week 8 : chapter 12

social psychology: The subfield in psychology that deals with how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by our social interactions with others.

Social perception: The processes by which we form impressions, make judgments, and develop attitudes about the people and events that constitute our social world.

Impression formation: The process of developing an opinion or impression of another person.

social schema: A mental image or representation that we use to understand our social environment.

stereotypes: The tendency to characterize all members of a particular group as having certain characteristics in common.

self-fulfilling prophecy: An expectation that helps bring about the outcome that is expected.

attribution: An assumption about the causes of behavior or events.

Dispositional causes: Causes relating to the internal characteristics or traits of individuals

Situational causes: Causes relating to external or environmental events.

fundamental attribution error: The tendency to attribute behavior to internal causes without regard to situational influences.

actor–observer effect: The tendency to attribute the causes of one’s own behavior to situational factors while attributing the causes of other people’s behavior to internal factors or dispositions.

self-serving bias: The tendency to take credit for our accomplishments and to explain away our failures or disappointments.

attitude: A positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, or issues.

cognitive dissonance theory: The belief that people are motivated to resolve discrepancies between their behavior and their attitudes, beliefs, or perceptions.

attraction: Feelings of liking for others, together with having positive thoughts about them and inclinations to act toward them in positive ways.

matching hypothesis: The belief that people tend to pair off with others who are similar to themselves in physical attractiveness and other characteristics.

proximity: The principle that objects that are near each other will be perceived as belonging to a common set.

Reciprocity: The principle that people tend to like others who like them back.

prosocial behavior: Behavior that benefits others.

bystander intervention: Helping a stranger in distress.

Social norms: Standards that define what is socially acceptable in a given situation.

Prejudice: A preconceived opinion or attitude about an issue, person, or group.

Discrimination: Unfair or biased treatment of people based on their membership in a particular group or category.

racism: Negative bias held toward members of other racial groups.

in-groups: Social, religious, ethnic, racial, or national groups with which one identifies.

out-groups: Groups other than those with which one identifies.

out-group negativism: A cognitive bias involving the predisposition to attribute more negative characteristics to members of out-groups than to those of in-groups.

in-group favoritism: A cognitive bias involving the predisposition to attribute more positive characteristics to members of in-groups than to those of out-groups.

out-group homogeneity: A cognitive bias describing the tendency to perceive members of out-groups as more alike than members of in-groups.

authoritarian personality: A personality type characterized by rigidity, prejudice, and excessive concerns with obedience and respect for authority.

stereotype threat: A sense of threat evoked in people from stereotyped groups when they believe they may be judged or treated stereotypically.

contact hypothesis: Allport’s belief that under certain conditions, increased intergroup contact helps reduce prejudice and intergroup tension.

personal identity: The part of our psychological identity that involves our sense of ourselves as unique individuals.

social identity: The part of our psychological identity that involves our sense of ourselves as members of particular groups; also called group identity.

Conformity: The tendency to adjust one’s behavior to actual or perceived social pressures.

Compliance: The process of acceding to the requests or demands of others.

lowball technique: A compliance technique based on obtaining a person’s initial agreement to purchase an item at a lower price before revealing hidden costs that raise the ultimate price.

bait-and-switch technique: A compliance technique based on “baiting” a person by making an unrealistically attractive offer and then replacing it with a less attractive offer.

foot-in-the-door technique: A compliance technique based on securing compliance with a smaller request as a prelude to making a larger request.

door-in-the-face technique: A compliance technique in which refusal of a large, unreasonable request is followed by a smaller, more reasonable request.

obedience: Compliance with commands or orders issued by others, usually people in a position of authority.

legitimization of authority: The tendency to grant legitimacy to the orders or commands of people in authority.

social validation: The tendency to use other people’s behavior as a standard for judging the appropriateness of one’s own behavior.

Social facilitation: The tendency to work better or harder in the presence of others than when alone.

Social loafing: The tendency to expend less effort when working as a member of a group than when working alone.

groupthink: Janis’s term for the tendency of members of a decision-making group to be more focused on reaching a consensus than on critically examining the issues at hand.