SYA 4010 Sociological Theory Analytical Essay – Outline Worksheet DUE: Friday March 15, 11: 59 P.M. Name: Iman Nayton My topic is: The government shutdowns impact on the finances of families/especially the lower class and their unwavering devotion to Donald trump (how their continuous support is detrimental to their own good) The theorist whose ideas I will use to analyze my topic is: Max Weber’s Charismatic Dominance and his ideal types The reason I have chosen this theorist to analyze this topic is: Weber’s theories best apply to today’s current political climate. Specifically Charismatic domination explicitly touches on the persuasiveness of leaders and how they emerge during periods of weakness within societies and his ideal types specifically affectual and value rational pertains to peoples current views/political decisions that go based on their emotions or religious values Main ideas of theorist (bulleted list): · Social action · Verstehen · Value rational/Traditional/Etc · Ideal types Specific theoretical ideas or concept/s that I will apply to topic (bulleted list if needed): · Charismatic Domination · Ideal types · Verstehen · Social Action Citation/s for theory: (Cite as you will in your reference list. Consult the ASA’s citation style guide): THOMPSON, K. AND WOOCOMMERCE, B. Max Weber’s Social Action Theory In-text: (Thompson and WooCommerce, 2019) Your Bibliography: Thompson, K. and WooCommerce, B. (2019). Max Weber’s Social Action Theory. [online] ReviseSociology. Available at: https://revisesociology.com/2017/01/26/max-webers-social-action-theory/ Citation/s for topic: (Cite as you will in your reference list. Consult the ASA’s citation style guide): JAN, T. AND WAN, W. Food stamps, rent aid and the safety net for American’s poorest at risk as shutdown drags on In-text: (Jan and Wan, 2019) Your Bibliography: Jan, T. and Wan, W. (2019). Food stamps, rent aid and the safety net for American’s poorest at risk as shutdown drags on. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/food-stamps-housing-subsidies-and-other-services-for-vulnerable-americans-in-jeopardy-as-shutdown-drags-on/2019/01/09/e025549c-1374-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c79197aed2d0 2 Social Psychology Exam 2 Study Guide Broad questions to consider: What specific psychological theories, concepts or processes from ch 7-9 help us understand the behavior demonstrated by: a) The prisoners and guards in the Zimbardo prison study? b) The members of Jonestown/Peoples Temple? c) The research participants in the Milgram obedience study? Chapter 7: Attitudes, Behaviors, Rationalization Vocab: Attitudes · an evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion that includes three components: affect (emotion), cognition, and behavior. · Measured most often on a likert scale · Measuring attitudes: · Accessibility- how readily it comes to mind · Centrality- how prevalent in one’s belief .

1. SYA 4010 Sociological Theory
Analytical Essay – Outline Worksheet
DUE: Friday March 15, 11: 59 P.M.
Name: Iman Nayton
My topic is:
The government shutdowns impact on the finances of
families/especially the lower class and their unwavering
devotion to Donald trump (how their continuous support is
detrimental to their own good)
The theorist whose ideas I will use to analyze my topic is:
Max Weber’s Charismatic Dominance and his ideal types
The reason I have chosen this theorist to analyze this topic is:
Weber’s theories best apply to today’s current political climate.
Specifically Charismatic domination explicitly touches on the
persuasiveness of leaders and how they emerge during periods
of weakness within societies and his ideal types specifically
affectual and value rational pertains to peoples current
views/political decisions that go based on their emotions or
religious values
Main ideas of theorist (bulleted list):
· Social action
· Verstehen
· Value rational/Traditional/Etc
· Ideal types
Specific theoretical ideas or concept/s that I will apply to topic

