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Psych/Soc 8C: Social Interactions

Status, role and group drawn as structures a person is pulled through, plus networks, bureaucracy, self-presentation, attachment and discrimination.

20 topics · 75 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

8C. Status: Ascribed, Achieved, and Master

  1. How it worksHow does a status set hold ascribed and achieved statuses side by side inside one person?
  2. How it worksWalk me through a master status swelling until every other status a person holds is read through it.
  3. Worked exampleFind which statuses are ascribed and which are achieved for a 38-year-old immigrant surgeon and mother.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't an achieved status simply one that a person earned entirely on their own?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A surgeon aged 42 with 2 children lists her statuses: woman, 42-year-old, surgeon, and mother. Which sorting fits the ascribed and achieved distinction?

8C. Roles and Role Sets

  1. How it worksHow does a status hand a person a role, and the role hand them a whole set of expected behaviors?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the role set of one resident physician branching out to patients, attendings, nurses, and family.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a role set when one relationship in it changes and the others do not?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A newly qualified resident is handed the status of physician. Within 8 days she is following expectations about dress, handover, and how to address consultants that she never negotiated. Which description fits?

8C. Role Conflict, Role Strain, and Role Exit

  1. How it worksHow does role conflict pull a person between two statuses while role strain pulls one role apart from inside?
  2. Worked exampleFind whether role conflict or role strain hits a medical student paged to a patient during her father's surgery.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't every stressful job an example of role conflict?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens during role exit when someone stops being a soldier before knowing what they will be next?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A medical student is paged to a patient at the same hour her father is in surgery 5 floors below. Which concept applies?

8C. Primary and Secondary Groups

  1. How it worksHow does a primary group differ from a secondary group in what holds its members together?
  2. Worked exampleFind which of a family dinner, a study cohort, and a lifelong friendship count as primary groups.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a secondary group like a work team when it slowly turns primary?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A student lists 18 of her relationships. 6 of them continue with no task in common, and the rest end when the shared project does. Which sorting fits?

8C. In-Groups and Out-Groups

  1. How it worksHow does an in-group boundary create favoritism on one side and a flattened stereotype on the other?
  2. How it worksWalk me through out-group homogeneity making them all look alike while we stay individuals.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't out-group bias the same as actively hating the other group?
  4. Ties togetherHow does in-group favoritism feed the prejudice that later comes out as discrimination?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Participants assigned to two groups by a coin flip, with no contact between them, rate their own group 9 out of 10 for trustworthiness and the other group 4 out of 10. What does the result show?

8C. Group Size: Dyads, Triads, and Dunbar's Number

  1. How it worksHow does a dyad stay fragile while a triad gains coalitions, mediators, and the ability to outvote?
  2. Worked exampleFind how many two-person ties exist in a group of 3, of 6, and of 12 people.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to stable relationships once a group grows past the roughly 150 ties of Dunbar's number?
Your turnhard1 of 3
In a club of n members every pair could in principle form a tie, but 6 pairs are recorded as never having spoken. Write an expression, in terms of n, for the number of pairs that have spoken.

8C. Social Networks

  1. How it worksHow does a social network draw people as nodes and relationships as the edges between them?
  2. How it worksWalk me through weak ties acting as the long edges that reach clusters your close friends never touch.
  3. Worked exampleFind which tie carries new job information in a network where two dense clusters share one acquaintance.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to information flow when the one bridge between two clusters is removed?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Two dense clusters of 9 and 8 people are joined by a single tie between one member of each. A job opening is known inside the first cluster alone. Which tie is likeliest to carry it across?

8C. Formal Organizations and Bureaucracy

  1. How it worksWalk me through the characteristics of an ideal bureaucracy from hierarchy to written rules to impersonality.
  2. How it worksHow does a formal organization differ from the informal network of favors running underneath it?
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a bureaucracy inefficient by definition when Weber called it the most efficient form?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens inside a bureaucracy when following the rule and serving the goal stop agreeing?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A hospital of 6875 staff runs on a written chain of command, documented procedures, appointment by credential, and files that outlast any individual. Which description fits?

8C. Perspectives on Bureaucracy: Iron Law of Oligarchy and McDonaldization

  1. How it worksHow does the iron law of oligarchy concentrate power in the few who control the day-to-day machinery?
  2. How it worksWalk me through efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control reshaping a hospital the way they reshaped a burger chain.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to care quality when a clinic optimizes for the number of patients seen per hour?
  4. Ties togetherHow does McDonaldization connect Weber's rationalization to the modern delivery of health care?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A union of 31500 members is run day to day by an executive of 19 who control the records, the agenda, and communication with members. Over two decades their proposals are ratified without amendment. Which concept fits?

8C. Expressing and Detecting Emotion

  1. How it worksHow do the basic facial expressions map onto muscle movements that travel across cultures?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the face, the voice, and the body each leaking a different amount of a hidden emotion.
  3. Worked exampleFind which cue gives away a smile that was posed rather than felt.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a smile reliable evidence that someone is happy?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Raters judge 68 smiles, half posed and half spontaneous. Accuracy is 82 percent with the whole face visible and 57 percent with the eye region masked. Which cue is doing the work?

