Interpersonal ch 2

Social cognition

how we make sense of other people, ourselves, and our social world

Automatic social cognition

arriving at conclusions about others, ourselves, or a situation without much consciousness, intention, or awareness of their future impact

Controlled social cognition

consciously and intentionally stopping to think about something because you realize that how you think will affect what happens

Attention

the process of focusing more closely on some of the stimuli in your environment

Salient

directing attention at people or things because they stand out in the social context, differ from our expectations, or are related to our goals

Primed

attending to things that have recently been thought about

Memories

recollections of specific people and events that happened in the past

Schema

a memory structure that connects something or someone to its related qualities

Implicit personality theory

a specific kind of schema that connects a set of personality traits and behaviors

Assimilation

the tendency to force new information to fit a memory structure, or filtering it out because it doesn’t fit

Stereotype

a schema in which the central concept is a category or group of people

Judgment

evaluating people and their behaviors

Impression formation

the judgment process of developing an initial concept of another person

Attributions

explanations we think of for why a particular person is behaving a certain way

Situational attribution

an explanation that puts the cause of the behavior outside the control of a person

Dispositional attribution

an explanation that puts the cause of a behavior within the control of a person

Fundamental attribution error

the tendency to believe that others’ negative behaviors result from their choices, whereas our own negative behaviors stem from conditions over which we have no control

Stereotyping

applying a stereotype to a particular individual, and treating that person as though he or she embodies all the characteristics associated with that stereotype

Prejudice

the emotional reaction to a stereotyped group or individual from that group

Discrimination

acting differently toward a stereotyped group or individual

Blatant stereotyping

when people who have extremely negative views of out-groups express and promote those views, and readily apply their stereotypes to members of the out-groups

Subtle stereotyping

when people who are minimally aware that they are basing their interaction on stereotypes nonetheless act toward someone on the basis of that stereotype

Microaggressions

everyday insults, indignities, and demeaning messages sent to a member of a stereotyped group by well-intentioned others who are unaware of the hidden messages being sent

Self-concept

a very large schema in memory that is the collection of all of the ideas you have about yourself, including your abilities, personality traits, and roles

Self-schema

the qualities of yourself that you see as most central in defining or understanding who you really are

Possible self-concept

a set of ideas about what you are capable of being

Ideal self-concept

the set of ideas about who you would like to be

Ought self-concept

the set of ideas about what you think you should be

Feared self-concept

the set of ideas about yourself that you don’t want to have

Relational self-concept

the set of ideas you have about yourself in a particular relationship or in sets of relationships

Working self-concept

the set of ideas about yourself that you are actively remembering at any given time

Self-esteem

our positive or negative judgment of the characteristics we think we have

Self-fulfilling prophecies

predictions that become true because we act in ways consistent with the prediction

Independent self-concept

culturally based self-perceptions in which people see themselves as distinct from others with separate characteristics and abilities

Interdependent self-concept

culturally based self-perceptions in which people view their traits, abilities, and characteristics within the context of a particular relationship

Social projection

overestimating the similarity between our preferences, traits, opinions, and concerns and those of others

Incongruence

a situation in which there is a gap between perception and reality

Impression management

our attempt to protect our self-concept by influencing the perception that others have of us

Self-talk

the messages we send to ourselves through our thoughts

Emotions

the positive and negative sensations we experience as a result of perceiving something in our environment that supports or threatens our well-being, which result in uncontrolled physical reaction expressed through verbal and nonverbal behaviors that motivate us to take action

Feeling component of emotion

the positive or negative sensations that we recognize as happiness, anger, anxiety, contempt, pride, surprise, and so on

Somatic component of emotion

the physical experience of a feeling

Motor component of emotion

the expression of emotion through nonverbal and verbal behaviors

Cognitive component of emotion

the meaning or interpretation of the emotion-provoking event

Motivational component of emotion

the action that emotion encourages us to take

Self-generated social media cues

items of information that people post on their own profiles, such as status updates and profile pictures

Other-generated social media cues

items that other people post on our page like comments on Facebook or Twitter

System-generated social media cues

pieces of information that the system provides, such as the number of friends we have on Facebook