2. (bulleted list if needed):
· Charismatic Domination
· Ideal types
· Verstehen
· Social Action
Citation/s for theory: (Cite as you will in your reference list.
Consult the ASA’s citation style guide):
THOMPSON, K. AND WOOCOMMERCE, B.
Max Weber’s Social Action Theory
In-text: (Thompson and WooCommerce, 2019)
Your Bibliography: Thompson, K. and WooCommerce, B.
(2019). Max Weber’s Social Action Theory. [online]
ReviseSociology. Available at:
https://revisesociology.com/2017/01/26/max-webers-social-
action-theory/
Citation/s for topic: (Cite as you will in your reference list.
Consult the ASA’s citation style guide):
JAN, T. AND WAN, W.
Food stamps, rent aid and the safety net for American’s poorest
at risk as shutdown drags on
In-text: (Jan and Wan, 2019)
Your Bibliography: Jan, T. and Wan, W. (2019). Food stamps,
rent aid and the safety net for American’s poorest at risk as
shutdown drags on. [online] Available at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/food-
stamps-housing-subsidies-and-other-services-for-vulnerable-
americans-in-jeopardy-as-shutdown-drags-
on/2019/01/09/e025549c-1374-11e9-803c-
4ef28312c8b9_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c79197aed

3. 2d0
2
Social Psychology Exam 2 Study Guide
Broad questions to consider:
What specific psychological theories, concepts or processes
from ch 7-9 help us understand the behavior demonstrated by:
a) The prisoners and guards in the Zimbardo prison study?
b) The members of Jonestown/Peoples Temple?
c) The research participants in the Milgram obedience study?
Chapter 7: Attitudes, Behaviors, Rationalization
Vocab:
Attitudes
· an evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion
that includes three components: affect (emotion), cognition, and
behavior.
· Measured most often on a likert scale
· Measuring attitudes:
· Accessibility- how readily it comes to mind
· Centrality- how prevalent in one’s belief system a topic is
· Response latency- how much time it takes to respond to a
stimulus reflects how strongly one feels about that particular
idea

4. · Implicit attitudes:
· Measures non-conscious attitudes
· Nonverbal measures
· Physiological responses
Decision-related dissonance
· hard decisions cause feelings of dissonance because the
rejected alternative must have some desirable features, the
chosen alternative must have some undesirable features or both
Overjustification effect
· occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or
prizes decreases a person’s intrinsic motivation to perform a
task .
Insufficient justification
· when an individual utilizes internal motivation to justify a
behavior
Consistency motive
· the urge to get a response that verifies what someone currently
thinks of their self
Self-perception theory
· the theory that people that come to know their own attitudes
by looking at their behavior and the context in which it occurred
and inferring what their attitudes must be.
Systems justification theory
· the theory that people are motivated to see the existing
sociopolitical system as desirable, fair, and legitimate.
Cognitive dissonance
· the theory that inconsistency between a person’s thoughts,
sentiments, and actions creates an aversive emotional state
(dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency.
Impression management
· a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt
to influence the perceptions of other people about a person,
object, or event by regulating and controlling information in

5. social interaction
Self-affirmation theory
· the idea that people can maintain an overall sense of self-
worth following psychologically threatening information by
affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat
Effort justification
· the tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time,
effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be
unpleasant or disappointing.
Terror management theory(TMT)
· the theory that people deal with the potentially crippling
anxiety associated with the knowledge of the inevitability of
death by striving for symbolic immortality through preserving
valued cultural worldviews and believing they have lived up to
the culture’s standards
Implicit attitude measures
· an indirect measure of attitudes that does not involve a self-
report
Questions:
How can consciously introspecting about the reasons for our
attitudes actually undermine the quality of our decisions, at
least in some contexts?
· Our behavior can change what is in our heads
· If we let this happen over and over – it can change how we
behave
· We become that way
· Attitude does not always influence someone’s behavior
· One attitude doesn’t always count for everything that comes
into play with behaviors
· Attitudes are also very inconsistent
· Really good at their job but do some pretty awful things
· Conflicting
· Introspecting
· Easily articulated things don’t really drive our attitude

