Social Psychology, Personality, and Clinical Psychology

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering personality theory, social psychological dynamics of conformity and obedience, behavioral norms, and clinical anxiety disorders.

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

A developmental theory stating that personality is shaped through learning and experience, manifesting both in habitual behaviors and cognitive expectancies through observational learning and modeling.

Example - children who watched adults beat up a doll were more inclined to copy the adults actions

Modeling

An observational learning process where individuals, particularly children, imitate the behaviors of adults or peers who are liked or seen being rewarded.

Example: doll example

Locus of Control / internal and external

A cognitive expectancy regarding the extent to which an individual believes influential forces lie within oneself (internal) versus outside the self (external).

Example internal : a student fails an exam and believes they failed because they didn’t study hard enough

Example external : a student fails an exam and believes they failed because the professor wrote trick questions or the room was too cold

Self-Efficacy

Domain-specific beliefs concerning one's own ability and competence, where high levels foster greater persistence on challenging tasks.

Example high self efficacy : a student receives a hard exam, but believes they have mastered the study techniques so pushes through the test

Example low self efficacy: a student receives a hard exam, feels overwhelmed by self doubt and gives up early

Situationism

The perspective that situational norms and social context determine behavior at any specific point in time to a greater degree than internal personality traits.

Example high: a person who is quiet and formal at a job interview may become loud, and talkative at a weekend barbecue because social setting shapes conduct

Strong Situations

Contexts characterized by explicit, powerful social norms (such as funerals, classrooms, or job interviews) where individual personality differences demonstrate almost no relationship to behavior.

Weak Situations

Settings with fewer behavioral constraints and looser norms (such as parties or parks), allowing individuals to behave freely and enabling personality traits to reliably predict behavior.

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real, implied, or imagined presence of other people.

Social Brain Theory

An evolutionary explanation proposing that high primate intelligence arose primarily to navigate complex social challenges, such as tracking trust, reading social cues, and coordinating group behavior.

Primate Cognitive Domain Comparison

Empirical testing demonstrating that while human toddlers perform comparably to chimpanzees and orangutans on physical problem solving (tool use and puzzles), humans dramatically outperform them on social problem-solving tasks.

Social Isolation Health Impact

Social isolation - measurable absence of social ties such as living alone or having few friends

Loneliness - emotional distress caused by a gap between the relationships you have and the relationships you want

Solitude - voluntary positive time spent alone for reflection, rest or focus without negative health consequences

Physical health examples - smoking, diabetes, and hypertension ( high blood pressure )

Neural Response to Social Exclusion

The activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex ( neural alarm system ) and physical pain network in response to rejection, demonstrating that social pain utilizes the same basic physiological survival circuits as physical pain.

Post-Rejection Adaptations

Cognitive and behavioral adjustments triggered by exclusion—including heightened memory for social details, superior recognition of genuine versus false smiles, enhanced vocal-tone discernment, and greater cooperation—aimed at re-establishing belonging.

Example : A student who isn’t invited to a dorm party becomes hyper aware of classmates, facial expressions and tone of voice the next day to spot friendly cues and find a new group to sit with

Conformity

The act of yielding to real or imagined social pressure by aligning one's beliefs, judgments, or actions with group norms.

Example : clapping and standing at the end of a mediocre show simply because everyone else in the theater is doing it.

Asch Line Judgment Task

A classic conformity example featuring $1$ naive participant and $5$ confederates evaluating line lengths, in which $76\%$ of participants conformed to the group's unanimously incorrect answer on at least one trial.

Normative Influence

Conformity driven by the desire to be liked, avoid social disapproval, and get along with a group.

Example: wearing a specific brand of shoes, jacket or style not because you love how it looks, but because your pure group or schoolmates wear it

Informational Influence

Conformity driven by the desire to be correct, occurring in ambiguous situations where individuals look to others as a credible source of evidence.

Example : when eating at a fancy upscale restaurant for the first time you quietly watch which fork or spoon the people around you pick up because you are unsure of the proper etiquette

Ally Effect in Conformity

The dramatic reduction in conformity observed when at least one dissenter disagrees with the majority, even if that dissenter is perceived as incompetent (such as being legally blind) or holds an alternative incorrect view.

