PSY 100H - Ch. 12 Terms

Social Psychology

The branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.

Attributions

Inferences that a person draws about the causes of events, others’ behavior, and his or her own behavior.

Internal Attributions

Attributions that ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings.

External Attributions

Attributions that ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental constraints.

Action-Observer Bias

When the person exhibiting the behavior and an observer often make different attributions.

Fundamental Attribution Error

An observer’s bias in favor of internal attributions in explaining another’s behavior.

Heider’s Attribution Theory

Explains how people interpret the causes of behaviors and events, distinguishing between internal (dispositional) and external (situational) attributions.

Weiner’s Attribution Theory

Expanded on Heider’s Theory, creating a model of attributions for success and failure based on internal vs. external causes, as well as unstable vs. stable causes.

Gilbert’s Two-Step Model of Attribution

Suggests that people tend to automatically make internal attributions with little effort, and then may expend additional effort to make external attributions.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal factors and one’s failures to situational factors.

Individualism

Putting personal goals ahead of group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships (e.g., U.S., England, Australia).

Collectivism

Putting group goals ahead of personal goals and defining one’s identity in terms of the groups one belongs to (e.g., Hong Kong, Guatemala, Singapore).

Conformity

Yielding to real or imagined social pressure, changing your behavior to “fit in” with the crowd.

Obedience

A form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority.

Asch’s 1955 Study

Gave participants a standard line and asked them to match it to an obviously correct comparison line out of 3 options; resulted in a high conformity from the participants.

Milgram’s 1961 Study

Asked participants (teachers) to administer escalating electric shocks to a learner (who was secretly an actor) whenever they have a wrong answer; resulted in a high obedience from the participants.

Normative Influence

When people conform to social norms for fear of negative social consequences.

Informational Influence

When people look to others for guidance about how to behave in ambiguous situations.

Reactance

Occurs when individuals learn that they cannot have something, threatening their freedom to choose it, leading them to want it all the more.

Group

Two or more individuals who interact and are interdependent.

Bystander Effect

When people are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups, compared to when they are alone.

Diffusion of Responsibility

When people feel less of a need or personal duty to help in a group, because they assume someone else will step up instead.

Social Loafing

A reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups as compared to working by themselves.

Group Polarization

When group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view and produces a shift toward a more extreme or risky decision in that direction.

Groupthink

When members of a cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the expense of critical thinking in arriving at a decision.

Group Cohesiveness

The strength of the liking relationships linking group members to each other and to the group itself.

Attitudes

Positive or negative evaluation of objects of thought.

Cognitive Component

One part of attitude; consists of the beliefs and ideas people hold about the object of thought.

Affective Component

One part of attitude; consists of the emotional feelings stimulated by an object of thought.

Behavioral Component

One part of attitude; consists of predispositions to act in certain ways toward an attitude object.

Strength

One dimension in which attitude can vary; generally viewed as being resistant to change, durable over time, and have a power impact on cognition and behavior.

Accessibility

One dimension in which attitude can vary; refers to how often one thinks about it and how quickly it comes to mind.

Ambivalence

One dimension in which attitude can vary; refers to conflicted evaluations that include both positive and negative feelings about an object of thought.

Explicit Attitudes

Attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe.

Implicit Attitudes

Covert attitudes expressed in subtle automatic responses over which one has little conscious control.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A computer-administered test that measures how quickly people associate carefully chosen pairs of concepts.

Source

The person who sends a communication.

Receiver

The person to whom a message is sent.

Message

Information that is transmitted by the source.

Channel

In communications, the medium through which the message is sent.

Credibility

Source factor based on a source’s expertise and trustworthiness.

Likeability

Source factor in which a more likeable person is more likely to someone’s attitude.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

Source factor in which superficial cues may affect the impact of the message.

Two-Sided Arguments

Message factor in which you give 2 arguments, then explain why one is better.

Fear Appeal

Message factor in which you arouse fear in the receiver; can work if the message is successful at arousing fear.

Central Route to Persuasion

Message factors where the message contains facts, and careful consideration is given to them and how the source chooses to present them.

Mere Exposure Effect

When repeated exposure to a stimulus promotes a greater liking of the stimulus.

Forewarning

Receiver factor in which knowing the source’s intent beforehand can reduce the impact of persuasive arguments.

Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory

States that people experience mental discomfort or psychological stress when they hold conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors at the same time.

Effort Justification

A form of cognitive dissonance when people change their attitude to justify efforts that haven’t panned out. (it’s when people rate things better if they worked hard to get it or if that thing was expensive)

Social Roles

Widely shared expectations about how people in certain positions are supposed to behave.

Person Perception

The process of forming impressions of others.

Overestimate

We ___ our ability to form impressions.

Confirmation Biases

The tendency to interpret, seek, and create information in ways that verify your existing belief.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

When a person’s expectations can lead to its own fulfillment.

Stereotype

The belief that certain traits are associated with people in a specific group.

Attractiveness Stereotype

The belief that attractive people are more sociable, friendly, poised, warm, and well-adjusted than those who are less attractive.

Illusory Correlation

When people estimate they have encountered more confirmations of an association between social traits than they have actually seen.

Categorization

Helps reduce memory load, but you lose individuality in memory (I.e., you make generalizations).

Discrimination

Behavior directed against people because of their membership in a group.

Prejudice

Negative feelings about others because of their group membership.

Ingroup

A group that one belongs to or identifies with. Typically viewed as heterogeneous.

Outgroup

A group that one does not belong to or identify with. Typically viewed of homogeneous.

Matching Hypothesis

The proposal that males and females of approximately equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners.

Similarity Effects

Couples tend to be similar in intelligence, education, social status, ethnicity, physical attractiveness, and attitudes.

Reciprocity Effects

We tend to like those who show that they like us, and we tend to see others as liking us more if we like them.

Passionate Love

The complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the agony and ecstasy of intense emotion.

Companionate Love

Warm, trusting, and tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply intertwined with one’s own.

Evaluative Conditioning

A special subtype of classical conditioning that consists of efforts to transfer the emotion attached to an unconditioned stimulus (US) to a new conditioned stimulus (CS).

Operant Conditioning

Agreement from others generally functions as a reinforcer, strengthening your tendency to express a specific attitude,

Observational Learning

Having a family member agreeing with another family member’s opinion may function as reinforcement for that viewpoint.