6. · Having to deeper think about it and give reasons may change
attitude or behavior
· Regular people vs. food critics
Describe how a “mismatch” in the specificity of a measured
attitude and the behavior it is supposed to predict can
undermine the ability of that attitude to predict behavior.
· LaPiere – 1934
· Traveled first with Orientals and only got denied by one place
· Then sent letters asking if they would let people in and many
people said no
· This shows us that we can’t always trust attitudes predicting
behavior
Be familiar with research studies discussed at length in the text
regarding cognitive dissonance (as well as those discussed in
class).
· Stanford Prison Experiment
· Aronson & Mills pg 215
· Page 217 the ikea effect/lego study
· Page 219 induced compliance and attitude change
· Bettors at a racetrack pg 214
· After bidding on certain horse, dismiss negative qualities
about horse and relate failures to muddy track, looks highly
upon positive qualities.
Be able to describe the major methods, results, and
conclusions/findings of Aronson/Mills (1959).
· Methods
· Volunteers were obtained to participate in group discussions
· They were randomly assigned to one of three mental
conditions: severe, mild, and control

7. · Severe conditions were required to read embarrassing material
before joining the group; mild condition the material they read
was not very embarrassing, and the control condition were not
required to read any material before joining
· Each S (participant) listened to the same tape recording which
was an ongoing discussion by the members of the group that had
just joined
· 33 women volunteered to participate in a series of group
discussions on the psychology of sex
· The other 30 were tested at a later date and were captive
volunteers from a psychology course who elected to participate
in the group discussions on the psychology of sex in preference
to several other experiments
· Each S was told that they were joining a group that had been
meeting for several weeks and that they were just taking the
place of a girl who had to leave because of scheduling
difficulties
· The experimenter “explained” that the purpose of the
experiment was to investigate the “dynamics of the group
discussion process” – sex was chosen as the topic to discuss
· Each participant was placed in an individual room as sex is
embarrassing to talk about and this way they can freely talk
about sex without people staring at them – this is what they
were told in order for them to hear the tape recording
· They then had to read aloud some sexually oriented material in
order to be put into the group – controls were just told that they
were being put into the group – the S’s were told that the
embarrassment test was a recent innovation and that the other
members had joined the group before it was required for
admission
· Severe condition – test consisted of very obscene words
· Mild condition – words related to sex but not obscene
· After each condition they were told they had performed
satisfactorily and were a member of the group now
· They had to get S to not participate in the discussion because
she would realize that the discussion was recorded

8. · Results and discussion
· S’s in the severe condition rated both the discussion and the
participants higher than did those in the control and mild
conditions
· The results clearly substantiate the hypothesis – persons who
undergo a severe initiation to attain membership in a group
increase their liking for the group
· According to the cognitive dissonance theory, Ss in the severe
initiation condition held the cognition that they had undergone a
painful experience to become members of the discussion group
· The initiation must be severe enough to constitute a genuine
investment and to render it difficult to reduce dissonance by
playing down the extent of the pain/uncomfortability involved.
· If Ss in the severe condition had less need to distort their
perceptions of the participants than their perception of the
discussion, their evaluations of the participants could be
expected to be closer to the evaluations of the participants made
by Ss in the control and mild conditions
· Conclusion
· Subjects who underwent a severe initiation perceived the
group as being significantly more attractive than did those who
underwent a mild initiation or no initiation
Describe different contexts in which cognitive dissonance can
occur, and the different factors that can produce high levels of
dissonance. (Alternatively, when does an inconsistency between
cognitions and behaviors not necessarily result in dissonance?)-
· Different cultures may see things differently – where one
culture is completely against doing something and another is
completely for it
Compare and Contrast self-perception theory with cognitive
dissonance.
· Cognitive dissonance theory – inconsistencies among a

