Social final study guide PDF

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PSYC345 Final Exam -- Review Sheet

Prosocial behavior What is altruism? Does true altruism exist? ● Altruism: prosocial act that does not benefit the altruist. ● No, but Batson (Empathy-altruism) thinks so. Explanations for prosocial behavior Evolutionary psych ● Kin selection: saving your genes ● Norm of reciprocity: might help you later when you need it ● Not true altruism Social exchange theory ● Do benefits outweigh costs? If so, you will help ● “Costs” can be social pressure, feelings of guilt, etc. ● Not true altruism Empathy-altruism ● If we feel empathy for someone we will help - even if we get no reward. ● No empathy? Result to cost-benefit analysis ● Batson says this is true altruism ● You can build empathy by loving-kindness meditation Gender differences ● Men: emergency helping, instrumental help ● Women: long-term helping, emotional help Darley & Latane’s 5 steps 1. Notice the event 2. Interpret the event as an emergency 3. Assume responsibility 4. Know appropriate form of assistance 5. Implement decision Conditions that make it easier and harder to help ● Effects of mood ○ Feel good, do good ○ Feel bad, do good ● Difficulty of request ○ Less likely to help if difficult ● Rushing ● Number of people around

○ Bystander effect ● Modeling ○ Someone demonstrates it -> you do it Positive psychology Intentional activities to boost happiness ● Socialize ○ Quality over quantity ○ Needs to be face-to-face ● Do acts of kindness ● Write gratitude letters ● Exercise ● Limit your choices ● Spend money ○ On others ○ On experiences vs. material possessions ● Focus on meaningful goals Causes and correlates of happiness ● What is positive psychology? ● Positive psychology: seek to understand human strength and virtue—all that can go right and contribute to a happy, fulfilling life. ● Goal of positive psychology: encourage flourishing. ● The positive psychologist focuses on qualities of the person, and would seek to increase human virtues such as empathy and altruism. Hedonic adaptation ● Hedonic adaptation: after a positive or negative event, and an increase or decrease in happiness, we will return to a stable, baseline level of happiness. ○ Example: People who win the lottery are likely to revert to their original levels of happiness after the novelty of the win has worn off.

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Aggression Definition ● Aggression: Intentional behavior aimed at doing harm or causing pain to another person. ○ The same external behavior can be aggressive or not. Broad types of aggression ● Instrumental aggression- means to some other goal. Ex. You want the backpack but while trying to get it you knock someone down. The intent was not to hurt someone. ○ Opportunity for gain with high rewards and low risk is the immediate conditions. ○ Long term conditions■ poverty or other challenging economic factors ■ Perceive crime as primary means to resources/respect ■ Norms condone aggression Opportunity —> Reward/cost —> aggression as mean ● Hostile aggression- Stems from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain. ○ Aggression is the end itself ○ Ex. when the intent is to hurt someone ○ Long term conditions- repeated threats to self worth or status ○ Immediate conditions■ Threats to self esteem, status, or respect, particularly in public situations ■ Aggression to save face/image or status Threat to self —> Anger—> Aggression as an end Theories of why it exists (catharsis, frustration-aggression, alcohol myopia, priming, learning, deindividuation) ● Alcohol myopia (Steele & josephs, 1990) Impairs cognitive processing, miss subtleties ○ Aggressive response: often powerful & simple ○ Inhibiting response: often weaker and more complex ○ “Dominant response” wins out ○ Also intensifies your primary emotions ● Frustration-aggression (old theory) ○ Frustration (being blocked from a goal) always leads to aggression ○ Aggression can be displaced (frued) ○ Ex. Road rage, slow people walking with headphones, income inequality ● Deindividuation ○ Feelings of anonymity and reduced individuality, resulting in the loosening of normal constraints on behavior. ○ Leads to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts

