Social Psychology: Cognitive Dissonance, Social Perception, and The Self

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts across Cognitive Dissonance, Social Perception, and The Self.

Cognitive Dissonance

The discomfort that people feel when two cognitions (beliefs, attitudes) conflict, or when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves.

Postdecision Dissonance

Dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternatives.

Lowballing

A sales strategy where a salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost, subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price.

Justification of Effort

The tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain.

External Justification

A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual, such as receiving a large reward or avoiding a severe punishment.

Internal Justification

The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself, such as one's attitude or behavior.

Counterattitudinal Advocacy

Stating an opinion or attitude that runs counter to one's private belief or attitude.

Ben Franklin Effect

The phenomenon where doing someone a favor leads to liking them more, because the behavior is dissonant with disliking them, prompting an attitude change.

Insufficient Punishment

The dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden activity or object.

Hypocrisy Paradigm

A technique that induces dissonance by making a person aware of the conflict between their attitudes and their behavior, motivating them to change their behavior to match.

Self-Affirmation Theory

The idea that people can reduce threats to their self-esteem by affirming themselves in areas unrelated to the source of the threat.

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

The idea that we experience dissonance when someone close to us outperforms us in an area that is central to our self-esteem.

Self-Esteem

The overall evaluation (positive or negative) that people have of themselves.

Narcissism

The combination of excessive self-love and a lack of empathy toward others.

Social Perception

The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people.

Nonverbal Communication

How people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words, including facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position, movement, use of touch, and gaze.

Encode

To express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back.

Decode

To interpret the meaning of nonverbal behavior, such as deciding a pat on the back was an expression of condescension rather than kindness.

Affect Blends

Facial expressions in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion.

Display Rules

Culture-specific rules that dictate what kinds of emotional expressions people are supposed to show.

Emblems

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture and usually have direct verbal translations.

Thin-Slicing

Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person's personality or skills based on an extremely brief sample of behavior.

Primacy Effect

In social perception, the phenomenon where the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later.

Belief Perseverance

The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider.

Attribution Theory

The description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior, originated by Fritz Heider.

Internal Attribution

Inferring that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality.

External Attribution

Inferring that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation, assuming most people would respond the same way in that situation.

Covariation Model

Harold Kelley's theory stating that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs.

Consensus Information

In the Covariation Model, information regarding the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does.

Distinctiveness Information

In the Covariation Model, information regarding the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli.

Consistency Information

In the Covariation Model, information regarding the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to make internal attributions for other people's behavior while underestimating the role of situational factors.

Perceptual Salience

The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people's attention.

Two-Step Attribution Process

Analyzing another person's behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution, and then adjusting by considering the situation if one has the time, energy, and motivation.

Self-Serving Attributions

Explanations for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors, and explanations for one's failures that blame external, situational factors.

Belief in a Just World

A form of defensive attribution based on the assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Bias Blind Spot

The tendency for people to realize that attributional biases occur in general, but believe that other people are more susceptible to them than they themselves are.

Holistic Thinking

A type of cognitive thinking style characterized by focusing on properties of objects or people while paying less attention to context or situation, associated in the text with Western values.

Analytic Thinking

A type of cognitive thinking style characterized by focusing on the object or person AND the surrounding context and relationships, associated in the text with Eastern values.

Self-Concept

The overall set of beliefs that people have about their personal attributes.

Independent View of the Self

A way of defining oneself through one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions rather than through other people's, valuing independence and uniqueness.

Interdependent View of the Self

A way of defining oneself through relationships to other people, recognizing that others' thoughts, feelings, and actions affect one's behavior, valuing connectedness.

Introspection

The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives.

Self-Awareness Theory

The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values.

Causal Theories

Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviors, which are often learned from one's culture.

Self-Perception Theory

The theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs.

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

Stanley Schachter's theory that emotional experience is a two-step self-perception process: experiencing physiological arousal, then seeking an appropriate explanation for it.

Misattribution of Arousal

The process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do.

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because of enjoyment and interest, not external rewards or pressures.

Extrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because of external reasons or rewards, not because of enjoyment and interest.

Overjustification Effect

The tendency of people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which it was caused by intrinsic reasons.

Task-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done.

Performance-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task.

Fixed Mindset

The idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change.

Growth Mindset

The idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that we can cultivate and grow.

Social Comparison Theory

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.

Upward Social Comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are on a particular ability.

Downward Social Comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are worse than we are on a particular trait or ability.

Social Tuning

The process whereby people adopt another person's attitudes.

Self-Control

The executive function of the self defined as the ability to subdue immediate desires to achieve long-term goals.

Impression Management

The attempt by people to get others to see them as they want to be seen.

Ingratiation

Flattering, praising, and generally trying to make ourselves likable to another person, often someone of higher status.

Self-Handicapping

Creating obstacles and excuses for ourselves so that if we do poorly on a task, we can avoid blaming ourselves.

Behavioral Self-Handicapping

Acting in ways that reduce the likelihood of success so that if failure occurs, it can be blamed on obstacles rather than ability.

Reported Self-Handicapping

Devising ready-made excuses in case one fails, rather than physically creating obstacles to success.