Unit 4 - Part 1 - Social: Attribution, Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

Vocabulary practice flashcards based on lecture notes covering personality psychology, attribution styles, locus of control, and social psychology concepts such as prejudice and group dynamics.

Personality Psychology (453)

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

Optimistic Explanatory Style

A way of explaining events in which individuals attribute positive outcomes to internal, stable, and global causes while seeing negative events as external, temporary, and specific.

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

A tendency to attribute negative events to internal, stable, and global causes while viewing positive events as external, temporary, and specific.

Social Psychology (453)

The study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in social contexts, and are influenced by others.

Person Perception (454)

Used to form judgments about others by interpreting facial expressions, body language, and cues.

Attribution Theory (454)

Individuals infer the causes of behavior, distinguishing between internal (dispositional) factors and external (situational) factors.

Fundamental Attribution Error (454)

The tendency to overestimate personal traits (dispositional) and underestimate situational influences.

Actor-Observer Bias (455)

The tendency to attribute our own behavior to external (situational) causes while attributing others' behavior to internal (dispositional) causes.

External Locus of Control (656)

The belief that outside forces, such as luck, fate, or other people, determine outcomes in life.

Internal Locus of Control (656)

The belief that one’s own actions and efforts determine life outcomes.

Social Comparison (456)

The process of evaluating oneself by comparing oneself to others, which can be upward or downward and influence self-esteem and motivation.

Prejudice (457)

A negative, unjustified attitude toward a group and its members, often involving stereotypes, emotions, and predispositions to act.

Explicit Prejudice

Conscious, openly expressed negative beliefs or feelings toward a group.

Implicit Prejudice

Unconscious, automatic negative attitudes toward a group that influence behavior without conscious awareness, often measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT).

Schadenfreude (463)

The experience of pleasure or satisfaction at another person’s misfortune.

Ethnocentrism (463)

The belief that one’s own ethnic or cultural group is superior to others.

Outgroup Homogeneity (463)

The tendency to view members of an outgroup as more similar than reality.

Selective Attention (464)

A process that can reinforce biases by focusing only on confirming details.

Stereotype (457)

A generalized belief about a group of people, often oversimplified and inaccurate.

Cognitive Load

The total amount of mental effort being used in working memory, which can increase reliance on stereotypes when high.

Discrimination (457)

Unjust treatment of people based on their group membership, such as race, gender, or religion.

Just-World Phenomenon (461)

The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, often leading to victim blaming.

Social Identity (462)

A person’s sense of self based on their group memberships, including nationality, religion, or social class.

Ingroup (462)

A group with which an individual identifies and feels a sense of belonging.

Outgroup (462)

A group that an individual does not identify with and may view as different or even inferior to their own group.

Ingroup Bias (462)

The tendency to favor members of one’s own group over those in an outgroup.

Scapegoat Theory (463)

The idea that people may blame an outgroup for their problems or frustrations, leading to increased prejudice and discrimination.

Other-Race Effect (463)

The tendency to recognize and differentiate faces of one’s own race more easily than faces of other races.