AP Psychology - Unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality

Define social psychology and explain what social psychologists study

Social psychology is the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another. Social psychologists study how people, specifically focusing on one person, would act differently in varying situations

Define attribution theory

Attribution theory is the theory explaining one’s behavior by associating it to either the person’s disposition or situation

Define fundamental attribution error

Fundamental attribution error is the tendency for an observer to underestimate the impact of a situation and overestimate the impact of a person’s disposition when analyzing others’ behaviors

• Example: An example of the fundamental attribution error is when a student believes that a fitness instructor is a very outgoing and loud person although it could be due to the fact that teaching a fitness class involves encouraging others and being enthusiastic to teach (the situation) and the instructor could be very to themselves (the disposition) outside of class.

What cultures do not make the fundamental attribution error as much?

Individualist cultures tend to attribute behavior to people’s personality traits more often. East Asian cultures, as compared to Western culture, are less likely to make the fundamental attribution error and typically are more sensitive to the power of the situation

Explain what factors affect our attributions

A few factors that affect our attributions are our culture, attributing for ourselves, and attributing for others we have seen in various contexts. When attributing for ourselves, we also may attribute our good quality actions to our personal behavior and self-motivation and our younger selves’ behavior to our then traits

Explain why our attributions matter

Our attributions matter as it can have real-life effects on our lives and others. For example, one may wonder whether to attribute their manager’s harsh criticism to reflect a job threat or a personal problem in the manager’s life. Attributing it to the first one, assuming it could be true, could help one improve their actions while doing their work responsibilities to better themselves in the eyes of their manager, preventing a potential termination that could heavily affect their life

Define self-serving bias

The self-serving bias is the readiness to perceive oneself favorably

• Example: The self-serving bias is when people accept more responsibility for their quality actions than for the opposite. An example of the self-serving bias is when athletes more often credit their victories to their personal performance and training but their losses to poor quality scoring.

Define attitude

Attitude is our feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in particular ways to people, events, and objects

Give an example of how your attitude affects your actions

Our attitudes affect our actions and our actions can affect our attitudes. They are more likely to affect our behavior when external influences are minimal and when the attitude is stable, specific to the behavior, and easily recalled. Persuasion can change attitudes and behaviors and this persuasion can take place in two forms: peripheral and central route persuasion. We will stand up for what we believe and will more strongly believe in what we stood up for

Define peripheral route persuasion

This form of persuasion uses attention-getting cues to trigger emotion-based snap judgments. Though it does not engage systematic thinking, it’s likely to produce faster results

• Example: To urge action for climate change, a well-known actor may speak up and encourage their audiences, hopefully harnessing their credibility for peripheral route persuasion

Define central route persuasion

This form of persuasion employs evidence and arguments that trigger careful thinking. Usually, this works well for those who are more analytical and involved in an issue. Since it is more thoughtful overall, it is also more durable

• Example: To urge action for climate change, effective arguments may be presented that focus on accumulating greenhouse gases and such in order to utilize central route persuasion

Define foot-in-the-door phenomenon

This form of persuasion employs evidence and arguments that trigger careful thinking. Usually, this works well for those who are more analytical and involved in an issue. Since it is more thoughtful overall, it is also more durable

• Example: When being asked to take a promotional flyer on cookie sales, one may take it because it is a small task. Later, that person could come back, promoting their cookies again with the materials needed for the person to buy it on the spot

Define role

A role is a set of expectations about a social position, defining how those in the position should behave. What we do, we gradually become

• Example: When one is offered a job as a host or hostess, the person will act the ways a host or hostess may: welcoming, friendly, and willing to help guests as per the usual expectations of their roles

Summarize Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment

In Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s experiment, he had male college students volunteer to be a part of a simulated prison. They acted as guards and others acted as the prisons. The first few days, these students were consciously playing the roles. Gradually, it became real as the guards developed disparaging attitudes and the prisoners would rebel. Zimbardo called off the study after a week, specifically six days

Explain Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. The less coerced and more responsible we feel for a troubling act, the more dissonance we feel. The more dissonance we feel, the more motivated we are to find and project consistency, therefore changing our attitudes to justify our actions

• Give an example of cognitive dissonance and how it might be resolved: A person who values health but smokes cigarettes feels uncomfortable about the contradiction of two. They may resolve this for themselves by either quitting smoking or convincing themselves that smoking helps with stress, making it seem less harmful