Social Psychology: Attributions and Emotion

Vocabulary flashcards focusing on social psychology topics including causal attributions, attributional biases, nonverbal expressions, Ekman & Friesen (1971), display rules, toxic positivity, and social functions of emotion.

Causal Attributions

Causes or explanations of behavior or events.

Internal Attribution

An attribution that explains behavior as being due to characteristics of the person behaving (dispositional).

External Attribution

An attribution that explains behavior as being due to characteristics of the social situation (situational).

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to make internal, dispositional attributions about other people's behavior while being less likely to consider external, situational attributions.

Perceptual Salience

A cause of the Fundamental Attribution Error where external/situational factors are often difficult to notice, making internal factors more noticeable unless situational factors are prominent.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to use external, situational attributions when explaining our own bad behavior and internal, dispositional attributions when explaining our own good behavior.

Emotion

A brief, specific response to a stimulus such as an event, object, or person.

Components of Emotion

The five elements of emotion: 1) Appraisal of Stimulus, 2) Physiological Response, 3) Expression, 4) Subjective Feeling, and 5) Action Tendency.

Genuine Smile vs. Fake Smile

Expressions involving different muscle groups; a genuine smile involves eyes squinting slightly and visible crow's feet, whereas a fake smile shows no eye squint and shows bottom teeth.

Basic Facial Expressions

The six core emotional expressions: Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear.

Ekman & Friesen (1971)

A study demonstrating that facial expressions are recognized across cultures with 70-90% accuracy in Western/developed nations and 68-92% accuracy among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea.

Power-Related Body Language

Nonverbal postures categorized as high power versus low power (studied by Amy Cuddy) that impact how others perceive and interact with a person, as well as how powerful or confident that person feels.

Emotional Display Rules

Rules that dictate which emotions are masked and which are expressed boldly, influenced by situations, gender roles, and cultural differences (expressive vs. stoic).

Toxic Positivity

A cultural norm in the U.S. that values excited happiness and pressures people to hide negative emotions, potentially leading to avoiding negative feelings and mental health stigma.

Social Function of Pride

An emotion that motivates feeling connected to others in a social group, building social ties, and boosting self-esteem.

Social Function of Anger

An emotion rooted in a sense of fairness that motivates standing up for oneself and beliefs, righting a wrong, or joining a social movement.

Social Function of Guilt

An emotion centered on having hurt another person that motivates repairing relationships and prevents doing wrong in the first place.