theory on social pressure?

Zajonc made the generalization that the presence of others facilitates performance of dominant actions and interferes with the presence of non-dominant actions. He stated this was the presence of others causes a heightened state of arousa l. This heightened drive increases heightened effort , which works well when a task takes lots of effort but interferes when a task is automatic.

Q: What evidence is there to prove Zajoncs theory on social pressure by experiments and real life experiences?

In an experiment pool players performed better when they were watched conspicuously by a group of four observers over when they weren't being watched - however the opposite was true for novice players. Interference is worsened when negative comments are made just before performance. In real life experiences, social facilitation can occur in things like tennis matches where serena williams would be facilitated by social presence yet novices may suffer interference.

Q: What are the two classes of reasons why people tend to conform to examples set by others?

Informational influence Normative influence Informational influence is information provided by others about the nature of an event or situation Normative influence is a form of group cohesion wherein you all follow the same path due to wanting to be accepted and acting like one.

28 important questions on Social Psychologie

What two types of identities are there and how are they different?

The two types of identities are;

personal identity
social identity.

The personal identity is your unique identity, this is how people see you, what your self-description is and when you are alone with them and social identity talks about your group identity.

When do we gloss over individual differences and what two types of social groups are there?

The two social groups are;
In groups - groups you belong to
Out groups - groups you don't belong to.

We gloss over the individual differences of people when we see/talk about people who are in out-groups, or groups we don't belong to.

What is a stereotype and how can stereotype threat be considered as choking under pressure?

A stereotype is any schema or a set of beliefs we have about a group of people, which may be categorized by gender, age, country, religion etc.

The stereotype threat is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy negatively. Like the idea that women are better at maths or black people don't know how to read, when you believe these things you will actually perform better or worse depending on the treat.

They've found that girls do better in tests taken by women and blacks fare better at tests by blacks.

What are the three levels of stereotype, and what is the difference between them?

Public; what we say to others about a group
Private; what we conciously believe but don't say to others
Implicit; Mental associations about groups

Why are public and private stereotypes considered explicit stereotypes, and how are implicit stereotypes identified?

Public and private stereotypes are considered explicit stereotypes because the person consciously makes judgements on other people, and both are measurable by forms of questionnaires.

Implicit stereotypes can be identified by the implicit association tests, where you may be tested with race and good and bad words.

Implicit race bias has been found in european and japanese children from 6 years old.

What evidence shows that implicit prejudice can cause police offers to shoot at black suspects more readily than white suspects and how can you decrease implicit prejudice?

White people in general perceive black people to be more hostile, violent, and therefore may think they're grabbing guns and/or violent weapons faster. In a study of categorising non+threatening objects, white people made fewer mistakes and categorised threatening objects faster after seeing black faces.

Implicit prejudice is based on conditioning, and it can be counter-conditioned by diversity training, however what was most succesful during tackling implicit prejudice was gaining black friends and building relationships with them.

What do we see as social pressure, and what are the terms that define positive social pressure and negative social pressure?

Social pressure is considered a set of psychological forces that are exerted on us by other's judgements, expectations or demands, whether real or imagined.

Social facilitation is when being watched improves performance.
Social interference is when being watched worsens performance.

What was Zajoncs theory on social pressure?

Zajonc made the generalization that the presence of others facilitates performance of dominant actions and interferes with the presence of non-dominant actions.

He stated this was the presence of others causes a heightened state of arousal. This heightened drive increases heightened effort, which works well when a task takes lots of effort but interferes when a task is automatic.

What evidence is there to prove Zajoncs theory on social pressure by experiments and real life experiences?

In an experiment pool players performed better when they were watched conspicuously by a group of four observers over when they weren't being watched - however the opposite was true for novice players.

Interference is worsened when negative comments are made just before performance.

In real life experiences, social facilitation can occur in things like tennis matches where serena williams would be facilitated by social presence yet novices may suffer interference.

What are the two classes of reasons why people tend to conform to examples set by others?

Informational influence
Normative influence

Informational influence is information provided by others about the nature of an event or situation

Normative influence is a form of group cohesion wherein you all follow the same path due to wanting to be accepted and acting like one.

What happened in Asch's demonstration and how did he demonstrate that a tendency to conform can lead people to disclaim the evidence of their own eyes?

In Asch's experiment people were asked to compare the standard line with comparison lines, everyone was asked which line it compared to and all of them were part of the study except for the last one who was being studied on, everyone gave the wrong answer and the person who came last, the real studier, never gave the right answer and always followed the rest.

Whilst Asch didnt expert conformity would happen, 75% were swayed by the confederates by at least 1 trial, A few subjects conformed on every trial and on average, subjects conformed with 37%

How can public-serve messages best capitalize on normative influence, and how does Cialdini give proof for his idea?

Public-serve messages can work contradictory to it's use. If the messages imply that theft is being done by multiple people it will normalize theft implicitly and theft will increase.

How can conformity serve as a basis for the bystander effect or be explained in terms of informational and normative influence?

The presence of other witnesses decreases each witness likelihood of helping in the bystander effect, the more people present the less likely they will feel it's their responsibility to act.

When we see the situation, we look at how others act in the situation and the inaction of another bystander may create the social norm/normative influence to do nothing and therefore may cause more people to do nothing.

What is the value for groups contagion with the spread of sadness, anger, fear and laughter and how may emotional contagion figure into the rise of group leaders?

The value of group contagion with shared sadness is the motivation of empathy, shared anger may promote getting allies in a common cause, shared fear can induce a heightened state of vigilance and group laughter induces playfulness and protects against being offended.