9. person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions cause an aversive
emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore
consistency. (The result of measuring our behaviors with
previous attitudes).
· Self-perception theory – people come to know their own
attitudes by looking at their behavior and the context in which it
occurred, and inferring what their attitudes must be.
(Understanding identity based on previous behaviors).
Describe some contexts in which the overjustification effect can
undermine motivation.
· Stereotypes give ideological support to the status quo, making
people more accepting of current gender roles and more
accepting of the broader sociocultural status quo
· EX- Sometimes if you over justify a given award for a
behavior you make take away the given baseline, overlooked
motivation. If there was an initial liking for working out and
you always receive an award, for an athlete where there may be
a given inclination to workout, so you may award you for when
you worked out, your natural
Chapter 8: Persuasion
Vocab:
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
· a model of persuasion maintaining that there are 2 different
routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route
Source characteristics
· characteristics of the person who delivers a persuasive
message, such as attractiveness, credibility, and certainty
Identifiable victim effect
· the tendency to be more moved by the vivid plight of a single
individual than by a more abstract number of people

10. Need for cognition
· an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy activities that
require thinking
Attitude inoculation
· small attacks on people’s beliefs that engage their preexisting
attitudes, prior commitments, and background knowledge,
enabling them to counteract a subsequent larger attack and thus
resist persuasion
Central processing route
· a route to persuasion wherein people think carefully and
deliberately about the content of a persuasive message,
attending to its logic and the strength of its arguments, as well
as to related evidence and principles
Message characteristics
· aspects, or content, of a persuasive message, including the
quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions
Metacognition
· secondary thoughts that are reflections on primary thoughts
(cognitions)
Agenda control
· efforts of the media to select certain events and topics to
emphasize, thereby shaping which issues and events people
think are important
Peripheral processing route
· a route to persuasion wherein people attend to relatively easy-
to-process, superficial cues related to a persuasive message,
such as its length or the expertise or attractiveness of the source
of the message
Audience characteristics
· characteristics of those who receive a persuasive message,
including need for cognition, mood, and age
Self-validation hypothesis
· the idea that feeling confident about our thoughts validates
those thoughts, making it more likely that we’ll be swayed in
their direction

11. Questions:
According to ELM, under what circumstances are individuals
likely to attend to a message through the central route? The
peripheral route?
Central
· System 2
· Quality of arguments, points, and facts (strong)
· Policies
· Motivation and ability must be present
Peripheral
system 1
confidence
attractiveness
Credibility
Be able to analyze a persuasion attempt in such a way that you
can identify which elements of it are intended for the central
route or peripheral route of processing.
· JonesTown
Central
· Credibility of actually seeing it
· “whatever you need me to be, I’ll be it”
· Other churches provided good things in the afterlife whereas
he promised and provided good things now
Peripheral
· Pastor (Jim) speaking with anyone who walks through the door
· Claimed to heal people – see the woman walk – the healing
and people crying
· Seeing all the energy
What does research suggest about the effectiveness of fear-
based persuasion attempts?
· In general, fear-eliciting persuasive messages that provide

12. clear, concrete information that can be acted on can be highly
effective
· Shouldn’t go overboard
· Sometimes people are so unnerved by scary messages that they
will choose to deny the danger rather than act to combat it,
especially if there is no clear recommendation about how to
respond to the threat
Be familiar with the notion of “the hostile media phenomenon.”
· Page 259 talks about the whole phenomenon
Be familiar with general factors that enable people to resist
persuasion attempts.
· People are inclined to attend selectively to information that
confirms their original attitudes
· We look favorably on material that agrees with our point of
view and critically on information that contradicts it
· Many persuasive messages fail because they can’t overcome
the target audience’s previous commitments
· Prior knowledge makes people engage with persuasive
messages through the central route, thereby leading them to
scrutinize those messages carefully
Chapter 9: Social Influence
Vocab:

