(2025) AP Psychology U4 Unit 4: Social Psychology, Personality, Motivation, and Emotion

Chapter 13 Social Psychology

Prosocial behavior: occurs when people act to benefit others rather than themselves.

Social influence theory: the idea that how people feel and act is affected by other people around them

Attribution theory: the study within the field of social cognition and tries to explain how people determine the cause of what they observe

Dispositional/Person attribution: refers to the process of attributing someone's behavior to their internal characteristics, such as their personality, motives, or values, rather than external factors.

Situation attribution: where people attribute behavior to external circumstances or environmental factors rather than internal traits.

Stable Attribution: refers to the belief that the cause of behavior is consistent and unlikely to change over time. These attributions suggest that the behavior is due to something permanent or enduring about the person or situation.

Unstable Attribution: refers to the belief that the cause of behavior is temporary and changeable, it may be caused by external or situational factors.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: Preconceived ideas about someone that affects the way we act around them and that the expectations we have of others can impact the way we they behave.

Situational variables:

Fundamental attribution error: overestimating the importance of dispositional factors when looking at the behavior of others

Actor-observer bias: bias that states people are more likely to say that their own behavior depends upon the situation

False-consensus effect: tendency to overestimate the number of people who agree with you

Self-serving bias: tendency to take more credit for good outcomes rather than the bad ones

Just-world phenomenon: tendency to believe that bad things only happen to bad people and vice versa.

Attitude: set of beliefs and feelings

Mere exposure effect: the more one is exposed to something, the more one will come to like it.

Elaboration likelihood model: aims to explain different ways of processing stimuli, why they are used, and their outcomes on attitude change.

Central route: involves deeply processing the content of the message

Peripheral route: involves processing other aspects of the message, like the characteristics of the person imparting it, etc.

Persuasion: The process by which a person's attitudes or behaviour are, without duress, influenced by communications from other people

Cognitive dissonance theory: states that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors

Foot-in-the-door technique: getting someone to agree to a small request will make them more likely to agree to a follow up request that’s larger.

Door-in-the-face technique: after someone refuses a large request, they will be more likely to agree to a follow-up request that’s seemingly smaller.

Social reciprocity norm: tendency of people to think that when someone does something nice for them, they must reciprocate.

Social norms: The perceived informal, mostly unwritten, rules that define acceptable and appropriate actions within a given group or community, thus guiding human behaviour

Social responsibility norm: the belief that we should all do what we can to make the world and our society a better place.

Norms of reciprocity: People have the tendency to feel obligated to reciprocate kind behavior

Social traps: a situation in which the betterment of society requires some kind of sacrifice, but individual contribution may be small and as a result, people choose to act in their own immediate interest instead.

Stereotypes: ideas about what different members of different groups are like, influencing the way we interact with them.

Prejudice: undeserved, negative attitude toward a group of people.

Implicit attitude: something that may influence someone’s behavior without their being aware of it

Ethnocentrism: the belief that one’s culture is superior to others (a specific type of prejudice)

Multiculturalism: involves a recognition of the contribution of many different groups in society, making us richer as a result.

Individualistic cultures: importance of standing out and pursuing what’s best for oneself.

Collectivist cultures: value the well-being of a group and are more likely to believe it’s important to subvert one’s personal beliefs/values to do what’s best for the group.

Discrimination: acting on one’s prejudice

Out-group homogeneity bias: People tend to see members of their own group as more diverse (in-group) compared to those outside

In-group bias: Bias towards those who are in your own group. Is thought to stem from people’s belief that if they themselves are good people, people they associate with are good too.

Superordinate goal: contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity, but only if groups are made to work toward a goal that benefits all and needs participation of all.

Social facilitation: phenomenon that the presence of others improves task performance

Upward social comparison: compare ourselves to people doing BETTER than we are

Downward social comparison: compare ourselves to people doing WORSE than we are

Relative deprivation theory: people tend to feel less satisfied with their lives when they engage in lots of upward social comparison

Conformity: Tendency of people to go along with the actions of others

Normative social influence: conforming to the group to fit in

Informational social influence: conforming to the group because you think they know better

Obedience studies: focuses on participants willingness, to do what someone wants them to do.

Bystander effect: The more people who witness an emergency, the less likely one is to help.

Social loafing: When individuals do not put in as much effort when acting as part of a group compared to when they are alone.

Group polarization: Tendency for the group to make more extreme decisions than group members would make individually.

Groupthink: tendency for some groups to make bad decisions as a result of group members suppressing their reservations about it.

Deindividuation: loss of self-restraint, tendency to get swept up by a group and do things you wouldn’t usually do.

Attribution Theory

Dispositional Example

• your friend got a perfect score on the math test, so you inherently believe he’s good at math.

Situational example

• it might have been an easy test, so you could think that’s the situation under which he got a perfect score

Person-stable attribution

• if you infer that your friend has ALWAYS been smart, indicating something permanent and non-changeable

Person Unstable

• if you infer that your friend studied a lot, so he got the grade indicating something changeable and also external factors

Situation Stable

• if his teacher is particularly easy, and you believe that had something to do with the difficulty of the test then that indicates something permanent but in a situation

Situation unstable

• if you infer his teacher is tough but just happened to give an easy test, that indicates an unlikely to repeat or temporary situation

Harold Kelly - attributions made based on consistency, consensus and distinctiveness

Consistency vs Consensus

Consensus asks to evaluate how many others in the same situation have responded

• eg: other students did well on the same test

Consistency says that if one result of one person is same over time, then an attribution is fair

• eg: friend does well on every math test across the year then its safe to say they have high math skill

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Study

• Robert Rosenthal * Lenore Jacobson

They administered a test to elementary school children that supposedly would identify those children who were on the verge of significant academic growth. In reality, the test was a standard IQ test. These researchers then randomly selected a group of children from the population who took the test, and they informed the teachers that these students were ripe for such intellectual progress. Of course, since the children were selected randomly, they did not differ from any other group of children in the school. At the end of the year, the researchers returned to take another measure of the students’ IQ and found that the scores of the identified children had increased more than the scores of their classmates. In some way, the teachers’ expectations that these students would bloom intellectually over the year actually caused the students to outperform their peers.

