Psychology Test 4

Cognitive dissonance

Uncomfortable mental state resulting from a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior.

When people put themselves through pain or discomfort to join a group.

Cognitive dissonance theory

One of the most influential theories that examines the formation of attitudes.

• Leon Festinger

Conformity

The altering of one’s behaviors and opinions to match those of other people or to match other people’s expectations.

• Normative influence

• Informational Influence

Deindividuation

State of reduced individuality, where people pay less attention to their personal standards and are less self-aware.

• Stanford Prison Experiment

• Occurs due to playing a role in an ingroup

Foot-in-the-door effect

The idea that if people agree to a small request, they become more likely to comply with a larger one.

• “Grooming”

Fundamental attribution error

In explaining other people’s behavior, the tendency to overemphasize personality traits and underestimate situational factors.

• Personal attributions

• Situational Attributions

Gottman four horsemen of the apocalypse

Fout interpersonal styles that typically lead to relationship failure and dissolution.

• 95% accuracy

• 1) being overly critical

• 2) holding the partner in contempt

• 3) being defensive

• 4) mentally withdrawing from relationship

Groupthink

The tendency of groups to make bad decisions.

Occurs when:

• intense pressure

• external threats

• biased

• not carefully processing information

• discouraged from expressing dissenting views

• members that enable each other

Informational influence

The tendency for people to conform when they assume that the behavior of others represents the correct response.

Ingroup bias

Groups which particular people are a part of.

• Ingroup favoritism

• Medial prefrontal cortex is active

Minimal group paradigm

Forming groups based on arbitrary assignment, such as flipping a coin.

• randomized groups still show ingroup favoritism

Normative influence

The tendency for people to conform to fit in with the group.

Obedience

When a person follows the orders of a person of authority.

• Milgram experiments

Outgroup homogeneity effect

The tendency to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup member.

Post decisional dissonance

Motivates the person to focus on the positive aspects of what they choose and the negative aspects of not chosen option after deciding.

• Once we make a decision, we tend to convince ourselves it was the right one

Prosocial behavior

Imagining positive social interactions with outgroup members can reduce prejudice and increase prosocial behaviors toward outgroup members.

Proximity

How often people come into contact with each other because they are physically nearby.

• Neophobia: fearing anything novel (new)

Reasons for bystander intervention effect

Failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need when other people are present.

• The more people that are around you that can help, the less likely you will be helped

• Latane and Darley experiment: participants were placed in a room that began filling up with smoke

Reciprocity

In group formation: if person A helps person B, then person B will help person A.

• Door in the face effect works because of this

Situational attributions

Explanations of people’s behavior that refer to external events, such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people’s actions.

Social facilitation

Idea that the presence of other generally enhances performance

• Zajonc’s model predicts that social facilitation can both enhance and impair performance

Social loafing

tendency for people to not work as hard in a group than when working alone

Social psychology

study of how other people and/or groups influence individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Socialization

attitudes are acquired via classical conditioning and operant conditioning

• attitudes are also shaped through socialization

Bystander effect

the failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need when other
people are present

Door-in-the-face effect

People are more likely to agree to a small request after they have refused a larger one.

Risky-shift effect

groups often make riskier decisions than individuals

Personality

a person’s characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors

• rooted in genetics

• personality consists of three interacting structures that vary in their access to consciousness (Id, Superego, Ego)

• Sigmund Freud

Trait

pattern of though, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations

Psychodynamic theory

Freudian theory that unconscious forces determine behavior

• “Freudian slip”: when you say one thing, but mean another due to saying what is in your unconcious

Five factor theory (OCEAN)

the idea that personality can be described using five factors

• openness to experience

• conscientiousness

• extraversion

• agreeableness

• neuroticism

currently dominates how many psychologists’ study personality

(DSM-5)

diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

• most widely used diagnostic manual for psychologists

• disorders are described in terms of observable symptoms

Problem: people rarely fit neatly into the precise categories

• having two or more diagnosable disorders is known as comorbidity

Agoraphobia

anxiety disorder marked by fear of being in situations in which escape may be difficult or impossible

• fear not related to negative judgements, but inability to escape

Amygdala

regions associated with attacks, along with the periaqueductal gray of the midbrain

• shrinks or is misshapen in many cases of mental disorders

• PTSD: traumatic memory is burned into the amygdala, and it can cause it to change shape and size

Antisocial personality behavior

genetic and environmental factors appear to play roles

• evidence of amygdala abnormalities

• cluster B: dramatic

• deficits in frontal lobe functioning

Anxiety disorders

internalizing disorders: characterized by negative emotions

• psychological disorder characterized by excessive fear and anxiety in the absence of true danger

• symptoms: sweating, dry mouth, rapid pulse, shallow breathing

Bipolar 1

disorder characterized by extremely elevated moods during manic episodes that cause significant impairment in daily living, with more goal-oriented behaviors

• people often develop grandiose ideas, sometimes to the point of delusion

• more extreme full manic episodes than bipolar 2

• primary cause is biological (family history)

• treatment is medication (lithium)

Dependent personality disorder

wants others to make decisions

• cluster C: anxious

• needs constant advice and reassurance

• fears being abandoned

Dissociative fugue disorder

rarest and most extreme form of dissociative amnesia that involves a loss of identity and travel to another location, sometimes new identity

• fugue state ends suddenly, leaving person confused

• person does not remember events that occurred during the fugue state

Dissociative identity disorder

occurrence of two or more distinct identities in the same individual

• multiple personality disorder

• most common in women who report being severely abused as children

• often alters are not aware that each other exist

Electroconvulsive therapy

electrical current used to induce seizure

• therapy for extreme depression

Histrionic personality disorder

needs immediate s*xual gratification and constant reassurance

• cluster B: dramatic

• s*ductive behavior

• rapidly changing moods

• shallow emotions

Koraskoff syndrome

affects the memory system in the brain

Lithium

treatment for bipolar disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder

frequent intrusive thoughts

Obsessive compulsive personality disorder

affects person for a long period of time

Panic attack

typically last for several minutes

• victims sweat, tremble, and feel their hearts racing

• shortness of breath and chest pain

Persistent depressive disorder

may or may not meet the full criteria for major depression, that lasts at least 2 years

• because the depressed mood is so long lasting, some psychologists consider it a personality disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder

disorder that involved frequent nightmares, intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, and flashbacks related to an earlier severe trauma

• chronic tension, anxiety, health problems

• women are more likely to develop it

• lifetime prevalence is 7%

Schizoid personality disorder

socially isolated with restricted emotional expression

• cluster A: odd or ecccentric

Schizophrenia

split between though and emotion, psychosis

• possible symptoms: add behavior

• negative symptoms: remove a behavior

• delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, withdrawn

Social anxiety disorder

fear of being negatively evaluated by other

• formerly known as social phobia

• fears of public speaking, meeting new people, and eating in front of other

• earliest forms of anxiety disorder to develop (around 13 years old)

Id

component of personality that is completely submerged in the unconscious and operates according to the pleasure principle (devil in shoulder)

Superego

internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct (angel on shoulder)

Ego

component of personality that tries to satisfy the wished of the id while being responsive to the dictates of the superego

Trait approach

approach to studying personality that focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions

• Raymond Cattell identified 16 basic dimensions of personality (including intelligence, sensitivity, dominance, and self-reliance)