SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PERSOANLIY

Attribution Theory

Explains how people infer the causes of behavior, attributing actions to either internal (dispositional) or external (situational) factors.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overemphasize personal traits and underestimate situational influences when explaining others’ behaviors.

Attribution Theory

Explains how people infer the causes of behavior, attributing actions to either internal (dispositional) or external (situational) factors.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overemphasize personal traits and underestimate situational influences when explaining others’ behaviors.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to credit successes to personal factors and blame failures on external factors.

Social Influence Theory

The idea that people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of others.

Social Facilitation

Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

Social Loafing

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than when individually accountable.

Deindividuation

A loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Group Polarization

The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

Groupthink

A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Just-World Phenomenon

The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Other-Race Effect

The tendency to more easily recognize faces of one’s own race.

people find it harder to recognize and remember faces of other races compared to their own. 

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture.

Implicit Attitudes

Unconscious beliefs or biases that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions.

Scapegoat Theory

The theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by blaming someone else.

Frustration-Aggression Principle

The principle that frustration—the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal—creates anger, which can generate aggression.

Social Script

A culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations.

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The tendency for individuals to feel less responsibility for their actions when they are in a group.

Social Exchange Theory

The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, aiming to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

Social-Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those who depend on them.

old ppl

Reciprocity Norm

An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.

Mirror-Image Perceptions

Mutual views often held by conflicting people, where each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and the other as evil and aggressive.

Social Trap

A situation in which conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Superordinate Goals

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Multiculturalism

A perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of a society and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions.

Free Association

A psychoanalytic technique in which a person says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Id

The part of personality that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives, operating on the pleasure principle.

Ego

The largely conscious part of personality that mediates between the id and superego, operating on the reality principle.

Superego

The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience).

Repression

Banishing anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Regression

Retreating to an earlier psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Reaction Formation

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.

Displacement

Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Sublimation

Transferring unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives.

Denial

Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Projective Test

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics.

Unconditional Positive Regard

A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude that Carl Rogers believed would help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Self-Actualization

The motivation to fulfill one’s potential, according to Maslow.

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in answer to the question, “Who am I?”

Trait Approach

An approach to studying personality that focuses on measuring and describing individual personality characteristics.

Personality Inventory

A questionnaire used to assess selected personality traits.

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure used to identify clusters of related items on a test.

MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

A widely used personality test originally developed to identify emotional disorders.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

A perspective stating that behavior is influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Behavioral Approach

A perspective that focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

bandura

related to nature vs nurture i think

Self-Efficacy

One’s sense of competence and effectiveness.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating how much others notice and evaluate our appearance, performance, and mistakes.

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Martin Seligman

Psychologist known for his work on learned helplessness and positive psychology.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.

Arousal Theory

A theory stating that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal.

Achievement Motivation

A desire for significant accomplishment, mastery, or attaining a high standard.

Drive-Reduction Theory

A theory that motivation arises from imbalances in homeostasis, prompting actions to reduce these drives.

Self-Determination Theory

motivation-A theory emphasizing autonomy, competence, and relatedness as key psychological needs. all three = optimal motivation

Sensation-Seeking Theory

motivation-A theory that some individuals have a higher tendency to seek out novel and intense experiences.

Lewin’s Motivational Conflicts

Theory describing three types of conflicts: approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance.

Overjustification Effect

The effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do, potentially reducing intrinsic motivation.

Ghrelin

A hunger-arousing hormone secreted by an empty stomach.

Leptin

A hormone that signals the brain to reduce appetite and increase energy expenditure.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by episodes of binge eating followed by purging.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex

A brain region involved in error detection, impulse control, and emotion regulation.

James-Lange Theory

The theory that emotion is the result of physiological responses to external stimuli.

Cannon-Bard Theory

The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion simultaneously: emotion and physiological response happens at same time

Richard Lazarus

Researcher who proposed the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion.

Schachter and Singer

Developed the two-factor theory of emotion, stating that emotion is based on physiological arousal and cognitive labeling.

Spillover Effect

When one emotion continues from one situation to another, influencing subsequent emotions.

Joseph LeDoux

Neuroscientist known for research on the amygdala’s role in emotion, especially fear.

Broaden-and-Build Theory

A theory suggesting that positive emotions broaden cognitive abilities and build personal resources.

Facial Feedback Effect

The tendency of facial expressions to trigger corresponding emotions.

Paul Ekman

Psychologist known for his research on facial expressions and universal emotions.

Behavior Feedback

The tendency for behavior to influence emotions, similar to the facial feedback effect.