Unit 4 Social Psychology and Personality Flashcards

Flashcards on Social Psychology and Personality

Attribution Theory

Theory that explains how we understand the causes of behavior and events.

Dispositional Attributions

Explaining behavior by attributing it to internal characteristics of the person.

Situational Attributions

Explaining behavior by attributing it to external circumstances or factors.

Explanatory Style

A person's habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along the dimensions of internal/external, stable/unstable, and global/specific.

Actor-Observer Bias

The tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences and underestimate the impact of situational influences on other people's behavior.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to personal factors and negative outcomes to situational factors.

Internal Locus of Control

The belief that one controls their own destiny.

External Locus of Control

The belief that chance or outside forces determine one's fate.

Mere Exposure Effect

The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Social Comparison

Evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.

Relative Deprivation

The perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself.

Stereotype

Oversimplified beliefs about a group that influence expectations and behaviors.

Cognitive Load

The mental effort required to process information and complete tasks, affecting cognitive performance.

Prejudice

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Implicit Attitudes

Unconscious associations that can affect our behavior.

Just-World Phenomenon

The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Out-Group Homogeneity Bias

The tendency to see members of out-groups as more similar to each other than members of in-groups.

In-Group Bias

The tendency to favor our own group.

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one's nation or ethnic group.

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Cognitive Dissonance

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent.

Social Norms

Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior.

Social Influence Theory

The study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others.

Normative Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

Halo Effect

A cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about their character.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

A strategy for gaining a concession. After someone turns down a large request, the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request.

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Persuasion

The process of changing someone's attitude or behavior.

Central Route Persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

Obedience

Compliance with an authority figure's commands.

Social Norms

The unwritten rules and expectations about how to behave in a society or group, guiding behavior and actions.

Individualism

Giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Collectivism

Giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.

Multiculturalism

A perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions.

Group Polarization

The enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

Groupthink

The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The tendency for individuals to feel diminished responsibility for their actions when they are surrounded by others who are acting the same way.

Social Loafing

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Social Facilitation

Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

Prosocial Behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Social Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them.

The Bystander Effect

The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychodynamic Theory

A view of personality with a focus on unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.

Ego

The largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Defense Mechanisms

The ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Denial

Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.

Displacement

Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Projection

Disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.

Reaction Formation

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Regression

Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Sublimation

Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives.

Projective Tests

A personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Preconscious

According to Freud, a region of the mind holding information that is not conscious but is retrievable into conscious awareness.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Humanistic Psychology

A historically significant perspective that emphasized human growth potential.

Unconditional Positive Regard

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Self-Actualizing Tendency

According to Rogers, the human motivation to realize our inner potential.

Social-Cognitive Theory

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Self-Efficacy

One's sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-Esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Traits

People's characteristic behaviors and conscious motives.

The Big Five Theory (Big Five Factors)

A set of broad trait dimensions that are used to describe personality.

Agreeableness

One of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by being trusting, helpful, and cooperative.

Openness to Experience

One of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by being imaginative, curious, and intellectual.

Extraversion

One of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by being outgoing, sociable, and assertive.

Conscientiousness

One of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by being organized, responsible, and dependable.

Emotional Stability

One of the Big Five personality traits, characterized by being calm, secure, and self-satisfied.

Personality Inventories

Questionnaires (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

Drive-Reduction Theory

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Arousal Theory

A theory of motivation stating that people are motivated to behave in ways that maintain an optimal level of arousal.

Optimal Level of Arousal

Level of arousal which yields peak performance.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.

Self-Determination Theory

A theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs.

Intrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Instincts

A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

Lewin’s Motivational Conflicts Theory

Theory of different types of conflicts, including approach-approach, approach-avoidance, and avoidance-avoidance.

Approach-Approach Conflict

Conflict where one must choose between two desirable options.

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Conflict where there is only one choice to make, but the choice has both positive and negative consequences.

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict

Conflict where one must choose between two undesirable options.

Sensation-Seeking Theory

Theory that some individuals have a biological need for higher levels of stimulation than others.

Hormones

Chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands, travel through the bloodstream, and affect other tissues.

Ghrelin

A hormone secreted by an empty stomach that sends "I'm hungry" signals to the brain.

Leptin

A protein hormone secreted by fat cells; when abundant, causes the brain to increase metabolism and decrease hunger.

Hypothalamus

A neural structure lying below the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward.