Chapter 17: Social Thinking and Behavior

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Social Thinking

• Attributions: judgments about the causes of our own and other people’s behavior and outcomes
• Fundamental Attribution Error: we underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of personal factors when explaining other people’s behavior
• Self-Serving Bias: the tendency to make personal attributions for successes and situational attributions for failures
• Primacy Effect: refers to our tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person.
• Stereotype:  which is a generalized belief about a group or category of people
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: occurs when people’s erroneous expectations lead them to act toward others in a way that brings about the expected behaviors, thereby confirming their original impression
• Attitude: is a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a stimulus, such as a person, action, object, or concept.
• Theory of Planned Behavior:  our intention to engage in a behavior is strongest when we have a positive attitude toward that behavior, when subjective norms (our perceptions of what other people think we should do) support our attitudes, and when we believe that the behavior is under our control
• Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: people strive for consistency in their cognitions
• Self-perception Theory: we make inferences about our own attitudes in much the same way: by observing how we behave
• Communicator Credibility: how believable we perceive the communicator to be
• Central Route to Persuasion: occurs when people think carefully about the message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling.
• Peripheral Route to Persuasion:  occurs when people do not scrutinize the message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as a speaker’s attractiveness or a message’s emotional appeal.

Social Influence

• Social Norms: are shared expectations about how people should think, feel, and behave.
• Social Role: consists of a set of norms that characterizes how people in a given social position ought to behave
• Informational social influence: following the opinions or behavior of other people because we believe that they have accurate knowledge and that what they are doing is right
• Normative Social Influence: conforming to obtain the rewards that come from being accepted by other people while at the same time avoiding their rejection
• Norm of Reciprocity:  involves the expectation that when others treat us well, we should respond in kind.
• Door-in-the-face Technique: a persuader makes a large request, expecting you to reject it (you “slam the door” in the persuader’s face), and then presents a smaller request
• Foot-in-the-door Technique: a persuader gets you to comply with a small request first (getting the “foot in the door”) and later presents a larger request
• Lowballing: a persuader gets you to commit to some action, and then— before you perform the behavior—he or she increases the “cost” of that same behavior
• Social Compensation: working harder in a group than when alone to compensate for other members’ lower output
• Group Polarization: when a group of like-minded people discusses an issue, the “average” opinion of group members tends to become more extreme
• Groupthink: the tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are striving to seek agreement
• Deindividuation: a loss of individuality that leads to disinhibited behavior

Social Relations

• Mere Exposure Effect: repeated exposure to a stimulus typically increases our liking for it

• Matching Effect:  we are most likely to have a partner whose level of physical attractiveness is similar to our own

• Social Exchange Theory: proposes that the course of a relationship is governed by rewards and costs that the partners experience.

• Passionate Love: involves intense emotion, arousal, and yearning for the partner

• Compassionate Love: involves affection and deep caring about the partner’s well-being

• Triangular Theory of Love: proposes that love involves three major components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.

• Prejudice: refers to a negative attitude toward people based on their membership in a group.

• Discrimination: refers to overt behavior that involves treating people unfairly based on the group to which they belong.

• Explicit Prejudice: which people express publicly

• Implicit Prejudice: is hidden from public view

• Realistic Conflict Theory: competition for limited resources fosters prejudice

• Equal Status Contact: prejudice between people is most likely to be reduced when they (1) engage in sustained close contact, (2) have equal status, (3) work to achieve a common goal that requires cooperation, and (4) are supported by broader social norms

• Kin Selection: organisms are most likely to help others with whom they share the most genes, namely, their offspring and genetic relatives

• Empathy-altruism Hypothesis: altruism is produced by empathy—the ability to put oneself in the place of another and to share what that person is experiencing

• Bystander Effect: the presence of multiple bystanders inhibits each person’s tendency to help, largely due to social comparison (at step 2) or diffusion of responsibility (at step 3)

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