unit 4 AP psychology study guide

Attribution theory: states that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.

Dispositional attribution: attributing someone’s behavior, thoughts, beliefs, etc. to the person’s traits and characteristics.  Ex. thinking someone is smart, lazy, etc.

Situational attribution: attributing someone’s behavior, thought’s beliefs, etc. to environmental factors outside of the person’s control.  Ex. it was the ref’s fault, the test was too hard, etc.

Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overemphasize dispositional factors and to underestimate situational factors when making attributions about the cause of another person's behavior.

Just-world phenomenon: the tendency of people to believe the world is just, and people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Self-serving bias: taking credit for their successes while at the same time attributing their failures to external situations beyond their control.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: having expectations about an individual that influence your behavior towards him or her, which in turn influences the way this person behaves towards you.

Attitudes: beliefs and feelings that guide behavior.

Central route of persuasion: when people focus on factual info, logical arguments, and thoughtful analysis. Ex. buying a car and looking at the gas mileage, safety ratings, etc.

Foot-in-the-door: the persuasion strategy of getting a person to agree to a modest first request as a set-up for a later, much larger, request.

Cognitive dissonance: the state of psychological tension, anxiety, and discomfort that occurs when a person’s attitude and behavior are inconsistent.  Most people modify attitudes to reduce the dissonance.

Social influence: how attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and actions are molded by social influences.

Conformity: the tendency for people to adopt the behavior, attitudes, and beliefs of other members of a group.

Normative Social Influence: influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection. A person may respect normative behavior because there may be a severe price to pay if not respected.

Compliance: an act of conforming, especially in a weak and subservient way.  Usually someone asks you to conform.

Obedience: obeying the direct orders of an authority or person of higher status.

Norms: implicit or explicit rules that apply to all members of the group that govern acceptable behavior and attitudes.  Norms allow for smooth social interactions.  Violating these norms can be grounds for exclusion from the group.

Social loafing: people making less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone, the “slackers”.

Deindividuation: the losing of one’s self-awareness and personal responsibility that can occur when a person is part of a group whose members feel anonymous.

Group polarization: the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members.  Ex. a group trying to plan prom but everyone has such elaborate ideas; no one can make a decision.

Groupthink: phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome.  Ex. Bay of Pigs, Congress and pork barrel spending.

Prejudice: a learned prejudgment toward people solely based on their membership in a specific social group.  The prejudice can be positive or negative but most research focuses on the causes and consequences of negative prejudice.

Discrimination: the differential treatment of others, usually negative.

Ingroup Bias: the tendency to favor one’s own group.

Stereotypes: generalized beliefs about a certain group, sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized. 

Scapegoat theory: people look for someone to blame when things go wrong, usually fueled by prejudice.  Ex.  After 9/11, Americans lashing out at Arab-Americans, the US putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Contact theory: lessening the tensions between two groups by putting them together on an equal playing field.  Usually the two groups have a goal to reach and they have to work together to reach that goal.

Altruism: putting your own welfare aside to help others.

Bystander effect: individuals are less likely to assist in an emergency situation when other people are present.  

Diffusion of responsibility: explains the bystander effect: people are less likely to take action or feel a sense of responsibility in the presence of a large group of people.  Ex. in the case of Kitty Genovese, people assumed others called the police.

Reciprocity norm: people are more likely to help someone if they are going to get something out of it.

Proximity: Geographic nearness is a powerful predictor of friendship. Repeated exposure to stimuli increases their attraction.

Self-Disclosure: Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.

Superordinate goals: shared goals that override differences among people that cannot be achieved without a joint effort.

Personality: an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Id: the part of the mind that is the primal, self-centered, impulsive, irrational drives of the unconscious, it operates on a “pleasure principle” that seeks to achieve immediate gratification and to avoid discomfort. 

Superego: the part of the mind that focuses on how we ought to behave, it provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations. If you do not listen to the superego, your conscience makes you feel guilt, if you do listen to it, you feel pride. 

Ego: functions as the “executive” and mediates the demands of the id and superego, operates on the Reality Principle.

Projection: transferring one’s own unacceptable thoughts, motives, or personal qualities to others. Ex. you feel dislike for a teacher, and then insists that she dislikes you. Little kid saying their stuffed animal is hurt instead of him. They use this with abuse cases. It’s a way of getting kids to talk.

Denial: refusing to accept or acknowledge an anxiety producing piece of information. Ex. refusing to admit you have a drinking problem although you can’t make it through the day without a drink.

Displacement: redirecting anger and other unacceptable impulses toward a less threatening person or object. Ex. your boss yells at you and you go home and yell at your younger brother.

Reaction Formation: thinking or behaving in a way that is the opposite of your own unacceptable thoughts and feelings. Ex. loss of a family member – saying he’s in a better place now. He’s been saved from a bad life on Earth.

Sublimation: Diverting unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Ex. A person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a soldier.

Projective tests: a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): a projective test developed by Henry Murray in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach Inkblot Test: the most widely used projective test designed by Hermann Rorschach that uses a set of 10 inkblots to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Collective unconscious: a common reservoir of images derived from our species’ past, such as love of mother and belief in a supreme being.

Self-concept: a set of perceptions and beliefs that individuals have about their own nature and behavior.

Unconditional positive regard: showing complete support and acceptance of a person no matter what that person says or does.

Self-esteem: how a person views himself, feeling of self-worth.

Five Factor Model: the most influential trait approach today that states 5 broad factors lie at the core of personality. (CANOE - Consciousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, Extraversion)

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, 2nd edition (MMPI-2): the most commonly used personality inventory used to detect psychological disorders, made up of 567 T/F questions.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): personality test used for counseling, leadership training, and team-building, labels people as “types” (feeling or thinking) and gives feedback in complimentary terms. Ex. feeling types are told that they are sensitive to values and sympathetic.

Self-efficacy: how a person views himself in certain situations, feelings of self-concept or self doubt that people bring to a certain situation.

Model of Reciprocal Determinism: interacting influences of behavior, internal cognitive thoughts, and environmental factors.

Defensive self-esteem: blockading yourself from negative influences for the sake of feeling good about yourself. Ex. you exercise to stay in shape because it makes you feel good.

Secure self-esteem: enables us to focus beyond ourselves and to deal with things confidently, you can take criticism.

Spotlight effect: overestimating others’ noticing & evaluating our appearance, performance, & blunders (as if we assume a spotlight shines on us)

James-Lange theory: our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.

Cannon-Bard theory (Thalamic Theory): an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion.

Schachter-Singer theory (Schachter-Two Factor): to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.

Facial feedback: the effect of facial expressions on experienced emotions, as when a facial expression of anger or happiness intensifies feelings of anger or happiness.

Drive-reduction theory: the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Homeostasis: a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level.

Yerkes-Dodson Law of Arousal: people perform best at a moderate level of arousal.

Intrinsic motivation: doing something because you generally like to do it.

Extrinsic motivation: doing something because of a promise of a reward or a threat of punishment.

Overjustification effect: the effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do and then losing interest in it.

Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher level safety needs and then psychological needs become active.

Glucose: the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues. When its level is low, we feel hunger.