Psychology: Themes and Variations- Chapter 12: Social Behavior

Social Psychology

Branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.

Person Perception

The process of forming impressions of others.

Attractiveness Stereotype (what is beautiful is good effect)

Attractive people tend to be seen as more sociable, friendly, poised, warm, and well adjusted than those who are less attractive.

Stereotype

Widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group.

Gender stereotype example

Women are emotional, submissive, illogical, and passive while men are unemotional, dominant, logical, and aggressive.

Ethnic stereotype example

Jews are mercenary, Blacks have rhythm, Germans are methodical, and Italians are passionate.

Occupational Stereotype example

Lawyers are manipulative, computer programmers are nerdy, and accountants are conforming.

Illusory Correlation

Occurs when people estimate that they have encountered more confirmations of an association between social traits than they have actually seen.

Ingroup

A group that one belongs to and identifies with.

Outgroup

A group that one does not belong to or identify with.

Attributions

Inferences that people draw about the causes of events, other's behavior, and their own behavior.

Internal Attributions

Ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings.

External Attributions

Ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental constraints.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Observer's bias in favor of internal attributions in explaining others' behavior.

Self-serving Bias

Tendency to attribute one's successes to personal factors and one's failures to situational factors.

Individualism

Putting personal goals ahead of group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships.

Collectivism

Putting group goals ahead of personal goals and defining one's identity in terms of the groups one belongs to.

Interpersonal Attraction

Refers to positive feelings toward another person.

Matching Hypothesis

Proposes that males and females of approximately equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners.

Reciprocity

Liking those who show that they like you.

Passionate Love

Complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the agony and ecstacy of intense emotion.

Companionate Love

Warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply intertwined with one's own.

Attitudes

Positive or negative evaluations of objects of thought.

Explicit Attitudes

Attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe.

Implicit Attitudes

Covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses over which one has little conscious control.

Source

Person who sends communication

Receiver

Person to whom the message is sent.

Message

Information transmitted by the source.

Channel

Medium through which the message is sent.

Mere Exposure Effect

Finding that repeated exposures to a stimulus promotes greater liking of the stimulus.

Cognitive Dissonance

Exists when related attitudes or beliefs are inconsistent - when they contradict each other.

Conformity

When people yield to real or imagined social pressure.

Obedience

Form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority.

Social Groups

Widely shared expectations about how people in certain positions are supposed to behave.

Group

Consists of two or more individuals who interact and are interdependent

Bystander Effect

People are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups than when they are alone.

Social Loafing

Reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups as compared to when they work by themselves.

Group Polarization

Occurs when group discussion strengthens a group's dominant point of view and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction.

Groupthink

Occurs when members of a cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the expense of critical thinking in arriving at a decision.

Group Cohesiveness

Strength of the liking relationships linking group members to each other and to the group itself.

Discrimination

Involves behaving differently usually unfairly, toward the members of a group.