glencoe psychology, Chapter 18

social psychology

seeks to explain how our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors are influenced by interactions with others.

social cognition

focuses on how we perceive, store, and retrieve information about social interactions.

physical proximity

The nearness of one person to another person.

stimulation value

The ability of a person to interest you in or to expose you to new ideas and experiences.

utility value

the ability of a person to help another achieve his or her goals

ego-support value

the ability of a person to provide another person with sympathy encouragement, and approval.

complementarity

the attraction that often develops between opposite types of people because of the ability of one to supply what the other lacks.

primacy effect

the tendency to form opinions on others based on first impressions.

stereotype

a set of assumptions about a given people in a given category often based on half-truths and non-truths.

attribution theory

a collection of principles based on our explanations of the caused of events, other people's behaviors, and our own behaviors.

fundamental attribution error

an inclination to attribute others' behavior to internal causes but to attribute our own behavior to external factors.

actor-observer bias

tendency to attribute one's own behavior to outside causes rather than to a personality trait.

self-serving bias

a tendency to claim success in due to our efforts, while failure is due to our circumstances beyond our control.

nonverbal communication

the process through which messages are conveyed using space, body language, and facial expression.

generational identity

the theory that generations tend to think differently about certain issues because of different formative experiences.