Study Notes for Myers' Psychology for the AP® Course, Unit 4

Person Perception

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

Attribution Theory

• Definition: The theory that explains someone's behavior by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person's stable, enduring traits (a dispositional attribution).

Fundamental Attribution Error

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

Actor-Observer Bias

• Definition: The tendency for those acting in a situation to attribute their behavior to external causes, while observers attribute others' behavior to internal causes. This contributes to the fundamental attribution error, focusing on our explanations for others' behavior.

Prejudice

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

Stereotype

• Definition: A generalized belief about a group of people, which can be accurate but is often overgeneralized.

Discrimination

• Definition: Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Just-World Phenomenon

• Definition: The tendency for people to believe the world is just, leading to the belief that people thus get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Social Identity

• Definition: The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part that comes from our group memberships, contributing to the answer to "Who am I?".

Ingroup

• Definition: “Us” - people with whom we share a common identity.

Outgroup

• Definition: “Them” - those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.

Ingroup Bias

• Definition: The tendency to favor our own group.

Scapegoat Theory

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

Other-Race Effect

• Definition: 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.

Attitudes

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

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

• Definition: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

Role

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

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Definition: The theory that we act to reduce discomfort (dissonance) when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our attitudes clash with our actions, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

Persuasion

• Definition: Changing people's attitudes, potentially influencing their actions.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

• Definition: Persuasion occurring when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

Central Route Persuasion

• Definition: Persuasion occurring when interested people's thinking is influenced by considering evidence and arguments.

Norms

• Definition: Society’s understood rules for accepted and expected behavior; norms prescribe “proper” behavior in individual and social situations.

Conformity

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

Normative Social Influence

• Definition: Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

Informational Social Influence

• Definition: Influence resulting from a person's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

Obedience

• Definition: Complying with an order or a command.

Social Facilitation

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

Social Loafing

• Definition: 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

• Definition: The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Group Polarization

• Definition: The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

Groupthink

• Definition: The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Culture

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

Tight Culture

• Definition: A culture with clearly defined and reliably imposed norms.

Loose Culture

• Definition: A culture with flexible and informal norms.

Aggression

• Definition: Any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally.

Frustration-Aggression Principle

• Definition: The principle stating that frustration—blocking an attempt to achieve a goal—creates anger, which can generate aggression.

Social Script

• Definition: A culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations.

Mere Exposure Effect

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

Passionate Love

• Definition: An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a romantic relationship.

Companionate Love

• Definition: The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.

Equity

• Definition: A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.

Altruism

• Definition: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Bystander Effect

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

Social Exchange Theory

• Definition: The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, aimed at maximizing benefits and minimizing costs.

Reciprocity Norm

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

Social-Responsibility Norm

• Definition: An expectation that people will help those needing their help.

Conflict

• Definition: A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas.

Social Trap

• Definition: A situation where two parties, each pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Mirror-Image Perceptions

• Definition: Mutual views often held by conflicting parties, each seeing themselves as ethical and peaceful, and the other side as evil and aggressive.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

• Definition: A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Superordinate Goals

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

GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction)

• Definition: A strategy designed to decrease international tensions.

Personality

• Definition: An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychodynamic Theories

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

Psychoanalysis

• Definition: Freud's theory that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Unconscious

• Definition: According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. Contemporary psychologists define it as information processing of which we are unaware.

Free Association

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

Id

• Definition: A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives, operating on the pleasure principle and demanding immediate gratification.

Ego

• Definition: The partly conscious, “executive” part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, the superego, and reality, operating on the reality principle and satisfying the id’s desires in realistic ways.

Superego

• Definition: The partly conscious part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and future aspirations.

Defense Mechanisms

• Definition: In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression

• Definition: The basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Collective Unconscious

• Definition: Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.

Terror-Management Theory

• Definition: A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Definition: A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they create about ambiguous scenes.

Projective Test

• Definition: A personality test that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics and explore preconscious and unconscious mind.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

• Definition: A projective test designed by Hermann Rorschach that seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing how they interpret 10 inkblots.

Humanistic Theories

• Definition: Theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.

Hierarchy of Needs

• Definition: Maslow’s levels of human needs, visualized as a pyramid, starting with physiological needs at the base, with higher needs taking priority until satisfied.

Self-Actualization

• Definition: According to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

Self-Transcendence

• Definition: According to Maslow, the striving for identity, meaning, and purpose beyond the self.

Unconditional Positive Regard

• Definition: A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude believed by Carl Rogers to help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Self-Concept

• Definition: All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, answering the question, “Who am I?”.

Trait

• Definition: A characteristic pattern of behavior or disposition to feel and act in certain ways, assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Personality Inventory

• Definition: A questionnaire designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

• Definition: The most widely researched and clinically used personality test, designed initially to identify emotional disorders.

Empirically Derived Test

• Definition: A test created by selecting items from a pool that discriminate between groups.

Big Five Factors (Five-Factor Model)

• Definition: Five traits describing personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

• Definition: A view of behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context.

Behavioral Approach

• Definition: Focuses on the effects of learning on personality development.

Reciprocal Determinism

• Definition: The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Self

• Definition: In modern psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, organizing thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Spotlight Effect

• Definition: Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders as if presuming a spotlight shines on us.

Self-Esteem

• Definition: Our feelings of high or low self-worth.

Self-Efficacy

• Definition: Our sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-Serving Bias

• Definition: A readiness to perceive ourselves favorably.

Narcissism

• Definition: Excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Individualism

• Definition: A cultural pattern emphasizing personal goals over group goals, defining identity mainly through unique personal attributes.

Collectivism

• Definition: A cultural pattern prioritizing the goals of important groups, like extended family or work groups.

Motivation

• Definition: A need or desire energizing and directing behavior.

Instinct

• Definition: A complex behavior rigidly patterned throughout a species and unlearned.

Physiological Need

• Definition: A basic bodily requirement.

Drive-Reduction Theory

• Definition: The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (drive) motivating an organism to satisfy the need.

Homeostasis

• Definition: A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state, regulating aspects of body chemistry around a particular level.

Incentive

• Definition: A positive or negative environmental stimulus motivating behavior.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

• Definition: The principle stating that performance increases with arousal to a point; beyond this point, performance decreases.

Affiliation Need

• Definition: The need to build and maintain relationships and feel part of a group.

Self-Determination Theory

• Definition: The theory suggesting we feel motivated to satisfy our needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Intrinsic Motivation

• Definition: The desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic Motivation

• Definition: The desire to perform a behavior to gain promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Ostracism

• Definition: Deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups.

Achievement Motivation

• Definition: A desire for significant accomplishment, mastery of skills or ideas, control, and attaining high standards.

Grit

• Definition: In psychology, passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals.

Glucose

• Definition: The form of sugar that circulates in the blood, providing the major source of energy for body tissues. Low levels cause hunger.

Set Point

• Definition: The point at which the “weight thermostat” may be set; falling below this point increases hunger and lowers metabolic rate to restore lost weight.

Basal Metabolic Rate

• Definition: The body's resting rate of energy output.

Obesity

• Definition: Defined as a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 30 or higher, calculated from weight-to-height ratio; overweight is a BMI of 25 or higher.

Emotion

• Definition: A response of the whole organism involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience resulting from interpretations.

Polygraph

• Definition: A machine used to detect lies; measures emotion-linked changes in perspiration, heart rate, and breathing.

Facial Feedback Effect

• Definition: The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.

Behavior Feedback Effect

• Definition: The tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions.