Social Psychology Terms

Attributions

when someone is affected by external or internal things more than they realize and its reflected in their behavior

Fundamental Attribution Error

over emphasizing one’s personality and less acknowledgement of situations, especially when referring to others

Dispositional Attribution

explains events happening because of their own moods, traits, efforts, etc. 

Situational Attribution

explains events happening because of outside factors (accidents, luck, weather, people’s actions)

Actor-Observer Bias

focus on situations than personality traits when referring to oneself; one thinks when something happens to them, it is because of flaws in situations but if the same thing happened to someone else, it’s because of flaws in their own personality

Cognitive Bias

mistakes that happen because of the brain’s processing limitations; our brain uses shortcuts and is drawn to the most captivating stimuli; causes use to create biases and inaccurate attributions 

Motivational Bias

mistakes coming from our desire to feel better and satisfy needs, which tend to distort reality; example is need for control; easier to believe people have control over what happens to them, hence applying dispositional attributions

Self-Serving Bias

the tendency to attribute personal success to internal rather than external factors

Implicit Attitudes

attitude that has an unconscious outlook and can be indirectly revealed through behavior; indirectthings can be used to figure out implicit attitudes (IAT) 

Implicit Bias

negative, unconscious stereotype or judgement about a social group

BLINK

IAT measures unconscious beliefs which are impacted with our culture; contempt in a relationship is bad; salesmen have an implicit bias when selling to customers

Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon

when someone agrees to small things first, it increases the chance of them complying to a bigger thing

Door-In-the-Face Phenomenon

more likely for someone to agree to a small request after rejecting a big request

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith)

occurs when there is a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and behavior 

People who were paid $1 had more positive feelings than those who were paid $20. Those who were paid $20 had less cognitive dissonance, but those who were paid $1 had more cognitive dissonance since they need to justify why they did the task (since money isn’t enough to justify it). They say they enjoyed the task to justify it.

Asch Experiment

Students were put in a room with seemingly other participants (who were confederates) and are asked to match what lines are the same as the one shown. At first, the subject was confident and getting everything right. But once the confederates were saying the wrong answer unanimously, the subject became less confident and might’ve picked the wrong answer to match the group

Milgrim Experiment

Realistic fake shock generator with a range of volts. Subjects put with a confederate and are always the one giving the “shocks”. When the confederate gets the wrong answer, the subject is told to shock them and go up in shocks. 65% of the subjects went all the way through the scale and obeyed.

Zimbardo

Created the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was done to show how people’s morals change once they are turned into the authority figure or if they are under an authority figure

Conformity

yielding to real or imagined social pressure

Obedience 

form of compliance that occurs when people follow commands from someone in a position of authority

Social Facilitation

presense of others imrpoves performance of easy tasks, cognitively simple or easy

Social Loafing

efforts are pooled so individuals don’t feel personally responsible for what group does

Deindividualization

reduced individuality that happens when people aren’t self aware and not paying attention to their personal standards

Pluralistic Ignorance

a situation where majority privately reject a norm but assume incorrectly others accept it

Group Polarization

if the initial attitudes of a group are risky, the group will be more risky; if initially cautious, then group will be more cautious; this happens over time

Groupthink

Group members want to maintain a good atmosphere so the group might make bad decisions; usually when under pressure, facing threats, or have biases; shaped automatic preferences; feel better when group does better

Prejudice

negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype about people in a group

Stereotypes

mental shortcut that allow for easier processing of social information; automatic and usually neutral; unreasonable

Stereotype Threat

worry about conirming negative stereotypes related to someone’s own group

Discrimination

Inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people based on group they belong to (actions)

Ingroup

groups someone belongs to; feel better about themselves when thinking groups you belong to are good

Outgroup

groups someone doesn’t belong to

Ingroup Bias/Favoritism

more willing to forgive or do favors for ingroup members

IAT

measures how fast someone associates something with good or bad words; used to measure implicit attitudes

Scapegoat Theory

creating an enemy as an outlet for anger or frustration

Just World Theory

human beings have a strong belief in the world rewarding good and punishing bad 

Superordinate Goals

shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

GRIT

small acts of kindness that persist even when faced with hostility can help reduce tensions between two groups

Mere Exposure Affect

familiarity breeds fondness; being exposed to someone repeatedly inreases comfortability and impacts attraction

Physical Attraction

beauty is based on physical attributes; beautiful people are viewed as healthier, morally superior, and babies enjoy looking at attractive faces; women are more attractive if look more youthful, men more attractive if are more older and masculine

Passionate Love

physical attraction that is temporary and usually towards the start of a relationship; when someone gets excited or aroused, they easily can contribute that love towards the other person

Compassionate Love 

long term relationship born from passionate love; built on equity and self disclosure

Equity

when both parties in a relationship are equals; get out what you put into it

Self Disclosure

revealing everything about yourself but it has to be slow

Prosocial

voluntary behavior designed to help others

Altruism

unselfish regard for welfare of others

Bystander Effect

attributed when someone is in distress, but people refuse to stand up for them because others are present 

Kitty Genovese

her murder in Queens, New York sparked public outcry; the myth was that 38 witnesses saw her get attacked and none did anything, reality was only a few witnesses saw and the attack wasn’t seen continuously; bystander effect created because of this

Frustration Aggression Hypothesis

Anger is caused by frustration; frustration is caused when desires, goals, and expectations are negatively interfered with (not getting way); frustration then anger then agression

Hostile Aggression

Aggression driven by emotions and anger, with the intention of inflicting harm

Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression

provides someone with a series of reasoning questions; one of the options appeals to people who tend to be more aggressive, so if someone selects the aggressive options more often, they are more likely to be aggressive in the workplace; used by companies to predict how an employee might behave

Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal & Jacobson)

Higher expectations results in better performance; kids who were perceived as smarter by the teachers (even if they necessarily weren’t) were treated better by the teachers and overall did better on the tests

Movies’ Effect on Aggression'

TV violence can desensitize people; pornography can increase sexual aggression in relationships

Video Games’ Effect on Aggression

Video games can contribute to aggressive thoughts and increase aggression; men who play video games are more likely to be physically aggressive; expressing anger breeds more anger so violent video games can breed more violence

Rape Myth

someone can enjoy rape and be swept away; x-rated movies with rape scenes often show the person initially rejecting attacker and then caving in, which influences rape myth

Social Scripts

a set of expected behaviors and actions for social situations; social norms; guiding people on how to act/behave

Enemy Perception

when you initially dislike someone, you see all their actions in a negative light (focus on negative traits than positive traits; biased)

Social Traps

people within a group pursue their own personal, short-term well-being that causes long-term, collective harm

Reward Theory of Attraction

when a person’s behavior is more rewarding to you, so you use more effort to help the other person

Beauty Status Exchange

Idea that when an attractive woman marries a man with high status, its an exchange; disproven because both woman and man overlooked on their individual statuses/looks

Social Exchange Theory

doing something that doesn’t cost too much

Reciprocity Norms

get one thing and give another

Social-Responsibility Norm

Helping someone, even if the cost outweighs the benefits

Instrumental Aggression

Goal-oriented aggression used to achieve a specific outcome

Compliance

Yielding to social pressure in one’s public behavior, even though private beliefs haven’t changed

Motivation

Primary Drives

Secondary Drives

Olds and Milner

Instinct Theory

Arousal Theory

Individuals are more motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness and stimulation, rather than just reducing tension

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Opponent Process Theory

Drive-Reduction Theory

Homeostasis

Set Point

Ventromedial

Leptin

Hypothalamus

Glucostatic Hypothesis

Insulin

Lipostatic Hypothesis

Androgens

A class of hormones, including testosterone, released more from testes; they are associated with the development of men’s secondary and primary sex characteristics and with sexual; behavior

Estrogens

Instinct

Self-Efficacy

Henry Murray

Intrinsic Factors

Need for Affiliation

Kurt Lewin

Approach-Approach

A conflict resulting from having to choose between two equally desirable or attractive options; creates minor stress

Avoidance-Avoidance

A decision making scenario where an individual must choose between two equally undesirable, negative, or “less of two evils”, options; high stress and results in avoidance behavior

Approach-Avoidance

A decision where a single goal or event has both positive and negative aspects, causing internal conflict; need to weigh advantages against disadvantages to make choice

Multiple Approach-Avoidance

James-Lange Theory

Cannon-Bard Theory

Theory stating that information about emotional stimuli is sent to the cortex (emotional experience) and the body (physical reactions) at roughly the same time

Two-Factor Theory

Schachter and Singer

Paul Ekman

Autonomic Nervous System

subdivision of the PNS; it transmits sensory signals and motor signals back and forth between the CNS and the body’s glands and internal organs

Sympathetic Nervous System