13. Conformity
· changing one’s behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or
implicit pressure (real or imagined) from others.
Autokinetic phenomenon
· the sense that a stationary point of light in a completely dark
environment is moving
Confederate
· an actor who participates in a psychology experiment
pretending to be a subject but in actuality working for the
researcher
Normative influence
· the influence of other people that comes from the desire to
avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions (ridicule,
barbs, ostracism)
Door-in-the-face technique
· starting with a big request where your intended person or
audience is going to say no, then asking/coming back with a
smaller, more capable/graspable request- they will or are more
likely to comply after that 2nd request.
Compliance
· responding favorably to an explicit request by another person
Tight vs. Loose cultures-
Obedience
· in an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands
of the person in authority
Informational influence
· the influence of the other people that results from taking their
comments or actions as a source of information about what is
correct, proper, or effective
Descriptive norms
· the behavior exhibited by most people in a given context
Reactance theory
· the idea that people reassert their prerogatives in response to
the unpleasant state of arousal they experience when they
believe their freedoms are threatened

14. Norm of reciprocity
· a norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those
who benefit them
Legitimate authority
· the legitimate power with one person or a group holds and
exercises over another
Foot-in-the-door technique
· a compliance approach that involves making an initial small
request with which nearly everyone complies, followed by a
larger request involving the real behavior of interest
Prescriptive norms
· the way a person is supposed to behave in a given context;
also called injunctive norm
Internalization
· private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology
Questions:
Describe the main findings and conclusions of the Asch “line”
and Sherif “autokinetic effect” studies. How are these studies
similar and different (psychologically) in their examinations of
conformity? How does normative and/or informational influence
help us understand them?
· Asch “line” study
· See 3 lines and a compare line
· Individually – people got about 99% correct
· Asch wanted to see if there was conformity
· Had more people come in room
· Confederates get it right for a while but then start saying the
wrong answer
· Sometimes participants would conform
· ¾ conformed at least once
· Overall – 1/3 of the time participants conformed

15. · Sherif’s autokinetic effect study
· Sheriff put individual participants in a darkened room,
presented them with a stationary point of light on trial after
trial, and had them estimate how far it “moved” each time
· He brought the participants into a room together and had them
call out their estimates
· Estimates seemed to converge over time
· The uncertainty of the light’s movement left the participants
open to the influence of others – informational social influence
· Similar
· Wanted to see how people changed their opinions/judgments
based on other people’s
· What extent do people conform?
· Asch predicted that in a case of clear conflict between a
person’s own position and the viewpoint of the group, there will
be far less conformity than that observed by Sherif
· Asch’s study is so well known because of how often
participants actually did conform, even when they thought the
group was out of its collective mind
·
Describe the conditions mentioned in the textbook that can
maximize/minimize conformity pressures.
· Group size
· Larger groups exert both more normative social influence and
more informational social influence than smaller groups
· The larger the number of people who express a particular
opinion, the more likely it has merit – but only to a certain
point
· Group unanimity
· Have an ally if you want to state your own opinion
· The person who breaks the group’s unanimity doesn’t need to
offer the correct answer – just one that departs from the group’s
answer
· Anonymity
· Eliminates normative social influence and therefore should
substantially reduce conformity

16. · Expertise and status –
· Because we grant greater status to those with expertise, and
we often assume (not always correctly) that those with high
status are experts
· The disapproval of high-status individuals can hurt more than
the disapproval of people we care less about
· Culture
· People reared in interdependent cultures are therefore likely to
be more susceptible to both informational social influence (they
consider the actions and opinions of others more telling) and
normative social influence (they consider the high regard of
others more important)
· Tight and loose cultures
· “tight” – have strong norms regarding how people should
behave and do not tolerate departure from those norms
· “loose” their norms are not as strong, and their members
tolerate more deviance
· Gender
· Women are raised to value interdependence and to nurture
important social relationships more than men are, whereas men
are raised to value and strive for autonomy and independence
more than women are
· Women tend to conform more than men
Be generally familiar with the effects of a positive and negative
mood on people’s likelihood to comply with a request.
· Positive mood
· Feeling good clearly makes people more likely to agree to
requests and, more generally, to help others
· Tends to increase compliance for two main reasons
· Our mood colors how we interpret events – we are more likely
to view requests for favors as less intrusive and less threatening
when we’re in a good mood
· Mood maintenance – it feels good to feel good, and we
typically want the feeling to last as long as possible
· Negative mood
· Even the slightest introspection reveals that certain types of

