Exam 4 Review – Spring 2015
Note: because I am posting this outline before we have covered all of the material, check back
periodically for updates and check your class notes for the material actually covered in class.
Chapter 15 – Social Psych and the Courtroom
 Eyewitness memory – concern over recent exonerations using DNA and erroneous
eyewitness accounts
– Most common cause of wrongful conviction – faulty eyewitnesses
– Research on juries’ views of eyewitnesses – confidence is valued
 Is there a significant relationship betw eyewitness confidence & accuracy?
 Jurors believe eyewitnesses even if they’re discredited
 Loftus’ research –
– Memory is changeable & imperfect
– Able to implant false memories (leading questions, details)
 Jennifer Thompson case as an example (know the general facts of the case)
 3 stages of memory critical to eyewitness accounts:
– Acquisition - Impact of stress, weapons, and race on memory
– Storage - What is the misinformation effect (Loftus’ research)?
 How did Loftus manipulate the misinformation effect?
 Source Monitoring Error – what is it? How can this happen?
– Retrieval - Lineup format (Wells’ research) – what is best?
 Sequential or simultaneous?
 Instructions to eyewitnesses
 What is a good sign of eyewitness accuracy?
 Possible solution to improve eyewitness accuracy –
– Cognitive Interview – how is this done? Effectiveness?
 Interrogations & Confessions – the impact of social influence
– Situational variables that may prompt false confessions:
 Compliance
 Internalization
– Leo’s research on false confessions – 3 sequential stages (know each):
 Misclassification
 Coercion
 Contamination
 Jury deliberations
– Processing info – story order vs. witness order (how does each work?)
– Death-qualified jurors – who are they? What are some concerns?
 Criticisms of jury research & researchers’ responses
Ch 11 – Attraction & Intimacy
 Need for affiliation – as individual difference
o Compare to loneliness – when does this often peak?
 Attraction to friendships –
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o Proximity – how does this predict our friendships?
o Mere exposure effect – how does this work?
 Perceptions of ourselves (actual vs. mirror images)
o Physical attractiveness
 Matching phenomenon – how does this work?
 Adults’ judgments of kids – teacher study, employee salaries
 ‘What is beautiful is good’ stereotype – any truth to this (correlations
with other dimensions)?
Mate Selection
o Evolutionary Psych explanations
 argue that gender differences exist in the type of mate men and women
are looking for based on… what?
 Beauty standards vary based on cultures but we generally prefer…?
 Gender differences in motivations for relationships
 Universal patterns of concern for offspring
 Female perspective according to evolutionary psych – more
selective than men
 Male perspective according to evolutionary psych – less
selective & search for young, healthy mates
 Video/Florida State Univ study - male/female confederates
approaching strangers on campus and asking for dates/sex. What were
results?
 Criticisms of evolutionary explanations – what are they?
First Encounters
o Online meeting:
 Distinguish between naturally forming relationships, networked
relationships, targeted relationships (examples of each?)
Initiating relationships online/internet vs. face-to-face
o Levinger’s model of relationship development
 Awareness of other – similar or different in online/face-to-face?
 Surface contact – online vs. face-to-face?
 Mutuality – what does Levinger argue about this stage?
o Factors leading to attraction online
 Person (P) factors –differences among those who seek partners online?
 Other (O) factors – differences in what attracts us to others online?
 PxO interaction – impact of similarity
 Matching hypothesis in online relationships – what were results
related to compensating factors for men and women
(attractiveness vs. income)?
o Effectiveness of online dating services?
 What do their algorithms focus on?
 What are best predictors of success in long-term relationships?
Attachment & love
o How is attachment studied (infant research)?
o What are the 3 attachment styles? Behavior examples of each?
o Is attachment stable over time?
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o Newer research dividing the ‘avoidant’ group into fearfully-avoidant and
dismissive-avoidant
Theories of love
o Passionate/Companionate love – definitions of each
 Changes over time in passionate & companionate love?
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus video – main points? Conflict between
couples? Gender differences?
Patterns of Marriage – when does satisfaction typically decrease?
o Communication patterns – Negative affect reciprocity; Demand-withdraw
pattern; Relationship-enhancing attributions. Examples?
Detaching from Relationships – Coping responses (loyalty, voice, neglect, exit).
Positive : Negative interactions in successful marriages
Ch 12 – Helping Others
 Motives for altruism
 Evolutionary explanations
 Kin Selection – what evidence supports this?
 Reciprocity
 Empathy – cognitive and emotional components?
 Toddler & animal research?
 Cost-reward model
 Social exchange: possible rewards from helping?
 When is helping egoistic vs. altruistic?
 Bystander Effect (Latane & Darley’s research)
 Kitty Genovese example that started research on bystanders
 Latane & Darley’s follow-up experiments (confederate having a seizure, smokefilled room) to examine the bystander effect – what is found?
 What is diffusion of responsibility?
 What is pluralistic ignorance?
 Shotland experiment on intervening in male/female violence:
 Impact of assumptions about their relationship
 Other Situational Influences (rural, culture, role models, attractiveness) – how do these
influence helping?
 Ways to increase helping
 Awareness of the bystander effect
 Avoid overjustification – how?