Chapter 15 flashcards

Social psychology

The study of how the immediate social context as well as broader cultural environments influence people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Fusiform face area (FFA)

Brain region that recognizes faces

Warmness and Trustworthyness

1st dimension that captures our attention

Competence

2nd dimension that captures our attention

Both warm and competent

We look up to and depend on people who are:

Competent but lack warmth

We fear those who are:

Warm but incompetent

We pity or feel protective toward those who are:

Lack both warmth and competence

Our deepest disdain is for those who:

Transference

The tendency to treat one person as if they possess the traits or characteristics of another more familiar person. This can also happen during psychotherapy when a client reacts to their therapist using schemas they have for some other significant person in their life.

False consensus

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people’s beliefs and attitudes are similar to our own.

Impression management

A series of strategies that people use to influence the impressions that others form of them.

Self-promotion

Impression management to be seen as competent

Ingratiation

Impression management to be seen as likeable

Exemplification

Impression management to be seen as dedicated

Intimidation

Impression management to be seen as dominant

Supplication

Impression management to be seen as needy

Attribution

Assignment of a causal explanation for an event, action, or outcome.

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to assume that people’s actions are more the result of their internal dispositions than of the situational context.

Self serving attributions

The attributions people make for their own behaviors or outcomes: We tend to make dispositional attributions for positive events but situational attributions for negative events.

Affective forecasting errors

People’s inability to accurately predict the emotional reactions they will have to events.

Attitude

An orientation toward some target stimulus that is composed of an affective feeling, a cognitive belief, and a behavioral motivation toward the target.

Implicit attitudes

Our automatically activated associations, which are often learned through repeated exposure to a person, place, thing, or issue.

Explicit attitudes

The consciously reported evaluation a person has in response to a target stimulus.

Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)

A theory of persuasion contending that attitudes by two different routes: the central route and peripheral route.

Central route (ELM)

Relies on more thoughtful, reflective processes. When people process info this way, they change their attitude only when faced with strong evidence. It is effortful and time consuming.

Peripheral route (ELM)

Relies on hurried and impressionable processes. When people process info this way, their attitudes are swayed by surface-level features and automatic associations.

Door in the face strategy

This compliance strategy works by eliciting a bit of guilt after people decline an unreasonably large request so that they feel more open to a smaller one.

Foot in the door strategy

This compliance strategy works with people who complied with the initial low-cost request and will be more likely to buy something,

Social proof strategy

This compliance strategy works by pointing out a long list of others who also have supported a cause, making people feel more at ease knowing this is a cause/product other people endorse.

Scarcity principle

Where people tend to place higher value on things that are in short supply

Cognitive dissonance

A sense of conflict between people’s attitudes and actions that motivates efforts to restore cognitive consistency.

Post decision dissonance

Occurs when we have to forgo an option that we have a positive attitude towards

Social norms

The patterns of behavior, traditions, and preferences that are tacitly approved of by a given culture or subculture.

Conformity

The process by which people implicitly mimic, adopt, or internalize the behaviors and preferences of those around them.

Informational social influence

Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs based on a desire to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world.

Normative social influence

Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs in order to gain appeal from others or avoid social sanctions

Deindividuation

Involves losing sight of our own individuality, especially in large crowds.

Social facilitation

An enhancement of the most likely behavioral reaction when performing a task in the mere presence of others. Easy or well-learned tasks are performed better, but difficult or novel tasks are performed worse.

Social loafing

The tendency for individuals to expend less effort on a task when they are doing it with others rather than alone.

Group polarization

The tendency for people’s attitudes on an issue to become more extreme after discussing it with like-minded others

Groupthink

A form of biased group decision making whereby pressure to achieve consensus leads members of the group to avoid voicing unpopular suggestions.

General aggression model

An integrative framework of the various factors and psychological processes that contribute to an act of aggression.

Weapons effect

A phenomenon whereby simple exposure to a gun or weapon can increase aggressive responses by bringing violent thoughts to mind.

prosocial behavior

Actions aimed at assisting others toward their goals

Kin selection

An evolved or adaptive strategy of assisting those who share one’s genes, even at personal cost, as a means of increasing the odds of genetic survival.

Norm of reciprocity

An automatic tendency to help others who have helped them in the past or are expected to help them in the future

Empathy gap

The inability to accurately simulate the mental suffering of another person

Bystander effect

The lower likelihood of people coming to the aid of a victim when in the presence of other observers than if they are alone

Pluralistic ignorance

A situation that can occur when people are collectively unaware of each other’s true attitudes or beliefs

Diffusion responsibility

A tendency for people in a group to assume that someone else is in a better position to act or has already acted

Stereotypes

Mental representations or schemas that summarize the beliefs and/or associations we have for a group of people.

Complementary stereotypes

Stereotypes that attribute both positive and negative traits to certain groups

Prejudice

A negative attitude toward a group or members of a group.

Discrimination

A tendency for individuals to receive different treatment or outcomes as a result of their membership in a given social group.

Realistic group conflict theory

A theory asserting that negative intergroup attitudes develop whenever groups compete against one another for access to the same scarce resources.

Social identity theory

A theory that explains why people develop a more positive attitude toward their own ingroup than toward outgroups.

Symbolic racism

The tendency to redirect one’s prejudice toward a racial or ethnic group to the policies that might benefit the group.

Implicit racial bias

Differential treatment resulting from the automatic activation of, and failure to control, negative attitudes or stereotypes of a racial group.

Explicit racial bias

results from negative attitudes and stereotypes of a racial group that are openly endorsed and freely expressed.

Aversive racism

A tendency, even among egalitarian-minded people, to have unconscious negative reactions to people of racial or ethnic outgroups.

Contact hypothesis

The proposal that prejudice can be reduced through sanctioned, friendly, and cooperative interactions between members of different groups working together as equals toward a common goal.

Chameleon effect

When we interact with someone we like, we tend to mimic their mannerisms, accent, and speech patterns.

Parental investment theory

A theory that predicts sex differences in attraction due to the greater time, effort, and risk assumed by women than by men during procreation.

Triangular theory of love

A model that specifies passion, intimacy, and commitment as distinct elements that combine in various ways that lead to different types of love.