17. bad moods are likely to increase compliance
· Participants have been led to feel guilty by being induced to
lie, tricked into thinking they’ve broken a camera, maneuvered
into knocking over stacks of carefully arranged index cards, or
convinced they’ve injured an adorable laboratory rat
· Other types of bad moods, not just those produced by guilt,
can also increase compliance
Describe the procedures and major findings of the Milgram
obedience studies.
· Procedure
· One man is a teacher – delivering the shock
· One man is a learner – he will try to say the words back and
get shocked if he gets them wrong
· The learner (confederate) tells the teacher and experiment that
he has heart trouble
· Each different teacher gets a shock so that they can feel what
the shocks are like
· If learner gets it wrong
· Teacher says “wrong”
· Tells how many volts
· Delivers shock
· Tells actual answer
· One man refused to continue until they figured out if learner
was okay
· Another guy refused to hurt another guy if he said to stop –
said he wouldn’t listen to Mr. Williams or anyone
· Major findings
· 50% went all the way on shocks while most people predicted
that very few would go through with it
· One guy kept going all the way to 450 volts because he was
told to keep going
· He said there’s nothing the learner could have said to make
him stop
· Said he was about to walk out (he probably wasn’t)
· Even with a lot of reluctance – this guy still went on

18. · People said those who went all the way are sadistic
· People aren’t
· They are just obedient
· Which the victim was made more personal to the teacher
obedience went way down
· Can human nature be counted on to help those who are victims
of brutality?
· Government might be able to take control this way
What psychological factors/mechanisms increased or decreased
rates of obedience in the Milgram studies, as discussed in class
and in the textbook?
· If the learner was in the same room the obedience went way
down – especially if the teacher had to move the learners hand
onto the plate to shock him
· The more removed we are from others, the easier it is to hurt
them
· Also when the experimenter removes himself from the room –
it is much easier for the teacher to say no and to stop the
experiment
How is “obedience” different from other types of social
influence such as persuasion and conformity?
· Obedience
· People feel as if there is a legitimate authority that they have
to listen to
· Most people don’t have to be persuaded to or conform to
anything while being obedient
· They just don’t want to break the rules as that usually results
in consequences
Chapters 1-2
Vocab
· Independent variable
· In experimental research, the variable that is manipulated; it is
hypothesized to be the cause of a particular outcome.

19. · Dependent variable
· In experimental research, the variable that is measured (as
opposed to manipulated); it is hypothesized to be affected by
manipulation of the independent variable.
· Hindsight bias
· People’s tendency to be overconfident about whether they
could have predicted a given outcome
· Random sampling
· Essential for accurately describing the attitudes or behavior of
a particular population
· Such as students at a certain university, residents of a town, or
the population of a country as a whole
· Naturalistic fallacy
· Claim that the way things are is the way they should be
· Convenience sampling
· Is a non-probability sample in which the researcher uses the
subjects that are nearest and available to participate in the
research study.
· Self-selection
· Correlational research: situation where the participant (instead
of the researcher) determines the participant’s level of each
variable- creates the problem that it could be these unknown
properties that are responsible for the observed relationship
· Automatic processing
· Give rise to implicit attitudes and beliefs that can’t be readily
controlled by a the conscious mind; and controlled, conscious
processing results in explicit attitudes and beliefs that we’re
aware of even though these may become implicit or
nonconscious over time
· Reverse causation
· When variable 2 causally influences variable 1
· Correlation does not establish causation
· Gestalt Psychology
· An approach that stresses the fact that people perceive objects
by active, nonconscious interpretation of what the object
represents as a whole

