Psychology Unit 10: Social Psychology | Notes and practice

Notes

Attitudes and influence

Cognitive dissonance is discomfort when beliefs and actions conflict. Persuasion techniques include foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face.
The fundamental attribution error overemphasizes personality over situation when explaining others' behavior.

Conformity and obedience

Asch: people often conform to a unanimous group; one dissenter reduces conformity. Normative influence (to be accepted) vs informational influence (to be right).
Milgram: about 65 percent went to the highest shock under authority. Obedience falls when others refuse or the authority is not legitimate.

Groups, prejudice and helping

Social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group polarization and groupthink.
Stereotype (belief), prejudice (attitude), discrimination (behavior). Contact and shared goals reduce prejudice.
Bystander effect: helping falls as the number of bystanders grows because of diffusion of responsibility.

Topics in this unit

Each topic has its own short notes and practice.

Practice

Mia knows that littering is wrong, but throws a wrapper on the ground and thinks, "One wrapper doesn't matter." This is best explained by:

In Asch's line judgment studies, participants who gave wrong answers to match the group were showing:

A worker follows a manager's order he thinks is unfair because the manager is the boss. This is:

Five students collect donations. Each puts in less effort than when working alone, because no one measures individual work. This is:

Which sequence correctly orders stereotype, prejudice and discrimination as belief, attitude and behavior?

Someone collapses in a busy hallway and no one helps, as everyone assumes someone else will. The best explanation is:

Free response

Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.

Free-response question

Tomas sees a student drop her books and fall in the school courtyard. About 20 students walk by and no one stops. Later, Tomas learns that a classmate who was nearby thought, "Someone else will help." Tomas decides that the students are simply cold people.

(a) Name and explain the social psychology principle that explains why no one helped.

Show the answer and scoring guide

The bystander effect: when more people are present, each feels less personally responsible, which is diffusion of responsibility.

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: bystander effect named
1 point: diffusion of responsibility explained

(b) Identify the error in Tomas's conclusion and explain it.

Show the answer and scoring guide

The fundamental attribution error: he blames personality ("cold people") and ignores the situational factor (a crowd).

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: fundamental attribution error named
1 point: explains that the situation was ignored

(c) Describe one thing a person could do to increase the chance that someone would help in a similar situation.

Show the answer and scoring guide

Point to one person and make a specific request, such as "You in the red shirt, please help her up." This removes the sense that someone else will do it.

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: a specific, valid action
1 point: explanation tied to reducing diffusion of responsibility