Review Outline for Cumulative Final Exam – Spring 2013

Social Psychology – Dr. Schneider

The length of the exam will be 50 questions (slightly longer than your previous 4 exams). Approximately 1/3rdof the questions will be taken from previous exams (on the material below) and the other questions will be new items covering the material below.

Ch 1: Intro to Social Psych

–Definition of Soc Psy

–Research Process:

  • Random sampling & Random Assignment to Groups - definitions
  • Experimental methods: most of social psych research
  • Independent and Dependent variables – what are definitions of each?
  • Ethics – obtaining informed consent, types of deception used in social psych experiments

Chapter 2: The Self in a Social World

  • What are self-concepts and self-schemas?

•Sources of self-concept development:

  • Self-perception - Research on facial feedback – results?
  • Culture and Self-concept:
  • Individualism vs. Collectivism – how do people define themselves?

•Self-regulation and self-control

  • Baumeister’s research – self-control as a limited resource that can be depleted

•Self-assessments

  • Self-serving cognitions: self-handicapping

Chapter 3 – Social Beliefs & Judgments

  • Importance of social perception in gaining information about people
  • Nonverbal behaviors –
  • Detecting deception from nonverbal cues: how good are we at this?
  • What are microexpressions?
  • Attributions
  • Personal (Internal) vs. Situational (External) attributions – for us and others…
  • Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) – what is it?

Chapter 4 – Behavior & Attitudes

  • Definition of attitude – affective, behavioral, cognitive components
  • Attitude assessment – problems with self-reports?
  • Implicit Attitudes – how are these measured (how does the IAT work)? Compare to self-reports
  • Importance of roles in determining our behaviors & influencing attitudes
  • Stanford Prison Experiment as example
  • What are details of the study – how were participants assigned to roles of ‘guard’ and ‘prisoner’?
  • How did the role play impact their behavior & attitudes?
  • Cognitive Dissonance –another explanation for why behavior affects attitudes
  • Festinger’s original experiment – motivation for consistency between beh + attitude and reduction of tension if inconsistent attitudes & behavior
  • Self-Perception theory – alternate to cog dissonance theory
  • If difficult to interpret our feelings or when weak attitude  look to our behavior for clues

Chapter 7 – Persuasion

  • Persuasion
  • Central route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
  • Peripheral route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
  • Message effects:
  • Techniques such as foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, etc.
  • Audience effects:
  • Inoculation effect – how does this work?

Chapter 6 - Conformity & Obedience

  • Types of Social Influence – conformity, compliance, & obedience (definitions & how does each differ from the others?)
  • Classic Conformity studies -
  • Why do people conform? Informational vs. normative purposes
  • Compliance
  • Strategies for compliance – foot-in-the-door and door-in-the face (examples?)
  • Obedience
  • Milgram’s research:
  • Original experiment – what was the procedure?
  • Impact of the situation on obedience: how did location, experimenter, closeness to victim, and non-conformers influence the results? Any effects for gender?
  • Jonestown – cults and mass suicide
  • How were persuasion techniques used?
  • How did the situation play a role in the mass suicide?

Chapter 8 – Group Influence

  • Group definition & functions of groups
  • How does the presence of others affect us?
  • Social facilitation – what is it?
  • Social loafing – what is it? Why does it occur? How do we reduce it?
  • Deindividuation –what is it? Why does it occur?
  • Group performance – what is process loss?
  • Group polarization – what is it?
  • Groupthink – what is it? (don’t need to know all the symptoms)
  • Conflict Management Strategies – know differences between bargaining, mediation, and arbitration

Chapter 9 –Prejudice

  • Distinctions between definitions of stereotype, prejudice, discrimination
  • How do each relate to affective, behavioral, & cognitive components?
  • Racism
  • How to best measure racism?
  • Implicit Association Test (IAT) – how does it work?
  • Sexism
  • Prescriptive vs. descriptive gender stereotypes – what are they?
  • Stereotype Threat – research by Claude Steele
  • What is it and how does it influence performance? How is it studied in experiments?
  • Sources of Prejudice
  • Intergroup conflict:
  • Sherif’s Robber’s Cave experiment –What was the effect of competition?
  • Blue-Eyed/Brown Eyed Experiment (Jane Elliott)
  • Outgroup homogeneity effect – what is it? Why does it happen?
  • Culture
  • Media effects – how does the media portray men and women differently?
  • Archer’s research on ‘face-ism’

Ch 10 – Aggression

  • Distinction between aggression & assertiveness
  • Social Learning – Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment – what happened?
  • Aggression triggers:
  • Violent TV – Gerbner’s research on mean world syndrome
  • Guns as cues for aggression
  • Violent video games – what does research indicate?
  • Links between aggression & violent media in general
  • How punishment can be effective – reference social learning theory

Ch 11 – Attraction& Intimacy

  • Attraction to friendships – important factors -
  • Proximity
  • Mere exposure effect – how does this work?
  • Physical attractiveness – matching phenomenon, ‘what is beautiful is good’
  • Attachment & love – 3 attachment styles (what are they & what is most common?)
  • Theories of love
  • Passionate/Companionate love – definitions of each

Ch 12 – Helping Others

Motives for altruism

Evolutionary explanations – kin selection, reciprocity, empathy

Cost-reward model – social exchange; egoistic vs. altruistic helping

Bystander Effect (Latane & Darley’s research)

What results are typical in bystander studies?

Effects of pluralistic ignorance, difficulty in interpreting situation, diffusion of responsibility

Situational Influences (rural, culture, role models)

Chapter 15 – Social Psych and the Courtroom

Eyewitness memory – Jennifer Thompson case as an example (know the general case)

–3 stages of memory – how can each influence eyewitness memory?

Acquisition – weapon focus

Storage –misinformation effect (Loftus research)

Retrieval – lineup format (Wells research)

Jurors’ perceptions of eyewitness testimony – differences in confidence & accuracy

Jury deliberations – processing info in story vs. witness order

Death-qualified jurors – who are they? Concerns with selection of this group?

False confessions –compliance & internalization