Attitudes, Emotions, and Social Cognition

Flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture on social cognition, attitudes, prejudice, and emotion theories.

What is social cognition?

The way we think about and interpret ourselves and others.

Which two social processes are heavily influenced by social cognition?

Attitudes and impression formation.

Define attitude in social psychology.

A learned predisposition to respond cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally to an object, person, place, thing, or event in an evaluative way.

What are the ABCs of attitudes?

Affect (feelings), Behavior (actions), and Cognitions (thoughts/beliefs).

Give an example of the cognitive component of an attitude toward country music.

"I think country music is better than any other kind of music."

List three main ways attitudes are learned.

Direct instruction, personal experiences, and observation.

What is persuasion?

The process by which one person attempts to change another's beliefs, opinions, positions, or actions through argument, pleading, or explanation.

Name the three key elements of persuasion.

Source of the message, the message itself, and the target audience.

What does the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) explain?

Two routes of attitude change—central route (content-focused) and peripheral route (non-content factors like source appearance or message length).

Define cognitive dissonance.

The unpleasant tension caused by a discrepancy between an attitude and a behavior.

How is cognitive dissonance typically reduced?

By changing either the conflicting behavior or, more commonly, the attitude.

What is social categorization?

Automatically assigning someone to a category based on characteristics shared with people we've previously encountered.

Define stereotype.

A set of characteristics believed to be shared by all members of a social category.

What is impression formation?

The creation of the first knowledge a person has about another person.

Explain the primacy effect in impression formation.

First impressions persist even when later evidence contradicts them.

Differentiate prejudice and discrimination.

Prejudice is an attitude (often negative) toward a group; discrimination is the behavior directed against the group.

What are common forms of prejudice?

Ageism, sexism, racism, and weight-based prejudice.

Define in-group and out-group.

In-group: a group one identifies with (“us”); Out-group: a group one does not identify with (“them”).

What does realistic conflict theory propose?

Prejudice and discrimination increase between groups competing for limited resources.

What is scapegoating?

Directing prejudice and discrimination at an out-group with little social power.

Give two learned sources of prejudice.

Classical/operant conditioning and social learning.

What is the outgroup homogeneity effect?

Tendency to see out-group members as more alike and less diverse than in-group members.

Define implicit bias.

A hidden, automatic attitude that can influence behavior without conscious awareness.

What strategy reduced prejudice in Sherif’s summer camp study?

Cooperation on superordinate goals that required joint effort.

What is cognitive retraining?

Focusing on similarities and taking another’s perspective to reduce prejudice.

State the three elements of emotion.

Physical arousal, behavioral expression, and inner awareness of feelings.

What are display rules?

Culturally learned norms governing the control of emotional expression in social settings.

Which brain structure is central to emotional arousal, especially fear?

The amygdala within the limbic system.

Why are self-report measures sometimes insufficient for studying emotions?

People may be unwilling or unable to accurately report their emotions.

When verbal and nonverbal emotional signals conflict, which do we tend to trust?

The nonverbal (behavioral) message.

Summarize the common-sense theory of emotion.

A stimulus leads to an emotion, which then triggers physiological arousal ("I’m shaking because I’m afraid").

Summarize the James-Lange theory of emotion.

Physiological arousal occurs first and then is interpreted as an emotion ("I’m afraid because I’m shaking").

What does the Schachter-Singer cognitive arousal theory add to emotion explanation?

Emotion results from physiological arousal plus cognitive labeling of that arousal using environmental cues.

Explain the facial-feedback hypothesis.

Facial muscle movements can produce or intensify our subjective experience of emotion (e.g., smiling reduces heart rate during stress).

How can cognitive dissonance help break down stereotypes?

Encountering someone who violates a stereotype creates dissonance, leading to potential attitude change over time.

What is ingroup favoritism?

Tendency to evaluate and treat in-group members more positively than out-group members.

List two mental shortcuts contributing to prejudice.

Using stereotypes to simplify the social world and freeing cognitive resources.