PSYCH

CH 13: Social Psych

Social Psychology: Branch of psychology in which individuals thought, feelings, and
behaviors influence others
Physical experience is favored in US
Stereotypes: widely held believes for a group
Attributions: Inferencs people draw about causes of events, others behavior, or their own
behavior
Within: based on personal factors
o Didnt do well on a test because your sick
Outside: attributing it to environmental factors
o Didnt do well because you made the test too hard
Fundamental Attribution: observers bias in favor of internal attributions that explains
others behavior

Internal: positive
o Do well on a test, Im great
External: negative
o Do bad, teacher is terrible
Blaming the victim for

Dating/Mating
First thing that attracts us: Looks
Matching Hypothesis: The partners tend to be equal attractiveness, education
level, economic status
SImiliarity we choose people like us
o Age, interests, attitudes, values
o Plutonic & Romantic
o Passionate Love Really intense highs & lows
o Companion Love warm, trusting, affectionate, tolerance
o Secure attachments are best
Interdependent, comfortable of sexuality, less comfortable with casual
sex
o Anxious-ambivalent more towards passionate
Look for reassurance from partners
o Anxious-avoidanct
Manipulative
Casual sex
o Males concerned about looks
o Females social status, financial status
o Collectivist: putting group goals ahead of indiviuals
Asian American
Arranged marriage
o Individualist strive for selves
American

o When women are in the middle of their cycle, men are more attracted
Woman are more sexualized
o Men and women will lie
Attitudes
Positive or negative evaluations of objects or thoughts
o Cognitive (belief abt something), emotional (emotion stimulated), behavioral
(act in a certain way towards the object)
Abortion
o Firmly held resistant to change
Durability
o Accessibility how often you think about this attitude
We think murders are bad people, a psychologist has a different
opinion because they personally experience them.
o Ambivalence how conflicted you feel about the attitude
More conflicted, less strong
o Explicit how you learned the attitude
Told death penalty is wrong, therefore you think its wrong
o Implicit how you feel about the attitude
Something that happened to you and you create an attitude
o Changing attitudes: Persuasion
Attitudes are not reflected in behaviors
Likability: more similar, more likely you are to be attracted
Message factors: two sided arguments tend to work better
Fear can change behavior
Truth Effect: repeating the same statement over and over makes it true
Receiving factors: if you know youre gonna see a cars salesman and
you know how they act, youll probably be resistant to fall trap to it
If youre already resistant to something youre
Channel factor: face to face is the best
o Dissonance: inconsistency among attitudes that propels people in the
direction of attitude change
o Conformity: when people yield to real or imagined social pressure
o Normative influence: you go against the norm to avoid disaster
o Group Behavior: two or more pople that are interacting that are
interdependent
Usually face to face
Generally group leader
Generally norms about behavior or structure
Power structure
Bystander effect: when we see someone is need of help, were less
likely to help them if were in a group
Kitty Genovese
Social loafing: group project, someone else will do it
Group Polarization: one opinion changes and shift occurs
Tends to surround riskier decisions
Group think
Confirmation bias

Group cohesiveness: strength of relationships within groups