Ch 13: Social psychology

Attributions

judgements about the causes of others’ behavior

dispositional attribution

A judgment assigning the cause of a person’s behavior to personal qualities or characteristics.

Situational attribution

assigning the cause of a person’s behavior to their environment

Persuasion

change of attitude in response to information provided by another

Cognitive dissonance

Occurs when our attitudes and behavior do not align

• can be resolved through attitude change

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

organizes and predicts responses to persuasion through CENTRAL route or PERIPHERAL route

• central route to persuasion: occurs when listener considers persuasive arguments carefully and thoughtfully.

• peripheral route: occurs when listener responds to peripheral cues instead of using careful consideration

Prejudice

Usually negative pre-judgement of another person based on group membership

Stereotypes

Oversimplified set of traits associated with group membership

Discrimination

Behavior based on prejudice and stereotyping.

Stereotype threat

in which awareness of a negative stereotype of OUR GROUP decrease performance

Social norms

Usually implicit rules for behavior in social settings.

• e.g. wearing a mask during the COVID pandemic

Social facilitation

Presence of others changes individual performance

Deindividuation

Immersion of an individual within a group, leading to anonymity.

Groupthink

in which a group does not question its decisions critically

• i.e. choosing group harmony over accuracy

Mere exposure effect

repeated exposure increases liking

Altruism

helping behavior that doesn’t reward the person performing it

Aggression

conscious intent to harm others

Relational aggression

Harm of someone’s social standing through gossip, ignoring, and excluding

Defensive aggression

harm to others done in self-defense

Instrumental aggression

Intentional (usually physical) harm done to obtain a goal

Passive aggression

in which people who aren’t comfortable being openly aggressive get what they want under the guise of still trying to please others

Maternal aggression

killing of sickly or unwanted offspring

Jigsaw classroom

1970s experiment in which children in racially diverse classrooms interdependent on each other demonstrated lower prejudice

Stanford prison study

young men in a prison CONFORMED to expected violent behavior

Milgram Obedience Study

“Teacher” administers shocks as high as 450 volts to students just because they were told to by authority

• Demonstration of obedience