Social Psychology and Personality Lecture Review

These flashcards cover key concepts from social psychology and personality theories, focusing on attribution, bias, prejudice, persuasion, motivation, and personality assessment.

What is attribution in social psychology?

Attribution is judgments about causes of our own and other people’s behavior and outcomes

What are the two basic approaches to attribution according to attribution theory?

The two approaches are dispositional attribution: people’s behavior is caused by their characteristics and situational attribution: people’s behavior is caused by aspects of situation.

What is the fundamental attribution error?

When explaining others’ behaviour, particularly the behaviour of strangers, we tend to overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of situations

Which culture encourages fundamental attribution error?

Individualistic cultures, such as the United States, are more likely to encourage this error.

What is self-serving bias?

The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to external factors.

Which culture discourages self-serving bias?

Collectivist cultures, which emphasize group harmony and collective responsibility, tend to discourage self-serving bias.

What is the primacy effect?

Initial information that may shape how we perceive subsequent information.

Example of primacy effect?

In a list of names, people are more likely to remember the first few names they read.

What is recency effect?

Greater weight to most recent information.

Example of recency effect?

In a test, students may remember the last few questions better than earlier ones.

What is prejudice?

Negative attitude toward people based on their membership in a group.

How does prejudice differ from discrimination?

Prejudice refers to an attitude or belief, while discrimination refers to actions or behaviors based on those beliefs.

What are the three accounts for prejudice?

1) Psychological, 2) sociological, 3) cognitive.

What is self-fulfilling prophecy?

A belief that comes true because we are acting as if it is already true

Can you think of a plus side of self-fulfilling prophecy?

Believing in a positive outcome can motivate individuals to work harder and succeed.

What is cognitive dissonance?

An uncomfortable state of tension caused by contradicting cognitions.

How can cognitive dissonance explain Festinger’s findings?

People adjust their beliefs or attitudes to align with their actions to reduce dissonance.

What is persuasion?

Persuasion is the process of convincing someone to change their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

What are two routes to persuasion?

The central route (focuses on logical argument and evidence) and the peripheral route (focuses on superficial cues such as attractiveness and credibility of the speaker).

What is social facilitation?

Stronger responses on simple or well-learned (dominant) tasks in the presence of others.

What is social loafing?

Expending less individual effort when working in group.

What is groupthink?

Tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are striving to seek agreement.

What is conformity?

Adjusting individual attitudes, beliefs and behaviours to a group standard.

What is the bystander effect?

The phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present.

What is the halo effect?

People often assume that attractive people have more positive personality characteristics than unattractive people.

What is over-justification?

When intrinsic motivation diminishes due to the introduction of extrinsic rewards.

What is learned helplessness?

A condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure.

What is motivation?

The process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors.

What is the negative state relief model?

The theory that people engage in helping behavior to relieve their own negative feelings.

What is locus of control?

A psychological concept referring to how strongly individuals believe they can control the events that affect them.

What are the Big 5 personality traits?

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

What is self-efficacy?

The belief in one's abilities to succeed in specific situations.

How do psychologists measure emotion?

Through self-report, physiological measures, and behavioral observations.

Can money buy happiness?

Generally no, but it can contribute to happiness depending on how it is spent.