Applied Psych Final Exam

• What is Homophily?


  The tendency for individuals to affiliate with like-minded friends
• What does the term ‘matching hypothesis’ refer to? 


  Individuals tend to choose partners who they perceive to be equally attractive to themselves
• What is Altruism? 


  Helping other people with no apparent gain and even potential cost to themselves
• What is ethical hedonism? 


  The doctrine that all behaviour is designed to increase one’s own pleasure or reduce one’s own pain
• What does the ‘bystander intervention’ refer to?


  Individuals often don’t help in a crisis in the presence of other people
• What did the Milgram experiments demonstrate? 


  Most people will obey when they believe an order comes from legitimate authority
• What did the Asch experiments demonstrate?


  People tend to conform rather than be the lone dissenting voice
• What does the ‘principle of commitment’ refer to? 


  People are concerned with the impressions that others are forming of them, they feel the need to behave consistently with prior impressions or commitments they have made
• What does the ‘principle of reciprocity’ refer to? 


  People have a compelling need to reciprocate what has been done to them e.g. favours
• What does the ’principle of liking’ refer to? 


  We do thing for people that we like out of a sense of obligation and so that they will continue to like us in return
• What are ‘situational variables’? 


  The situations in which people find themselves
• What are ‘dispositional variables‘? 


  People’s personalities and attitudes
• What are the factors that influence interpersonal attraction?

  • proximity
  • interpersonal rewards
  • similarity
  • physical attractiveness
• What does ‘social exchange theories’ refer to? 


  The view that reciprocal reward is the foundation of relationships
• What components does the ‘triangular theory of love’ divide love into?

  • intimacy (feelings of closeness)
  • passion (sensual arousal)
  • commitment (dedication to the other person and to the relationship)
• In a 2010 surgery on 7000 Australians, the top five criteria for finding a mate are considered to be (in order of importance):

  1. personality
  2. sense of humour
  3. morals
  4. manners
  5. sexual chemistry
• What do attachment theorists argue? 


  The way individuals love as adults tends to reflect the way they loved and were loved as children
• Intense psychological arousal and absorption in another person is what type of love? 


  passionate love
• Love that involves deep affection and intimacy is what type of love?


  companionate love
• What are the 3 levels of prosocial behaviour?

  • micro: altruistic tendencies and individual differences are considered primarily in terms of biological processes, developmental and personality factors, or evolutionary theory
  • meso: behaviours of helper-recipient dyads are studied according to specific situations
  • macro: actions are examined within the context of groups and large organisations, such as volunteering
• What is ‘ethical hedonism’? 


  The doctrine that all behaviour is designed to increase one’s own pleasure or reduce one’s own pain
• What does the ‘aversive-arousal reduction model’ refer to?


  Explaining the motivation to act on another’s behalf in terms of empathetic distress - helping relieves the negative feelings aroused through empathy with a person in distress
• If a person‘s ultimate goal in helping another is to benefit that other person, then the behaviour should be considered: 


  altruism
• What does ‘reciprocal altruism’ refer to?


  natural selection favours animals that behave altruistically if the likely benefit to each individual over time exceeds the likely cost
• Researchers studying ‘bystander intervention’ have found that


  Individuals often don’t help in a crisis in the presence of other people - to intervene, a person must 1. notice the event, 2. define it as an emergency and 3. assume personal responsibility for intervening
• What does the term ‘hostile aggression’ refer to? 


  When someone lashes out at a perceived injustice
• What does the term ‘instrumental aggression’ refer to?


  calm pragmatic aggression often used by institutions such as the judicial system to punish wrongdoers
• When proximity leads to negative feelings for an individual who we initially liked, this is know as:

  environmental spoiling, which occurs when the bad outweighs the good
• From a behaviourist point of view, the more people associate a relationship with reward, the more likely they are to affiliate
• According to the basic principle of interpersonal attraction, similarity is attractive, both in friends and romantic relationships
• The Evolutionary Perspective in terms of love proposes that the feelings and behaviours we associate with the concept of love are evolved mechanisms that lead to reproductive success. The Evolutionary Perspective in the context of altruism proposes that protecting oneself and one’s offspring is in an organisms evolutionary ‘interest’
• What is an ‘implicit bias’?

  An unconscious association, belief, or attitude toward any social group
• reasons we are susceptible to implicit biases:

  1. seeking out patterns
  2. automated tendency to take shortcuts
  3. experiences and social conditioning
• What potential impacts of implicit biases can occur at school?

  A phenomenon known as the stereotype threat in which people internalise negative stereotypes about themselves based upon group associations e.g. young girls often internalise implicit attitudes related to gender and math performance
• What potential impacts of implicit biases can occur in the workplace?

  they can have an impact on how people are selected for jobs or promoted to advanced positions
• What potential impacts of implicit biases can occur in healthcare settings?

  they can influence suboptimal care, adverse outcomes, and even death based on age, race, or health condition
• What potential impacts of implicit biases can occur in legal settings?

  They can influence everything from initial police contact all the way through to sentencing e.g. there is an overwhelming racial disparity in how black defendants are treated in criminal sentencing
• What are some ways that we can reduce implicit biases?

  • focus on seeing people as individuals
  • work on consciously changing your stereotypes
  • take time to pause and reflect
  • adjust your perspective
  • increase your exposure
  • practice mindfulness
• What are ‘implicit associations’? 


  thoughts and feelings that are not accessible by simply asking a person to report them - it may be that people are unwilling to report how they think and feel or people may not be aware of everything that they think and feel
• How does the Implicit Association Test work? 


  It measures the reaction time between associations and particular words