8C. Gender and Culture in the Expression and Detection of Emotion

  1. How it worksHow do display rules edit an emotion between feeling it and showing it?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the same funeral scene performed under two different cultural display rules.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to emotion detection when the observer and the expresser come from different cultures?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Participants in two countries watch the same distressing film. Viewing alone, both groups average 8 out of 10 for expression intensity; with an experimenter present, one group averages 6 and the other 4. Which concept explains it?

8C. Self-Presentation, Impression Management, and the Dramaturgical Approach

  1. How it worksHow does the dramaturgical approach split social life into a front stage performance and a back stage?
  2. How it worksWalk me through impression management tactics from ingratiation to self-handicapping.
  3. Worked exampleFind the front stage and back stage in a surgeon's day from the operating room to the break room.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't the back stage self the person's true self and the front stage a fake?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to front and back stage when a phone camera can broadcast the break room?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A surgeon spends 8 hours of a 13-hour day with patients and families, and the rest in the operating room, her office, and the break room with colleagues. Which division does dramaturgy draw?

8C. Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

  1. How it worksHow do tone, gesture, posture, and distance carry meaning that the words never state?
  2. Worked exampleFind what changes in meaning when the stress in the sentence I never said she took it moves word by word.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't nonverbal communication a fixed vocabulary that means the same thing everywhere?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
The phrase that is fine is played to 148 listeners with a flat falling intonation and 103 of them code the speaker as displeased. Another 148 people read the same words as text and 34 code displeasure. What does the comparison show?

8C. Animal Signals and Communication

  1. How it worksHow does a signal stay honest when faking it carries a cost the faker cannot pay?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through a honeybee's waggle dance encoding the direction and distance of a food source.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to a signaling system once cheaters can produce the signal for free?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Males of a species grow a display structure costing 25 percent of daily energy intake, and only males in the top 20 percent of body condition can grow a full one. Why does the signal stay honest?

8C. Attraction

  1. How it worksHow do proximity, similarity, reciprocity, and physical attractiveness each pull attraction upward?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the mere exposure study where faces rated higher purely with the number of viewings.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't opposites attract supported by the research on similarity and liking?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to attraction ratings when arousal from an unrelated source gets misattributed to the person?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Faces shown 3 times are rated 5 out of 10 for likeability and the same faces shown 17 times are rated 7, with no interaction between viewers and the people pictured. What does the result show?

8C. Aggression

  1. How it worksHow do the amygdala, testosterone, and prefrontal control each move the threshold for aggression?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the frustration-aggression hypothesis and where displacement sends the aggression instead.
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through the Bobo doll study turning a watched act into an imitated one.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't venting anger an effective way to lower it?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Workers blocked from a goal by a supervisor they cannot challenge report 10 aggressive incidents at home per month, against 3 in a comparison period. What does the pattern illustrate?

8C. Attachment and Attachment Styles

  1. How it worksWalk me through the strange situation procedure separating secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized attachment.
  2. How it worksHow does a caregiver's consistency shape which attachment style a child develops?
  3. Worked exampleFind the attachment style of an infant who ignores the caregiver's return after a separation.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to adult relationships when an early attachment style carries forward into them?
Your turneasy1 of 3
In the strange situation an infant explores freely, shows little distress when the caregiver leaves for 5 minutes, and turns away when she returns. Which classification fits?

8C. Altruism, Reciprocity, and Social Support

  1. How it worksHow does inclusive fitness make helping a relative pay off in copies of your own genes?
  2. How it worksWalk me through reciprocal altruism working only when the same two individuals meet again.
  3. Worked exampleFind whether Hamilton's rule favors an act that costs 1 offspring and saves 3 offspring in a full sibling.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to health outcomes when a patient's social support network thins out?
Your turnhard1 of 3
An act costs the actor 2 offspring equivalents and delivers b offspring equivalents to a cousin, whose coefficient of relatedness is one eighth. Write an expression, in terms of b, for the net inclusive-fitness effect of the act.

8C. Biological Explanations of Social Behavior: Foraging, Mating, and Game Theory

  1. How it worksHow does optimal foraging balance energy gained against the time and risk of getting it?
  2. How it worksWalk me through mate choice pushing a trait that hurts survival to become more extreme anyway.
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through the hawk-dove game finding the mix of strategies that no single bird can improve on.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a population's behavior when the payoff for fighting rises relative to sharing?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A forager gains 75 kJ from a patch, spending 7 minutes handling the food and 8 minutes travelling to reach it. What is the net rate of energy gain in kJ per minute?

8C. Individual vs Institutional Discrimination

  1. How it worksHow does institutional discrimination live in a rule or a routine instead of in a person's attitude?
  2. Worked exampleFind the discrimination in a hospital policy that assigns interpreters only on request.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't removing the prejudiced individuals enough to remove the discrimination?
  4. Ties togetherHow do prejudice, power, and institutional routine combine into a health disparity a decade later?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A hospital assigns interpreters when a patient requests one. Of 270 patients with limited English, 66 requested an interpreter while clinicians judged 176 to have needed one. Staff attitudes measure as unbiased. What does the policy show?

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