AP Psychology Unit 4 - Social Psychology and Personality

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Personality Psychology

The study of individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Person Perception

The process of forming impressions of others.

Attribution Theory

A theory that explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their own and others' behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others' behavior.

Actor-Observer Bias

The tendency to attribute one’s own actions to situational factors while attributing others' actions to personal factors.

Prejudice

A preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Stereotype

A widely held but oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or group.

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Just-World Phenomenon

The belief that the world is fair and people get what they deserve.

Social Identity

The individual’s sense of self based on group memberships.

Ingroup

A group that an individual belongs to and identifies with.

Outgroup

A group that an individual does not belong to and may have negative feelings toward.

Ingroup Bias

The tendency to favor one's own group over others.

Scapegoat Theory

The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Other-Race Effect

The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races.

Attitudes

Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

Role

A set of expectations about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

Leon Festinger

Psychologist known for his work on cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when our thoughts are inconsistent.

Persuasion

The process of changing attitudes or behaviors.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

Central Route Persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

Norms

Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members.

Solomon Asch

Psychologist known for his experiments on conformity.

Conformity

Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Normative Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

Obedience

Changing one's behavior at the command of an authority figure.

Stanley Milgram

Psychologist known for his controversial experiments on obedience.

Social Facilitation

Improvement in performance on tasks in the presence of others.

Social Loafing

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

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations.

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.

Culture

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people.

Tight Culture

A culture in which norms are rigid and clear, and members are expected to conform closely to them.

Loose Culture

A culture in which norms are relaxed and members have more freedom to deviate from them.

Aggression

Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.

Frustration-Aggression Principle

The principle that frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression.

Social Script

Culturally modeled guides for how to act in specific situations.

Mere Exposure Effect

The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.

Passionate Love

An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a romantic relationship.

Companionate Love

The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.

Equity

A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.

Self-Disclosure

Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

John Darley

Psychologist known for his research on the bystander effect.

Bystander Effect

The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give help if other bystanders are present.

Social Exchange Theory

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

Reciprocity Norm

The expectation that people will respond favorable to each other by returning benefits for benefit.

Social-Responsibility Norm

The expectation that people will help those needing their help.

Conflict

A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas.

Social Trap

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

Mirror-Image Perceptions

Mutual views often held by conflicting people, seeing each other as ethical and peaceful and themselves as evil.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Superordinate Goals

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

GRIT

Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction, a strategy to decrease international tensions.

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychodynamic Theories

Psychological theories that emphasize the influence of the unconscious mind and childhood experiences.

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique that focuses on bringing unconscious thoughts to consciousness.

Sigmund Freud

The founder of psychoanalysis, focusing on the unconscious mind.

Unconscious

A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.

Free Association

A method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.

Id

The part of the personality that contains our needs, desires, and desires.

Ego

The part of personality that mediates between the demands of the id and the realities of the external world.

Superego

The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment.

Defense Mechanisms

Psychological methods of reducing anxiety by distorting reality.

Repression

The defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Alfred Adler

Psychologist who introduced the concept of the inferiority complex.

Karen Horney

Psychologist known for her critiques of Freud and her theories on neurosis.

Carl Jung

Psychologist known for his theories of the collective unconscious.

Collective Unconscious

A concept proposed by Carl Jung that refers to shared memories and ideas of the human race.

Terror-Management Theory

A theory that explores the effects of mortality salience on human behavior.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test that uses ambiguous images to assess a person's underlying motivations.

Projective Test

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

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective test using inkblots to analyze a person's thoughts and feelings.

Abraham Maslow

Psychologist known for creating the hierarchy of needs and for his humanistic approach to psychology.

Humanistic Theories

Psychological perspectives that emphasize personal growth and the inherent goodness of people.

Hierarchy of Needs

A theory proposed by Maslow that prioritizes human needs from basic to self-actualization.

Self-Actualization

The realization of one’s potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth.

Self-Transcendence

The aspiration to go beyond oneself, often in ways that are altruistic.

Carl Rogers

Psychologist known for his contributions to humanistic psychology and for client-centered therapy.

Unconditional Positive Regard

An attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Self-Concept

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

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act.

Personality Inventory

A questionnaire used to assess personality traits.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

A widely used personality test designed to identify psychological disorders.

Empirically Derived Test

A test developed by testing a pool of items and selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Robert McCrae

Psychologist known for his work on the Five Factor Model of personality.

Paul Costa

Psychologist associated with the Five Factor Model, often working with Robert McCrae.

Big Five Factors

The five broad domains that are used to describe human personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

The view that behavior is influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context.

Albert Bandura

Psychologist known for his social learning theory and the concept of reciprocal determinism.

Behavioral Approach

A perspective that focuses solely on observable behaviors.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.

William James

Psychologist known as the 'father of American psychology' and for his functionalist perspective.

Self

The individual as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness.

Spotlight Effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others notice our appearance or behavior.