20. · Internal Validity
· Experimental research: confidence that only the manipulated
variable could have produced the results
· Experiments lack internal validity when there is a 3rd variable
that could account for the difference between the different
conditions
· Random assignment
· Assigning participants in experimental research to different
conditions randomly, so they are as likely to be assigned to one
condition as to another, with the effect of making the types of
people in the different conditions roughly equal.
· Controlled processing
· Certain amount of thinking that you are aware of in the
moment; consciously on your mind (controlled)
· If something is important to us...
· 3rd Variable problem
· A variable that can be the true explanation for the relationship
between two other variables in correlational research
· External validity
· How well the results of a study generalize to contexts outside
the conditions of the lab
· When researchers can’t generalize the results to real-life
situations this = poor external validity
· Schemas
· Knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of
stored information that is used to help in understanding events
· Reliability
· The degree to which the particular way researchers measure a
given variable is likely to yield consistent results
Other issues to consider:
· Describe the difference between automatic/intuitive (System
1) and controlled/deliberate processing (system 2), and provide
examples
· The mind processes information in two different ways
· Automatic/nonconscious-based on emotional factors
· Systematic/conscious-more likely to be controlled by

21. deliberate thought
· Ex: seeing someone with a backpack looking agitated and
sweating profusely
· Automatic thought: you might see that person and have a
fearful reaction, thinking the backpack has a bomb in it without
any special thought about it
· Systematic thought: you might realize the person might have
just come inside from the heat and might look agitated because
they’re late for their flight
· Describe and be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses
of experiments and correlational studies
· Experiments: It is easy to replicate because of a standardized
procedure. Experiments allow prices control of independent
variable.
· Subject to human error
· Personal bias of researcher may intrude
· Sample may not be representative.
· Correlational Studies: Allows researchers to collect much
more data than experiments. Allows the researcher to draw
conclusion in the causal relationship among variables.
· Only uncovers a relationship
· It cannot provide a reason why there is a relationship.
· Explain the difference between hypotheses and theories
· Hypotheses- A prediction of a particular situation under
certain circumstances
· Theories- A set of tested hypothesis intended to describe a
phenomenon
· Review the Stanovich article for its main topics and
conclusions regarding correlational and experimental research.
What was his purpose in discussing the Goldberger/pellagra
study in depth?
· Birth control & household appliances
· Related w/ out causal relationship
· Pellagra was seemed to be caused by unsanitary, bad sewage
(spurious correlation)
· In reality, after experimenting by eating the feces of infected

22. people, conclusions showed it was actually a result of a poor
diet, most likely from low SES
· 3rd variable problem
· Surface level correlations do not account for causation
· What is the use of “getting artificial” in experiments? That is,
why is it not always advisable to conduct a study that tries to be
“natural”? The Stanovich reading is very relevant on this issue.
· Explain the phrase, “correlation does not equal causation.” Be
able to recognize when a study can provide evidence for
causation, and when it cannot
Chapter 4
Vocab
· Scheme: (I have this on my notes but I am not 100% sure)
· Expectations. Way to simplify the ways of the world around
us. An scheme is the expectations that you have about what is
going to be the outcome of certain situation. It can also narrow
the attention of a person in a social situation.
· Confirmation bias
· the tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence
that would support it.
· You tend to pay attention to things that are parallel to your
beliefs
· Regression toward the mean
· You will return to your average. Fluctuation is normal, and
may look like you are improving or getting worse but you will
always go back your “mean”
· Pluralistic ignorance
· When people act in ways that conflict with their personal
beliefs due to a certain social situation
· Acting like you understand course material because it seems
like everybody else does
· Priming
· the presentation of information designed to activate a concept
and hence make it accessible. A prime is the stimulus presented