Example : everyone in a meeting agrees to a flawed project timeline to please the manager. when one coworker speaks up to question the deadline you feel comfortable, voicing your own concerns too

Milgram Shock Generator

• The fake electrical apparatus used by psychologist Stanley Milgram in his experiments on obedience to authority : A big machine with 30 switches labeled from slight shock to XXX

• Participants/Teachers were ordered by an authority figure to shock and actor/learner for wrong answers, despite screaming and silence

• 65% of participants when all the way to the lethal 450 V limit showing that situational forces and authority can override personal morals

Milgram Disobedience Intervention

The condition in Milgram's research where witnessing another individual (a confederate) openly refuse the experimenter's orders reduced participant obedience to less than $10\%$ via informational influence.

150-Volt Replication Threshold

The ethical point of no return to legally and safely replicate Stanley Milgrams obedience study. In Milgrams original set up 150 V is the exact moment the learner first cries out in pain and demands to be let out of the experiment. Burger analyzed milligrams original data and discovered that 79% of participants who pushed past the 150 V threshold went all the way to lethal 450 V maximum.

Personality

The habitual ways in which an individual responds to the environment that differ across individuals and remain relatively consistent across time.

Trait

A characteristic, stable pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior regarded by structuralist theorists as the fundamental building block of personality.

Example: someone who was talkative at family dinners, and also talkative with coworkers at the office is demonstrating the trait of socialbility

Big Five Personality Dimensions

A cross-culturally validated descriptive taxonomy of personality captured by the acronym OCEAN: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

H-Factor

A descriptive personality dimension denoting Honesty, Humility, or Harmony that is frequently emphasized and measured within East and South Asian cultural contexts.

High H-Factor Example: an employee finds a lost company, laptop, or wallet, filled with cash in the break room and immediately turns it into HR or security without expecting a reward or recognition. They are also comfortable admitting when they made a mistake on a group project rather than blaming a coworker.

Low H-Factor Example: A manager takes credit for a junior employees data analysis in a meeting with upper management bends company policy for personal gain

Temperament

Biologically based, highly heritable individual differences in emotional reactivity and responding (such as activity, emotionality, and sociability) observable as early as infancy.

Example: Baby Maya wakes up, eats and naps around the same time every day. When her parents bring her to a noisy family barbecue, she smiles at new relatives and quickly settles down for a nap in a portable crib. This demonstrates high adaptability, regular biological rhythms, and a mostly positive mood.

Inhibited Temperament

A temperament profile marked by fearfulness and shyness in response to novelty that can be detected in the womb and reliably predicts behavioral observations and peer reports across childhood.

Example: A toddler clings tightly to their parents leg when entering a new classroom full of unfamiliar kids. While other children immediately run towards the toys, this child needs several weeks of quiet observation before joining group play.

Arousability Theory of Extraversion

The biological proposition that extraverts possess low central nervous system arousability and low heart-rate reactivity, driving them to seek external stimulation, whereas introverts have high baseline arousability and actively avoid overstimulation.

The extravert: chooses to study at a bustling, loud coffee shop with music playing, and people talking. The background noise provides the extra stimulation. Their brain needs to stay focused and avoid boredom.

The introvert: Studies in a quiet bedroom or a silent library floor.

Behavioral Activation System (BAS)

A neurobiological motivational system characterized by sensitivity to rewards and active approach behaviors; dominant over BIS in individuals high in extraversion.

Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)

A neurobiological motivational system sensitive to threat, punishment, and negative outcomes; dominant over BAS in introverted individuals.

Genetic Heritability of Traits

The biological finding that monozygotic (identical) twins exhibit significantly higher behavioral correlations across all Big Five dimensions than dizygotic (fraternal) twins.

Freudian Psychosexual Fixation

Sigmund Freud's unverified theoretical proposition that failure to resolve developmental conflicts during early stages (oral, anal, or phallic) leads an adult to regress to that focal area under stress.

Strange Situation Test

Mary Ainsworth's standardized laboratory paradigm designed to assess infant-caregiver attachment around $18\,\text{months}$ across three stages: explore, separate, and reunite.

Secure Attachment

An attachment pattern stemming from consistently warm, responsive parenting wherein the child explores comfortably, becomes distressed upon separation, and is readily soothed upon reunion (present in approximately $65\%$ of US samples).

Anxious Attachment

An attachment style characterized by unreliably responsive caregiving, marked in infants by clinginess, acute separation distress, and inability to be comforted upon reunion (occurring in $10\text{--}15\%$ of US samples).

Avoidant Attachment

An attachment style arising from unresponsive or unavailable caregiving in which the infant appears outwardly detached, does not greet the returning caregiver, but shows physiological signs of stress such as elevated heart rate ($20\text{--}25\%$ in US samples).