● Priming/ Cues ○ When a gun/knife is in the room, more likely to act aggressively. ○ Weapons Effect: The increase in aggression that can occur because of the mere presence of a gun or other weapon. ○ ● Learning (social learning theory) ○ We learn how to act aggressively ■ Modeling ○ We learn the consequences of aggression ● Catharsis ○ Watch violent/play violent video games to purge aggressive feelings ○ Does not work (but might make you too tired to aggress) ○ Seems to create more violence Media violence – is there a relationship between exposure & aggression? ● Video games ○ Small effect, not meaningful ○ Violence most impactful for people who already have violent tendencies. ○ The usual assumption has been that watching violence makes people more aggressive, but aggressive people are also drawn to watching violence. ○ Some children are born with a mental or emotional predisposition toward violence; or learn it as toddlers from the way they are treated by abusive parents or siblings; or in other ways develop aggressiveness as a personality trait. How can it be reduced? ● Punishment ○ Deterrence theory: punishment has to be severe, certain, and swift. ○ Remove cues to aggression ○ Minimize alcohol use ○ Provide better role models ○ Defusing anger ■ Count to ten ■ Apology ■ Talking it out ■ Build empathy Prejudice ● Prejudice: a negative or hostile attitude towards a member of a group, based solely on their membership in that group.

3 parts of the attitude ● Affective: emotion ○ Usually negative ● Behavior: discrimination ● Cognitive: thoughts ○ Categorization, heuristics Stereotypes as schemas ● We categorize physical and social worlds - heuristics and schemas. ● Stereotypes- “the law of least effort” ○ Availability heuristic ○ Oversimplification- we exaggerate the similarities of things in a category (outgroup homogeneity) Outgroup homogeneity ● We tend to exaggerate the similarities of people not in our ingroup. ● “All people in an outgroup are the same” Social identity theory, minimal groups ● People favor ingroups to enhance self-esteem ● Minimal groups○ Students chose a painting (Klee and Kandinsky) ○ Students showed bias towards their groups ● Threats to self-esteem lead to more ingroup favoritism ● Expressing ingroup favoritism enhances one’s self-esteem The role of self-esteem maintenance motives ● We want to feel good about our groups (ingroups), not just ourselves. Automatic versus controlled prejudice ● Automatic prejudice: ○ Quick, uncontrollable, negative response ○ Measured by IAT ○ Influences behaviors we’re not monitoring or cannot control ■ Very quick choices ■ Nonverbal behaviors towards the outgroup ● Controlled prejudice ○ Conscious, motivated beliefs ○ Influences behaviors that people are monitoring and control ○ Can be inhibited when mentally tired, distracted, or aroused Devine’s model ● Automatic association: knowledge we all possess. ○ Learn stereotype through media, other people ○ Correll’s work: shoot or no shoot ■ Results similar to weapon/tool study

■ More errors when it is a black person The IAT ● DV= reaction time ● Press left key is good or right key if bad, and it tests your associations ○ Black = right, white= left, but then switches so black= left, white= right Being the target of prejudice – consequences, coping ● Stress ● Performance deficits ● Real economic and social outcomes Stereotype threat (social identity threat) What is it? ● Being at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group ● Happens when a stereotype is primed and relevant to task at hand ○ Performance in domain suffers ○ Ex: women and math ● Stress is the underlying mechanism How can it be reduced? ● How to reduce prejudice Contact hypothesis, jigsaw classroom, classroom interventions ● Contact hypothesis ○ Mutual interdependence ○ A common goal ○ Equal status ○ Contacts with several members of outgroup ○ Social norms of equality ○ Informal, one-to-one contact ○ Ex: Sherif’s “Robbers Cave” study ■ Eagle vs. Rattlers ■ Had to get truck out of mud together ● Jigsaw classroom ○ Designed to: ■ Reduce stereotyping ■ Raise self-esteem ■ Change norms from competitive to cooperation ■ Create an equal playing field ○ Small, desegregated groups ○ Kids depend on each other

Social psychology interventions What are they? How do they work?

● ● helping clients to focus on good things, the future self, gratitude, affirmation of the self and kindness towards others. ● exercises, typically brief, that focus on students' feelings and beliefs rather than teaching academic skills. ● Ex: when students change how they think or view things, they improve GPA How do they work? ● Works best if random assignment is used and experimentation Pros and cons? ● Cons ○ Random assignment is hard, ethics, time, often more needs changing, too surprising/counterintuitive ● Pros ○ Often inexpensive ○ Change construals, “story-editing” ○ Can test mechanisms- the why...