Social Perception, Social Influence, Prosocial Behavior, Aggression, Group Dynamics

Flashcards about key concepts in social psychology. Topics include social perception and attribution, schemas, stereotypes, social influence, prosocial behavior, aggression, and group dynamics.

Social Perception

Constructing an understanding of the social world from the data we get from our senses; the processes by which we form impressions of other people’s traits and personalities.

Social Attribution

We observe others’ behavior and then infer backward to internal or external causes that explain why people act as they do.

Categorization

Our tendency to perceive stimuli as members of groups or classes rather than as isolated, unique entities.

Prototype

An abstraction that represents the ‘typical’ or quintessential instance of a class or group.

Schemas

Basic forms or sketches; usually include information about an entity’s attributes and about its relations with other entities.

Person Schemas

Cognitive structures that describe the personalities of others and enable us to develop expectations about others’ behavior.

Self-Schemas

Structures that organize our conception of our own characteristics.

Group Schemas

Stereotypes; schemas regarding the members of a particular social group or social category.

Role Schemas

Indicate which attributes and behaviors are typical of persons occupying a particular role in a group.

Event Schemas (Scripts)

Schemas regarding important, recurring social events.

Schematic Memory

Schemas organize information in memory and affect what we remember and what we forget.

Schematic Inference

Schemas affect the inferences (conclusions) we make about persons and other social entities; they supply missing facts when gaps exist in our knowledge.

Schematic Judgement

Schemas can influence our judgements or feelings about persons and other entities.

Complexity-Extremity Effect

Less complex schemas lead to more extreme judgments and evaluations.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to focus on information consistent with a belief and ignoring information that is inconsistent with that belief.

Implicit Personality Theory

A set of unstated assumptions about which personality traits are correlated.

Group Stereotype

A set of characteristics attributed to all members of some specific group or category.

Discrimination

The denial of rights, resources, and opportunities based on stereotypes.

Stereotype threat

Occurs when a member of a group suspects they will be judged based on a common stereotype; fear of confirming that stereotype interferes with a successful performance.

Selective Perception

Persons notice only the behaviors that support their stereotypes.

Dispositional Attribution

Attributing a behavior to the internal state of the person.

Situational Attribution

Attributing a behavior to factors in that person’s environment.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Refers to the tendency to overestimate the importance of personal (dispositional) factors and to underestimate situational influences.

Self-Serving Bias

People tend to take credit for acts that yield positive outcomes, whereas they deflect blame for bad outcomes and attribute them to external causes.

Locus of Control

A social psychological concept closely related to the attributions that we make for success and failure – or the perceived cause of events in one’s life.

Internal Locus of Control

Individuals who believe they have control over many of their life outcomes.

External Locus of Control

Individuals who feel powerless over such outcomes.

Learned Helplessness

A negative impact of an external locus of control; occurs when individuals focus on past failures and conclude that they are incapable of achieving success.

Social Influence

Occurs when one person (the source) engages in some behavior and this causes another person, the target, to behave differently from how they would otherwise behave.

Persuasion

Changing the beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of a target through the use of information or argument.

Communicator Credibility

Refers to the extent to which a target considers a source to be believable.

One-Sided Message

Emphasizes those facts that explicitly support the position advocated by the source.

Two-Sided Message

Presents not only the position advocated but also opposing viewpoints.

Discrepant Message

Is one advocating a position that is different from what the target believes.

Compliance

When a target conforms to a source’s requests or demands (and threats or promises).

Obedience

Involves submitting to the demands and commands of authorities.

Crimes of Obedience

Collective wrongdoings committed from following authorities’ commands.

Prosocial Behavior

A broad category of actions considered beneficial to others and as having positive social consequences; any voluntary action intended to benefit another person or group.

Helping Behavior

Prosocial behavior that has the consequence of providing some benefit to or improving the well-being of another person.

Altruism

Helping that is intended to provide aid to someone else without expectation of any reward and that comes at a cost to the helper.

Empathy-Altruism Model

Proposes that adults can experience two distinct states of emotional arousal while witnessing another’s suffering: distress and empathy.

Social Responsibility Norm

General norm stating that individuals should help others who are dependent on them.

Norm of Reciprocity

People should help those who have helped them and not help those who have denied them help for no legitimate reason.

Personal Norms

Feelings of moral obligation to perform specific actions that stem from an individual’s internalized system of values.

Gender Norms

Significant differences in the ways men and women help which are related to gender role norms and expectations.

Bystander Intervention

A quick response by a person witnessing an emergency to help another who is endangered by events.

Bystander Effect

As the number of bystanders increases, the likelihood that any one bystander will help a victim decreases.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The process wherein a bystander does not take action because others share the responsibility for intervening.

Aggressive Behavior

Any behavior intended to harm another person (the target).

Instinct Theory

Aggression is an innate behavior that seems to emerge even without socialization or training.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

Every frustration leads to some form of aggression; every aggressive act is due to some prior frustration.

Aversive Emotional Arousal

Negative experiences tied to something other than frustration may also cause aggression.

Negative Norm of Reciprocity

Requires the retaliation to be proportionate to the provocation.

Code of the Street

A set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, including violence.

Sexual Aggression

A continuum, ranging from the use of bribes through verbal pressure, the intentional use of alcohol or drugs, physical force, and kidnapping, to sexual murder.

Rape-Prone Society

The sexual assault of women by men is allowed or over-looked; the United States is a rape-prone society.

Group

Refers to a social unit that consists of two or more persons with attributes of membership, interaction, goals and norms.

Primary Groups

Tend to be smaller groups with strong emotional ties and bonds that endure over time.

Secondary Groups

More formal and impersonal, and they tend to be organized around instrumental goals.

Group Cohesion

Refers to the extent to which group members desire to remain in a group and resist leaving it.

Social Cohesion

Members stay in the group primarily because they like one another as persons and desire to interact with one another.

Task Cohesion

Members remain together primarily because they are heavily involved with the group’s task(s).

Goal Isomorphism

A state in which group goals and individual goals are compatible in the sense that actions leading to group goals also lead to the attainment of individual goals.

Conformity

When an individual adheres to group norms and standards.

Majority Influence

The process by which a group’s majority pressures an individual member to conform or adopt specific positions on some issue.

Informational Influence

Occurs when a group member accepts information from others as valid evidence about reality.

Sources of Intergroup Conflict

Opposition of interest; a benefit to one must come at a cost to the other.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to regard one’s own group as the center of everything and as superior to out-group.

Ultimate Attribution Error

The positive behavior of in-group members is attributed to internal, stable factors; their negative behavior is attributed to external, unstable factors.

Superordinate Goals

An objective held in common by all groups in a conflict that cannot be achieved by any one group without the support of the others.

Contact Hypothesis

Increased contact should lessen stereotypes and reduce bias and lessen antagonism