23. to activate the concept in question.
· Counterfactuals
· Can be self-focused: a relationship someone treasures, the
relationship falls apart- the people start blaming themselves
(“what could I have done differently?”)
· 9/11: “if only airport security had done a better job” “if only
the CIA had investigated this matter better”
· “Cherrypicking” factors
· Not picking out a cause, but picking out one factor that could
have prevented something from happening- lots of emotional
significance for people but are not always fair
· Rape- people focus on the victim- “if she hadn’t been wearing
that she wouldn’t have been raped”
· Construal level theory
· A theory about the relationship between temporal distance
(and other kinds of distance) and abstract or concrete thinking;
psychologically distance actions and events are thought about in
abstract terms; actions or events that are close at hand are
thought about in concrete terms
· Top-down vs. bottom-up processing
· Top-Down Processing: “Theory driven” mental processing, in
which an individual filters and interprets new information in
light of preexisting knowledge and expectations.
· Bottom-Up Processing: “Data driven” mental processing, in
which an individual forms conclusions based on the stimuli
encountered in the environment.
· Illusory correlation:
· The belief that two variables are correlated when in fact they
are not.
· Behavioral confirmation
· Parallel to self-fulfilling prophecy
· Base-rate information:
· Information about the relative frequency of events or of
members of different categories in a population.
· Planning fallacy
· one's tendency to underestimate the time, cost, and risk it will

24. take them to do something, even if they already have the past
knowledge of exactly what the task entails. It represents overly
optimistic plans that are unreasonably close to the best-case
scenario.
· Self-fulfilling prophecy:
· The tendency for people to act in ways that bring about the
very thing they expect to happen.
Other issues to consider:
· What are the different ways in which schemes or
preconceptions can affect our memories and judgments of
people? Be able to provide relevant research examples.
· Understand and be able to give examples of the
representativeness and availability heuristics
· Explain several different ways (and provide specific
examples) in which schemas can guide or distort our judgements
· Contrast controlled processing with automatic processing.
What are examples/contexts of each in social cognition?
· Provide specific examples of “framing effects”
· Under what conditions does it appear that people are more
likely to rely on heuristics for making social judgments? How
does the use of heuristics relate to the distinction between
System 1 and System 2 processing?
· Know the design and main findings/conclusions of Snyder,
Tanke, and Berscheid.
Chapter 5
Vocab
· Belief in a Just World
· People get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get.
· Karma
· People who score high on this belief are more likely to blame
victims of a crime
· Specific attributions would be more internal
· Attribution Theory
· Concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events
around them and the effects of their assessments

25. · How people understand the causes of events
· Causal Attribution
· How people explain both their own and others behavior
· Augmentation principle
· The idea that people will assign reduced weight to a particular
cause of behavior if other plausible causes might have produced
it.
· Emotional Amplification:
· An increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is
proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not
happening.
· Fundamental Attribution Error
· The failure to recognize the importance of situational
influences on behavior, along with the corresponding tendency
to overemphasize the importance of dispositions on behavior.
· Explanatory Style
· A person’s habitual way of explaining events, typically
assessed along three dimension: internal/external,
stable/unstable, and global/specific.
· Controllability
· causes one can control such as skills vs. causes one cannot
control such as luck, others’ actions, etc.
· Counterfactuals
· Thoughts of what could have, might have, or should have
happened “if only” something had occurred differently.
· Behavioral confirmation:
·
· Covariation principle:
· The idea that behavior should be attributed to potential causes
that occur along with the observed behavior.
· Self-serving Attributional bias:
· The tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to
external circumstances and to attribute success and other good
events to oneself.
· Perceptual salience
·

26. · Discounting principle
Other issues to consider:
· What factors or conditions help explain why people are prone
to the FAE?j
· What are some factors that facilitate the generation of
counterfactual thoughts?
· Be familiar with some research examples that illustrate the
FAE and the actor-observer difference
· How do attributions play a role in our judgements about other
people’s successes and failures? What role do they play in our
judgments about our own successes and failures?
· Describe how cultures may differ in their attribution patterns