Ronald Reagon and Bill clinton were leaders which a high level of emotional contagion. In experiments with students, it was shown that students were showing bodily responses matching the presidents speeches even when they couldn't hear the words they were saying.

What is group polarization and what are some experiments that have demonstrated group polarization?

When a group is evenly split, some people convince others, so they leave with the same amount of people, yet when a group is uneven it causes group polarization. If a large group all argue for one side, it pushes discussion more extreme and leaves people in a more extreme view of their original view.

This has been shown in experiments with mock trials, where before discussion people had moderate opinions and after discussion there were strong for and strong against and the gap between for and against was greater after discussion.

How can group polarization have serious consequences and how is this shown in cases concerning politics and prisoners?

When students who are slightly right in politics form a conservatives club, their views become more right and the same goes when students who are slightly left form a liberal club, their views become more left.

When prisoners enter jail with a small disrespect of the law they will meet other people that disrespect the law and in return group polarization can cause prisoners to have a great disrespect of the law upon reentry of normal society

What did Janis mean with the word groupthink and what can groups do to reduce the risk of group think?

Janis coined the term groupthink, he defined this as a mode of thinking that people engage when they are deeply involved in cohesive in-groups when the member's striving for unanimity overrides their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses for action.

Group think can be reduced when leaders don't voice their opinion and request others voice theirs and challenge each other and when groups focus on the problem instead of group cohesion.

How can the low-ball sales technique be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance and what evidence supports this explanation?

Low-ball technique is when you're offered to buy something at a low price, and you agree to buy it, after you agree to buy it the seller says the price is too low, and then he inflates the price. People still buy it.

Cialdini experimented with this and suggested that the trick works because people have cognitive dissonance after buying and people imagine theirselves with the bought items highering the value it actually has.

What is the foot-in-the-door sales technique and how can it be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance?

The foot-in-the-door technique is that you're more likely to agree to a large request if you've agreed to a small request before that. You're more likely to donate money to a cause if you signed a petition for it before.

It may work because the first decision to give them a small request creates a sense of trust, commitment or compassion.

How many of Stanley Milgrims "teachers" followed the experiment to the end after the learners passed out and how many of these continued with a disobedient confederate?

65% of Stanley Milgrims teachers followed the experiment to the end, continueing to pass electric shocks to students after they screamed and noticably passed out.

When a disobedient confederate would be in the room refusing to shock students, the teachers would also disobey and only 10% would carry on to the end.

How is Milgrims findings more related to the social situation than personal characteristics?

Milgrim repeated his experiment with men, women, americans, europeans, white's, black's and all of the findings were the same. People like to imagine that in this day and age we would act differently yet recently replicated yet halted due to ethics show that we indeed, do not act differently today.

What are social dilemma's and what is the tragedy of the commons by Garrett Hardin

A social dilemma is whenever a particular course of action will benefit one but harm the group.

In the Tragedy of the Common Garrett Hardin compared the Planet to a New england town wherein cows grazed. Each farmer had a dilemma; if I add one cow, my profits increase and pasture decreases but if everyone adds a cow the pasture fails and all cows die.

It becomes a tragedy when all farmers reason well it's not the increase of my cow but the combined increase of others than all farmers add cows and everyone dies.

What are real life dilemmas of tragedy of the commons?

One real life dilemma of the tragedy of the commons is gasoline-consumption cars releasing pollution and another one is fishing grounds. Overfishing causes extinction of fish yet every fisherman thinks they contribute little to the problem.

How have laboratory games demonstrated human sense of justice and willingness to punish even at a personal cost, and how does this promote future cooperation?

In the public-goods game, each player is given money and under anonymity must choose whether to keep it or donate it to the pool, if 75% donated x amount, all players receive a substantially greater reward. In another version, people would pay money to punish people who did not contribute (altruistic punishment).

After punishment, co-operation increased whilst without punishment, successive trials had less and less co-operation.

What is the difference between personal identity and social identity and how can our social identity lead to helping and hurting our in/out social groups.

Our personal identity is thoughts of ourselves, with self interests of our own whilst our social identity entails shared thoughts and interests.

Our social identity leads to in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination wherein the brains of men the reward system has been activated if pain is caused to out-group members. We are also more likely to experience schadenfreunde at out group members.

This favouritism has been seen starting from pre-school ages.

What happened in the Robbers cave experiment and what where the names of the two divided groups?

The two divided groups were called the Eagles, with the holier than thou description and the Rattlers wherein the Rattlers had the identity of rough and dirty.

In the Robbers cave experiment, children randomly divided into two groups camping for 3 weeks in a place where Jesse James had a hideout.

What were the three changes in the relationships between the boys in each groups of Robbers Cave?

The competition promoted three changes in the relationship among bus within and between groups;

Within group solidarity; They set aside internal squabbles and differences and the loyalty to their own group became strong.
Negative stereptyping of the other group; Even though all boys were middle class, white, protestant) they were randomly assigned and soon stereotyped the other group in negative ways.
Hostile between-group interactions; Good sportsmanship collapsed, calling each other names and accusing them of cheating and burning banners, leading to escalating raids and other hostilities.

How did the Sherif and his colleagues succeed in promoting peace between the two groups of boys, and how has a superordinate task worked in Red River North Dokota?

Initially he tried to do non-competitive activities together which failed, and eventually he did a series of superordinate tasks. In superordinate tasks, you have to work together to succeed for a benefit of prize for all. After three series of superordinate tasks, rivalry ended and natural friendships started to form without encouragement.

When the Red River overflowed in North Dakota, many locals had to work together to create and stack sandbags to save homes for flooding, none of them could succeed alone. Social psychologists predict that this experience will create a positive bond among volunteers and promote future-coperations.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Inleiding Psychologie II

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