PSYCH 241 Midterm 1 Terms: Ch. 1-4, 7

Social Behaviour

behaviour that takes place in a social context and results from interaction between individuals

Theory of Crowd Behaviour

theory proposed by LeBon, arguing that people behave badly in groups because they are controlled by a crowd mind

Contact Hypothesis

idea proposed by Allport in The Nature of Prejudice in which bringing different groups together would reduce prejudice, under certain conditions

Attribution Theory

individuals have a basic need to attribute causality to ascribe meaning to the world, making it clear, definable and predictable

Naive Scientist

humans think and act with dispassionate rationality whilst engaging in detailed and nuanced thought processes for both complex and routine actions

Internal Attribution (Dispositional Attribution)

locates cause being internal to the person ie. personality, mood, abilities, attitudes, and effort

External Attribution (Situational Attribution)

locates cause being external to the person ie. actions of others, situation, social pressures, luck

Stable Attribution

attribute causing the event isn’t going to change

Unstable Attribution

attribute causing the even could change over time

Entity Mindset

belief that traits are stable and can’t be changed

Incremental Mindset

belief that traits can be changed over time

Correspondent Inference Theory

when making social inferences, people try to infer that one’s action(s) correspond to/are indicative of a stable personality characteristic; Jones and Davis

Social Desirability Information

behaviour observed is consistent with, or counter to, social norms

Choice

Non-Common Effects

behaviour has a unique consequence rather than a range of possible other consequences

Co-Variation Model

for something to be the cause of a particular behaviour it must be present when the behaviour is present and absent when the behaviour is absent

Consensus Information

info type in Co-Variation Model surrounding the extent to which others in the situation react in the same way as the target individual

Consistency Information

info type in Co-Variation Model in which the target individual reacts in the same way on different occasions

Distinctiveness Information

info type in Co-Variation Model in which target individual reacts in the same way in other social contexts

Attributional Biases

tendency in particular contexts to make one type of attribution over another

Fundamental Attribution Error

general tendency to make internal rather than external attributions, despite clear potential situational causes

Actor-Observer Bias

tendency to attribute other people’s behaviour to internal causes and our own behaviours to external causes

Perceptual Salience

how much something stands out from the surrounding environment

Self-serving Attributions

attributional bias in which we are more likely to make internal attributions for our successes and external attributions for failures

Intergroup Attributions

causal attributions that people make about the behaviour of out-groups and their own in-group; group attributions, especially among the highly prejudiced, will be biased for the in-group and against out-groups

Social Representations

shared beliefs and understandings between broad groups of people, including culturally held and transmitted knowledge about causal relations. communicated through informal discussion to form a commonplace belief

Heuristics

time-saving mental shortcuts that reduce complex judgements to simple rules of thumb

Representativeness Heuristic

tendency to allocate a set of attributes to someone if they match the prototype of a given category

Base Rate Fallacy

tendency to ignore statistical information in favour of representativeness information

Availability Heuristic

tendency to judge the frequency or probability of an event in terms of how easy it is to think of examples of that event

Processing Fluency

extent to which something is easy to think about or understand

False Consensus Effect

tendency to exaggerate how common one’s own opinions are in the general population, caused by the availability heuristic in which self-beliefs are easily recalled

Anchoring Heuristic

tendency to be biased towards the starting value (ancor) in making quantutative judgements

Motivated Tacticians

people are strategic in their allocation of cognitive resources and choose to be a cognitive miser/naive scientist depending on a number of factors

Categorization

the process of understanding what something is by knowing what other things it is equivalent to, and what otehr things it is different from

Prototypes

most representative members of a category

Stereotype

overgeneralized belief about a group/class of people

Illusory Correlation

belief that two variables are associated with one another when there is little to no association in reality

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members

Temporal Primacy

key factor determining whether a category will be activated without our awareness, in which categorization occurs on the basis of the features encountered first

Perceptual Salience

key factor determining whether a category will be activated without our awareness, in which categorization occurs when differences stand out

Chronic Accessibility

key factor determining whether a category will be activated without our awareness, in which categorization occurs when the categories are so common it becomes automatized

Subtype

when stereotype-inconsistent information is presented, individuals remember it as an exception to the rule

Behavioural Assimilation

conscious awareness of categories can unconsciously cause individuals to act in line with the stereotype associated with those categories

Stereotype Threat

situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group

Cognitive Load

the effort being used in the working memory

Error-Related Negativity (ERN)

measure of activation of the anterior cingulate cortex involved in detecting when behaviour and goals are conflicting

Dual Process Theory

account of how thought can arise in two different ways, or as a result of two different processes. Often, the two processes consist of an implicit (automatic), unconscious process and an explicit (controlled), conscious process

Decategorization

switch in processing from using categorization to individuation

Reflexive Thought

ability to reflect on the way in which we think

Self-Awareness

psychological state in which people are aware of their traits, feelings, and behaviour

Spindle Cells

specialized neurons in the anterior cingulate responsible for monitoring and controlling intentional behaviour, activated when people are self aware

Private Self-Awareness

when an individual temporarily becomes aware of private, personal aspects of the self

Cognitive Dissonance

negative arousal caused by inconsistency in attitudes and behaviour

Public Self-Awareness

a person is aware of public aspects of themselves that can be seen and evaluated by others

Evaluation Apprehension

fear of negative evaluation when individuals are aware of being appraised by observers

Private Self-Consciousness

individuals with chronically heightened private self-awareness experience more intense emotions, have more accurate self-perceptions, and adhere to personal standards of behaviour

Public Self-Consciousness

Individuals with chronically heightened public self-awareness are more likely to suffer from evaluation apprehension, adhere to social standards of behaviour, and avoid potentially embarrassing situations.

