Social Psychology Midterm Outline

Social Psychology

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.

Kurt Lewin

Considered the founding father of social psychology, applied Gestalt psychology to social perception, and stressed the importance of taking the perspective of people in any social situation.

Self-esteem motive

The need to feel good about ourselves.

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves and the social world, including how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions.

Social Influence

The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the role of internal factors and underestimate situational factors in explaining people's behavior.

Behaviorism

A school of psychology that emphasizes the importance of the environment's reinforcing properties in understanding human behavior.

Gestalt Psychology

A school of psychology that focuses on how people subjectively perceive objects rather than their physical attributes, originating the field of social psychology.

Naive Realism

The belief that one perceives things accurately even when their perception may not be accurate.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

A group that reviews all research involving human subjects to ensure ethical standards are met.

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves and the social world, including how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions.

Analytic thinking style

A type of thinking where individuals focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context, common in Western cultures.

Holistic thinking style

A type of thinking where individuals focus on the overall context and how objects relate to each other, common in East Asian cultures.

Automatic thinking

Nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless thinking process.

Heuristics

Efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the information to make judgments quickly and efficiently.

Availability heuristic

A mental rule of thumb where judgments are based on the ease of bringing something to mind.

Schemas

Mental structures used to organize knowledge about the social world, influencing what people notice, think about, or remember.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Expectations about a person influencing how they act, leading the expectations to come true.

Controlled thinking

Conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful thinking process.

Primacy effect

First traits perceived in others influencing how further information about them is viewed.

Internal attribution

Inference that a person's behavior is due to something about the person, like attitude or personality.

External attribution

Inference that a person's behavior is due to something about the situation they are in.

Belief perseverance

Tendency to stick with an initial judgment despite new information.

Self-serving attributions

Explanations for successes crediting internal factors and failures blaming external factors to maintain self-esteem.

Two-step attribution process

Analyzing behavior with an initial internal attribution followed by considering situational reasons.

Bias Blind Spot

Tendency to think others are more susceptible to biases than oneself.

Covariation model

Theory stating that attributions are formed by noting patterns between causal factors and behavior.

Self-esteem

How individuals feel about themselves.

Self-concept

Set of beliefs individuals have about their attributes.

Independent view of self

Defining oneself based on internal thoughts, feelings, and actions rather than external influences.

Self-awareness theory

The idea that individuals evaluate and compare their behavior to internal standards and values when focusing on themselves.

Private self-consciousness

Concern regarding self-perception leading to increased awareness of internal states, higher attitude/behavior consistency, and less influence from others' opinions.

Public self-consciousness

Concern regarding how others view us, resulting in increased sensitivity to evaluations, being more influenced by others, and being sensitive to others' opinions.

Causal theories

Theories about one's feelings and behaviors often learned from culture.

Reasons-generated attitude change

Attitude change resulting from contemplating reasons for attitudes, assuming attitudes match plausible and easy-to-verbalize reasons.

Self-perception theory

Theory inferring attitudes and feelings by observing behavior and the situation when uncertainty or ambiguity exists.

Intrinsic motivation

Desire to engage in activities for enjoyment or interest, not external rewards.

Extrinsic motivation

Desire to engage in activities for external rewards or pressures, not enjoyment.

Task-contingent awards

Rewards given for task performance regardless of quality.

Performance-contingent awards

Rewards based on task performance.

Fixed mindset

Belief in a set, unchangeable ability.

Growth mindset

Belief in malleable abilities that can be cultivated and grown.

Social comparison theory

Learning about abilities and attitudes by comparing oneself to others.

Social tuning

Process of adopting another person's attitudes.

Two-factor theory of emotion

Emotional experience resulting from a two-step process of psychological arousal and seeking an explanation.

Self-control (self-regulation)

Delaying gratification and working like a muscle to improve endurance.

Affective forecasts

Predictions about emotional responses to future events.

Impression management

Controlling how others perceive us.

Self-handicapping

Creating obstacles or excuses to avoid self-blame.

Cognitive dissonance

Discomfort from conflicting cognitions or behaviors inconsistent with self-conception.

Social Cognitive Approach

Emphasizes cognitive structures and processes in analyzing personality, highlighting the role of cognitive-affective mechanisms in disordered behavior.

Cognitive Adaptation Theory

States that coping with negative life events involves integrating or changing one's worldview or schema.

Dynamic Sizing

Clinical skill involving understanding the relevance of cultural information based on the client's characteristics.

Shame

Public emotion arising from exposure and disapproval, focusing on the self and feelings of unworthiness or incompetence.

Guilt

Private emotion arising from self-generated conscience pangs, focusing on behavior and involving negative evaluation of specific actions.

Envy

Motivates change and identity clarification.

Jealousy

Signals concern over potential loss of something or someone deeply cared about.

Social Comparison Theory

Learning about abilities and attitudes by comparing oneself to others, involving upward and downward comparisons.

Social Comparison Orientation

Varies among individuals, influencing the frequency of self-comparisons.

Hot Affective Processes

Automatic responses tied to the amygdala, with positive and negative attributes.

Cool Cognitive Processes

Controlled responses linked to prefrontal and cingulate systems, generating rational behavior in response to stress.

Accessibility

the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgments about the social world.

Priming

the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept