AP Psychology Unit 4

Person Perception

How we form impressions of ourselves and others, including attributions of behavior.

Attribution (Attribution Theory)

The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's stable, enduring traits.

Dispositional Attributions

The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting the person's stable, enduring traits.

Situational Attributions

The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting the situation.

Explanatory Style

People may demonstrate a predictable pattern of attributions, interpreting good and bad events in ways that are pessimistic or optimistic.

Actor-Observer Bias

The tendency for those acting in a situation to attribute their behavior to external causes, while observers attribute others' behavior to internal causes.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Self-Serving Bias

The cognitive tendency to attribute personal successes to internal factors while blaming failures on external factors.

Internal Locus of Control

The belief that one's actions, decisions, and efforts directly determine life outcomes.

External Locus of Control

The psychological belief that life outcomes are determined by outside forces rather than one's own actions.

Mere Exposure Effect

The tendency for repeated exposure to novel stimuli to increase our liking of them.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Mirror-Image Perceptions

Studies how individuals interpret their reflected image, highlighting that we perceive ourselves with a reversed or distorted image compared to how others see us.

Social Comparison

Individuals have an innate drive to evaluate their own abilities, opinions, and status by comparing themselves to others.

Relative Deprivation

The subjective perception that one is worse off than a comparison standard, causing feelings of anger, resentment, and discontent.

Attitude

Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

Stereotype

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.

Social Identity

The 'we' aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to 'Who am I?' that comes from our group memberships.

Cognitive Load

The total amount of mental effort or working memory resources being used at any given time to process information and complete a task.

Prejudice

An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members, involving negative emotions, stereotyped beliefs, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.

Discrimination

(1) In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been associated with a conditioned stimulus. (2) In social psychology, unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Implicit Attitudes

Involuntary, unconscious evaluations or feelings toward people, objects, or concepts that automatically influence behavior without conscious awareness.

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.

Outgroup

'Them' — those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.

Out-Group Homogeneity Bias

Uniformity of attitudes, personality, and appearance.

Ingroup

'Us' — people with whom we share a common identity.

In-Group Bias

The tendency to favor our own group.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to view our own ethnic or racial group as superior.

Scapegoat Theory

The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Other-Race Effect

The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races; also called the cross-race effect and the own-race bias.

Belief Perseverance

The tendency to cling to one's initial beliefs or conceptions even after they have been discredited or disproven by new, contradictory information.

Confirmation Bias

The cognitive tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence.

Cognitive Dissonance

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

Role

A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

Social Norms

The unwritten rules, shared expectations, and standards of behavior that guide how individuals should think, feel, and act within a particular group, culture, or society.

Social Influence Theory

The overarching psychological framework explaining how an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the actual, imagined, or implied 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 a person's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

Persuasion

Changing people's attitudes, potentially influencing their actions.

Central Route Persuasion

Occurs when interested people's thinking is influenced by considering evidence and arguments.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

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

Halo Effect

A cognitive bias where an overall positive impression of a person causes us to assume they possess other positive traits.

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 compliance strategy where a person makes an extremely large, unreasonable request that is almost certainly going to be rejected.

Conformity

Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Obedience

Complying with an order or a command.

Culture

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Tight Culture

A place with clearly defined and reliably imposed norms.

Loose Culture

A place with flexible and informal norms.

Individualism

A cultural pattern that emphasizes people's own goals over group goals and defines identity mainly in terms of unique personal attributes.

Collectivism

A cultural pattern that prioritizes the goals of important groups.

Multiculturalism

An approach or perspective that recognizes, values, and celebrates the coexistence of diverse cultures, ethnic groups, and identities within a society.

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

A social psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to take action or feel personal responsibility to help in an emergency when other people are present.

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

In the presence of others, improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks, and worsened performance on difficult tasks.

Social Trap

A situation in which two parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Superordinate Goals

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Prosocial Behavior

Any voluntary action intended to help or benefit another person or group of people.

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Social Responsibility Norm

A societal expectation or unwritten rule that individuals should help those who are dependent on them or in need of assistance.

The Bystander Effect

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

Social Exchange Theory

The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

Reciprocity Norm

An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.

Personality

Our unique and persistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Psychodynamic Theory

Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious mind and the importance of childhood experiences.

Psychoanalysis

(1) Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. (2) Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique.

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Ego

The partly conscious, 'executive' part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, the superego, and reality.

Superego

The partly conscious part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Defense Mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, 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 an earlier 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 TAT or Rorschach, that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics and explore the preconscious and unconscious mind.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective test designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing how they interpret 10 inkblots.

Preconscious

Information, memories, and thoughts that are not currently in conscious awareness but can be easily recalled or brought to attention at any time.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

Humanistic Psychology

A 'third force' approach that emphasizes the whole person, free will, and the innate drive toward self-actualization, or reaching one's maximum potential.

Unconditional Positive Regard

A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Self-Actualizing Tendency

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.

Social-Cognitive Theory

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

Behavioral Approach

Focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development.

Reciprocal Determinism

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

Self

In modern psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Self-Concept

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

Self-Efficacy

Our sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-Esteem

Our feelings of high or low self-worth.

The Spotlight Effect

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

Self-Serving Bias

A readiness to perceive ourselves favorably.