Unit 4 - Social Psychology and Personality

Dispositional Attribution

Attributing behavior to the person's personality rather than situational factors.

Situational Attribution

attributing behaviors to factors external to an actor, such as the task, other people, or luck.

Explanatory Style

One's habitual way of explaining life events.

Optimistic Explanatory Style

Tendency to explain unfavorable events with attributions that are unstable, temporary, and controllable.

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

Tendency to interpret and explain negative events as internally based and as a constant, stable quality

Actor/Observer Bias

The tendency to blame our actions on the situation and blame the actions of others on their personalities.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to perceive oneself favorably

internal locus of control

The perception that you control your own fate

external locus of control

The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate.

Mere Exposure Effect

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

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

An expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true.

Upward social comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are with regard to a particular trait or ability

Downward Social Comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are worse than we are with regard to a particular trait or ability

Relative Deprivation

the perception that one is worse off than those with whom one compares oneself.

Stereotype

A generalized belief about a group of people

Cognitive Load

The amount of a person's mental resources needed to carry out a particular task.

Prejudice

an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members.

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members

implicit attitudes

Attitudes that influence a person's feelings and behavior at an unconscious level

Just-World Phenomenon

the tendency for people to believe the world is right and that people therefore get what they deserve.

Out-group Homogeneity Effect

the tendency to see members of out-groups as very similar to one another

In-Group Bias

Tendency to favor individuals within our group over those from outside our group

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one's ethnic group.

belief perseverance

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Cognitive Dissonance

an unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes the inconsistency of his or her actions, attitudes, or beliefs.

social norms

A group's expectations regarding what is appropriate and acceptable for its members' attitudes and behaviors.

social influence theory

A theory that suggests that people do and report what is expected of them.

normative social influence

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

informational social influence

the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

Persuasion

The process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people's beliefs or actions

Groupthink

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

Diffusion of Responsibility

reduction in feelings of personal responsibility in the presence of others

Social Loafing

the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Deindividuation

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

Social Facilitation

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

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors

superordinate goals

shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A theory of how persuasive messages lead to attitude changes.

Central Route Persuasion

attitude change path in which interested people focus on arguments and facts.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

attitude change path in which people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

Halo Effect

The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

persuasive technique involving making a small request before incrementally increasing later requests.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

persuasive technique involving making an unreasonably large request before making the small request we're hoping to have granted

Social Trap

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

Industrial-Organizational Psychology

the application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces

Burnout

A state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion created by long-term involvement in an emotionally demanding situation.

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others

Prosocial Behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior

Social Debt

An emotional state that builds up guilt from negative social interactions. (?)

Conformity

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

Obedience

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

Individualism

giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity accordingly.

Collectivism

Giving priority to the goals of one's group and defining one's identity accordingly

Multiculturalism

The practice of valuing and respecting differences in culture.

Group Polarization

Tendency of group members to move to an extreme position after discussing an issue as a group

Social Reciprocity Norm

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

Social Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them

Bystander Effect

The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other people nearby.

Situational Variables

Features of an environment that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures.

Attentional Variables

A factor that directly influences where someone focuses their focus.

Psychodynamic Theory (Quiz 1 Cutoff)

theory of behavior that emphasizes internal conflicts, motives and unconscious forces and their influence on behavior.

Unconscious Processes

mental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness

Ego Defense Mechanisms

largely unconscious distortions of thoughts or perceptions that act to reduce anxiety

Denial

defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities

Displacement

A defense mechanism that involves redirecting aggressive impulses from a forbidden action or object onto a less dangerous one

Projection

defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Rationalization

defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions

Reaction Formation

Defense mechanism by which people behave in a way opposite to what their true but anxiety-provoking feelings would dictate.

Regression

defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage

Repression

Defense mechanism by which anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings are forced to the unconscious.

Sublimation

a defense mechanism in which unacceptable energies are directed into socially admirable outlets

Projective Test

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

Preconscious Mind

The part of the mind that contains all of the inactive but potentially accessible thoughts and memories

Unconscious Mind

level of the mind in which thoughts, feelings, memories, and other information are kept that are not easily or voluntarily brought into consciousness

Humanistic Psychology

An approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings

Unconditional Regard

An attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Self-Actualizing Tendency

The striving to fulfill one's innate capacities and capabilities

social cognitive theory

The use of cognitive processes in relation to understanding the social world

reciprocal determinism

the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors

self-concept

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

self-efficacy

An individual's belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.

self-esteem

How much you value, respect, and feel confident about yourself

trait theories

Theories that endeavor to describe the characteristics that make up human personality in an effort to predict future behavior

Big Five Theory

a trait theory that identifies five main characteristics that account for most individual differences in personality.

Agreeableness

A personality dimension that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative, and trusting.

openness to experience

A personality dimension that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity.

extraversion

A personality dimension describing someone who is sociable, gregarious, and assertive

Conscientiousness

A personality dimension that describes someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized

Emotional Stability

The extent to which people feel secure and unworried and how likely they are to experience negative emotions under pressure

Personality inventories

A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits

Factor Analysis

a statistical technique that explains a large number of correlations in terms of a small number of underlying factors

Drive Reduction Theory

a theory of motivation stating that motivation arises from imbalances in homeostasis

Homeostasis

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level.

Arousal Theory

A theory of motivation suggesting that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness and physical and mental activation.

Optimal Level of Arousal

the apparent human need for a comfortable level of stimulation, achieved by acting in ways that increase or decrease it

Yerkes-Dodson Law

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases

Self-Determination Theory

a theory of motivation that is concerned with the beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior for its own sake