Social Psych Midterm

Real Influence

direct impact on someone/they have direct impact on you

Imagined influence

individuals don’t have to be present to have influence on you

Laboratory research

controlled environment

field research

natural, real-life settings outside of a lab

Mischel and the person-situation debate

Individual differences in behavior best predicted by situation (personality too inconsistent to predict behavior)

Hindsight bias

tendency to exaggerate after learning an outcome one’s ability to have foreseen the outcome (I knew that)

informed consent

research participants told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate

replication

repeating research study with different participants to determine if finding can be reproduced

correlational research

naturally occurring relationships among variables

experimental research

seeks clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others

Institutional Review board (IRB)

ethics committee that monitors research involving human participants

what are the cognitive biases (3)

hindsight bias

overconfidence

common sense

What is the self? “I”

Little person in our heads that makes decisions, self as a subject, how we identify ourselves

What is the self? “Me”

Parts that can be observed/described, self as an object, perception from others, statements that can be made about you

spotlight effect

tendency to overestimate others’ noticing of evaluating our appearance, performance, or mistakes

self-concept

what we know/believe about self, description of self

schema

mental templates by which we organize our world

self-esteem

feelings, assessment on worth/value

self-schema

beliefs about self that organize and guide processing of self related info

self-regulation

impulse control, motivation and goal achievement

information processing

directs attention towards meaningful features of world

interpersonal reasoning

to understand others we draw on own experiences, put self in others’ shoes

identity

part of life story we tell about ourselves, continuity to self-understanding, reminds us where we fit in, positions in social groups/families

collectivist culture

prioritize goals of group, self is interdependent, emphasizes roles and relationships

individualist culture

self is independent, self concept emphasizes individual differences

dual attitudes: explicit

aware , situationally influenced, conscious

dual attitudes: implicit

unconscious and automatic, relatively consistent, changes slowly over time

social comparisons

social media comparison- likely to believe everyone has a better life than you

self-reference effect

tendency for people to recall info better when related to self

sociometer theory

self-esteem acts as a gauge that fluctuates based on inclusion/exclusion in groups

self-serving bias

see oneself favorably, especially in social comparison

self-serving attribution

protect self by taking credit for successes/distracting self from failures

better than average effect

see themselves as better than average

false consensus effect

overestimate how much others think and act as we do, matters of opinion or when behaviors are undesirable/unsuccessful

false uniqueness effect

underestimate how much others think and act as we do, matters of ability or when behaviors desirable/successful

fundamental attribution error

people overemphasize personal traits and underemphasize situational factors when judging others behavior

self-efficacy

sense that one is competent and effective and distinguished

narcissism

inflated sense of self including overconfidence

Social cognition

mental processes help us understand/predict behavior of self and others, recognition, storage, application of info of people and social situations

dual processing system: system 1

functions automatically below conscious awareness, fast/intuitive

dual processing system: system 2

conscious processing deliberate and controlled, slow/effortful

embodied cognition

mutual influence of mind and body

priming

process of activating particular associations in memorycan influence how we interpret and recall events and our behavior

heuristics

mental shortcuts that enable us to make quick, efficient judgments includes representativeness and availability

availability hueristic

mental shortcut where we judge likelihood of something based on how easily it comes to mind

overconfidence phenomenon

overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs/abilities (dunning-kruger effect)

confirmation bias

tendency to seek out info that confirms preconception/intuitions

construals

way people perceive, comprehend and interpret world around them

dispositional attribution

attributing behavior to personality traits or disposition

situational attribution

attributing behavior to something about surrounding situation

self-fulfilling prophecy

expectations about a person eventually leads person to behave in ways that confirm expectations

behavioral confirmation

type of self-fulfilling prophecy where social expectations lead to behaviors that confirm others’ expectations

belief perseverance

maintain pre-existing beliefs, attitudes or values

attitudes

feelings influenced by beliefs predispose us to behave certain way to objects/people/events

implicit attitudes

unconsciously held (system 1)

explicit attitudes

consciously held (system 2)

implicit attitude test

reaction times to measure association to certain concepts

attitude ABCs

affective, behavioral, cognitive

attitude abcs: affective

rooted in emotions or values

attitude abcs: behavioral

stemming from observation of our own behavior

attitude abcs: cognitive

beliefs about properties of an object

cognitive dissonance

tension arising when one is simultaneously aware of 2 inconsistent cognitions

self-perception theory

unsure of our attributes, we infer feelings/beliefs by looking at our behavior

obedience

following an order from an authority figure

compliance

privately disagreeing, but going along

acceptance

involving both acting and believing

social impact theory

social influence will depend on strength, immediacy and number of source, persons exerting influence

conformity

change in behavior or belief due to social influence (real/imagined)

indoctrination

process of repeating an idea or belief to someone until they accept without criticism or question

inoculation

exposing people to weak, attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come they will have refutations available

persuasion

process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors

central route to persuasion

arguments and reason, open to dialogue, can swiftly change attitude

peripheral route to persuasion

cues, appeals, tangential ideas, slowly change attitude, associate attitude with emotion

communicator qualities

credibility, believability, trustworthy

reason vs emotion for message

thoughtful audience- more responsive to reasonable arguments

uninterested audience-emotion, view of communicator

low ball technique

getting people to agree then build upon it

foot in the door technique

agree to small request then ask another larger request they’ll more likely comply

fear-then-relief

fear followed by relief increases compliance with subsequent request

door in the face

refuse larger request, more likely to comply with smaller request

illusory correlation

perception of a relationship where none exists, expect to find significant relationships, we easily associate random events