Adult Attachment Dimensions

Continuous, non-categorical scales assessing adult romantic and close interpersonal functioning along the dual dimensions of attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety, which become most apparent under stress.

Norm

A shared belief regarding the standard, accepted, or expected way people behave within a specific social context or setting.

Goldstein's Towel Reuse Study

A field experiment demonstrating the power of normative messaging: informing hotel guests that $3\text{ out of }4$ people reused their towels increased reuse rates from a $1\text{ in }3$ baseline to $1\text{ in }2$.

Nolan's Energy Conservation Study

A study demonstrating that although homeowners reported peer behavior was the least influential factor in their utility use, normative messages comparing them to neighbors produced the greatest reduction on actual kilowatt-hour meters.

Disordered Behavior Criteria

The three standard diagnostic benchmarks for defining psychological disorders: deviance from cultural norms of acceptability, maladaptiveness in daily functioning or social relationships, and the presence of personal distress or risk of harm to self/others.

Clinical Disorders

Generally severe, episodic or long-lasting psychological conditions categorized by significant impairment in daily functioning and high levels of personal distress.

Personality Disorders

Milder, deeply ingrained, longstanding, and inflexible patterns of maladaptive thinking and behavior that typically permit a higher baseline level of daily functioning.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

The authoritative classification manual providing mental health clinicians with a standardized vocabulary and diagnostic criteria based on clusters of core symptoms rather than shared biological causes.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

An anxiety condition marked by chronic, excessive, free-floating worry lacking a specific focus, accompanied by hypervigilance toward threat-related cues.

Evolutionary Preparedness in Phobias

The biological tendency for humans to easily acquire irrationally exaggerated fears toward objects or actions (such as animals, heights, or blood) that posed historical threats to human ancestral survival.

Social Anxiety Disorder

A pervasive, irrational fear of being negatively evaluated, scrutinized, or embarrassed during performance or interactional situations, frequently originating in the teenage years.

Panic Disorder

A condition characterized by sudden, recurrent attacks of overwhelming terror and a sense of impending doom, exacerbated by persistent, debilitating dread regarding future attacks.

Anxiety Sensitivity

An inherited oversensitivity to one's own internal physiological sensations, where ordinary autonomic sympathetic arousal (fight-or-flight) is misinterpreted as a medical catastrophe, precipitating panic.

The Panic Cycle

A self-perpetuating cognitive and physiological feedback loop wherein anxiety triggers physiological arousal, which induces a panic attack, leading to intense fear of future attacks and escalating baseline anxiety.

Functional Model of Anxiety

An adaptive perspective recognizing anxiety as an internal protective alarm prompting safety checks rather than actual danger, best managed with rational persistence and self-compassion rather than self-criticism or avoidance.

Openness to Experience (Big Five)

A personality dimension characterized by intellectual curiosity, imagination, creativity, and a preference for novelty and varied experiences.

High example: someone who loves, trying, exotic foods, explores, abstract, art, and enjoys philosophical discussions

Low example: Someone who prefers familiar routines, traditional ideas, and practical predictable tasks

Conscientiousness (Big Five)

A personality dimension characterized by organization, self-discipline, goal-directed behavior, dependability, and persistence.

High example: A student who plans out of study schedule weeks in advance, color, codes notes, and never misses a deadline

Low example: someone who procrastinate loses track of assignments and leaves their workspace cluttered

Extraversion (Big Five)

A personality dimension characterized by sociability, assertiveness, positive emotionality, and a tendency to seek external stimulation.

High example: A person who feels energized at large parties, loves meeting new people and speaks up actively in group projects

Low example: someone who prefers working alone, recharges, energy, and quiet spaces and avoid small talk

Agreeableness (Big Five)

A personality dimension characterized by cooperativeness, trust, empathy, prosocial behavior, and a desire for social harmony.

High example: A teammate who goes out of their way to help others, compromises during arguments and maintains group harmony

Low example: someone who is skeptical, competitive blunt or more focused on winning an argument than feelings.

Neuroticism (Big Five)

A personality dimension characterized by emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, and high sensitivity to negative emotions or threats.

High example: A person who gets easily overwhelmed worries, constantly about minor mistakes or feels stressed under pressure.

Low example: someone who stays calm during crisis, let’s go of minor setbacks easily and handles pressure with a steady mood