Schema

cognitive structures that represent the knowledge we have about a particular concept or type of stimulus, developed through experiences with a stimulus

Self-Schema

reflects how we expect ourselves to think, feel, and behave in a particular situation, consisting of our perception of our self and incorporating our experience on this dimension

Self-Schematic

A particular self-schema is highly embedded in our self-concept

Self-Aschematic

a particular self-schema is not important to an individual and not entirely reflecting of who they are

Control Theory of Self-Regulation

theory of self-comparison in which individuals are able to assess whether or not they are meeting their goals through self-awareness

Self-Regulation

a deliberate process through which people monitor prejudice-related thoughts and consistently inhibit them, replacing them with a low-prejudiced response

Self-discrepancy Theory

the self is compared with two points of reference, the ideal self, and the ought self, discrepancies between the actual, ideal, and ought self creates psychological discomfort

Actual-Ideal Discrepancy

actual self does not align with the ideal, resulting in dejection-related emotions

Actual-Ought Discrepancy

actual self does not align with ought self, associated with presence of negative outcomes which results in agitation-related emotions

Theories of Individual Comparison

learning about the self through comparing ourselves with other individuals, consists of Social Comparison Theory and Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

Social Comparison Theory

proposes that we form a definition of the self by comparing ourselves with those around us because beliefs, feelings, and behaviours are subjective without an objective benchmark

Upward Comparisons

comparing themselves with someone they believe to be better than them

Downward Comparisons

comparing self with someone they believe to be worse than them

Self-Evalutation Maintenance Model

Comparison with someone who is successful results in self-reflection/social comparison, depending on whether that success is in a relevant domain, and on whether we are certain of our own performance in that domain

Social Reflection

derive self-esteem from the accomplishments of those who are close to us, without considering one’s own achievement in that domain; occurs only when the domain of success is irrelevant to us and when we are certain about abilities in that particular domain

Theories of Group Comparison

how membership in social groups contribute towards the definition of our self-concept

Individual Self

attributes and personality traits that differentiate us from other individuals

Relational Self

defined by relationships with significant others

Collective Self

reflects our membership in social groups

Social Identity Theory

when membership of a particular group is salient, social-self (over personal-self) guides our self-concept, attitudes and behaviour

Self-Categorization Theory

extension of social identity theory proposing that when an individual’s social identity is salient, they see themselves as a depersonalized group member rather than an idiosyncratic individual

Self-Stereotyping

depersonalizing, assimilating to group norms and taking on characteristics associated with a typical group member

Self-Stereotyping

depersonalizing, assimilating to group norms and taking on characteristics associated with a typical group member

Meta-Contrast Principle

exaggerate similarities within the group and differences with other groups

Self-Esteem

an individual’s subjective appraisal of themselves as intrinsically positive or negative

Authoritative Parent

typically raise children with high self-esteem, high in demanding characteristics and responsive characteristics

Authoritarian Parents

typically raise children with lower self-esteem, high in demanding characteristics and low in responsive characteristics

Permissive Parents

typically raise children with lower self-esteem/confidence in abilities, low in demanding characteristics and high in responsive characteristics

Narcissism

personality trait held by individuals who are characterized by extremely high but unstable self-esteem

Self-Assessment

people are motivated to hold an accurate self-perception and seek out information which will help them to do so

Self-Verificaiton

people are motivated to confirm their existing self-perceptions and often seek out others who view them in a similar way to their own self-perception

Self-Enhancement

people are motivated to hold a positive self-image and are selectively biased towards information that helps them to see themselves in a positive light

Self-Affirmation Theory

people respond to threats to self by affirming positive aspects of themselves, allowing them to maintain a positive self-concept

Self-Serving Attribution Bias

pervasive tendency to attribute successes to internal, personal attributes, and failure to external factors outside our control

Self-Enhancing Bias

tendency to attribute success to internal characteristics

Self-Protecting Bias

tendency to attribute failure to external characteristics

Including Other in the Self

process in which self-concept cognitively overlaps with the self-concept of close friends and romantic partners

Extended Contact Effect

knowing members of the ingroup who have friends in an outgroup reduces prejudice

Social Change Strategy

low status group competes with the high status group to improve their status relative to that group

Social Creativity Strategy

low status group finds new dimensions on which they compare more favourably

Disidentification

individuals of low-status groups disregard their membership within the group as an important part of their identity

Basking in Reflected Glory

deriving a positive self-concept from the achievements of other group members even if they were not personally instrumental in those achievements