Attributional Biases

• when people observe the behavior of others, we tend to overestimate the importance of dispositional factors like situational variables.

• people don’t evidence this same tendency in explaining their own behaviors

• Sometimes, the characteristics of a person makes them more persuasive

  • Eg. A more attractive or a more famous person can have more persuasive communication ability

• Even the characteristics of the audience can impact persuasion

  • Studies show more educated people to be less likely to be swayed by advertisements

• Way the info is presented also impacts persuasion

  • With a uniformed audience, one sided messages are more effective

  • with a sophisticated audience, addressing counterarguments, will be more effective.

• some research says arousing fear is effective, but can have its downfall and play negatively on the message

Relationships between attitude and behavior

• Attitudes do not predict behaviors perfectly

• Change in attitude happens without conscious awareness

Experiment of Leon and James

Participants performed a boring task and were asked to lie and tell the next subject it was interesting

• Condition 1: subjects were paid 1$ to lie

• Condition 2: subjects were paid 20$ to lie

• C1 subjects seemed to have more positive attitudes toward the experiment, due to dissonance

  • they lacked sufficient external motivation to lie, so they changed their attitudes to reduce the dissonance

Stereotypes, Discrimination, Prejudice

• All three reinforce one another

• beliefs and attitudes influence each other and guide behavior

• acting in discriminatory ways only strengthens prejudices, motivates you to strengthen them and justify behavior

• People see people in their own group as more diverse (in-group)

Origins:

• some suggestions say we naturally magnified differences between our own group and others

  • idea suggests people cannot avoid having stereotypes, especially discussed by in-group bias

• Theorists say stereotypes and prejudice are often learned as children, conversely says they can be unlearned by exposure to different models

Combating

• Working towards a superordinate goal (the contact theory)

• Goal of some cooperative learning activities is to bring members of different social groups into contact with one another

Aggression and Antisocial Behavior

• Instrumental aggression: act intended to secure a specific end

• Hostile aggression: act intended for no specific purpose

• Feelings of frustration often lead to aggression

• exposure to aggressive models (in childhood, etc) can make people aggressive

Prosocial Behavior

• Behavior where people are more likely to help one another

• Why do people who witness an emergency situation, often choose not to intervene?

  • Bystander Effect

  • Diffusion of Responsibility: People tend to assume someone else will take action, the more people there are, the less responsible they’ll feel.

  • Pluralistic Ignorance: People attribute appropriate behavior in a given situation to what everyone else is doing.

Attraction

• We like others who are similar to us, those who come into frequent contact with us, and those who reciprocate our positive feelings

• The more someone likes you, the more you’ll like them

• Good looking people are perceived as having lots of positive attributes, including better personalities and job competency.

• Self-disclosure is the process of revealing intimate details about oneself, it’s how to build close relationships with friends and lovers.

Psychology of Social Situations

Social Loafing: putting in less effort within a group compared to when one is alone

• Often done because individual doesn’t feel motivated to put effort in the group, due to a belief that those efforts won’t be discernible.

Group Polarization: tendency for a group to make more intense decisions compared to those made individually

• responsibility for the decision is often diffused amongst members

Groupthink: tendency for groups to make bad decisions

• a result of members suppressing their reservations in order to fit in with the rest

• often occurs in deindividuation

• false unanimity is encouraged

Chapter 14 Personality

Key Terms

Psychodynamic theory: focus on the psychological drives and forces within individuals that explain human behavior and personality.

Unconscious processes: mechanisms of cognitive activity that occur without present awareness.

Preconscious: thoughts, memories, sensations and environments that aren’t presently in awareness, but can be recalled into it.

Conscious: the individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, and environments.

Id: Freud’s Idea that part of the mind follows the pleasure principle (exists from birth)

Ego: Freud’s Idea that part of the mind follows the reality principle (emerging at 2 or 3 years)

Superego: Freud’s Idea that part of the mind acts as a conscience (develops around age 5)

Instincts: an inborn impulse or motivation to action typically performed in response to specific external stimuli

Defense mechanisms: used by the ego to protect the conscious mind

Repression: Blocking thoughts from conscious awareness

Denial: Not accepting ego-threatening truth

Displacement: Redirecting one’s feelings towards another person or object. Often when angry, redirection is common on people who are less ‘threatening’ than the source of the emotion.

Projection: Believing that feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person and directed to oneself.

Reaction formation: Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels

Regression: Returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior

Rationalization: Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable occurrence.

Intellectualization: Undertaking and academic study of a topic.

Sublimation: Channeling one’s frustration towards a goal (viewed as a healthy defense mechanism)

Projective tests: involves asking people ambiguous questions in order to try and delve into the unconscious

Humanistic psychology: View of people to be innately good and able to determine their own destinies through the exercise of free will.

Self-concept: person’s global feeling about themselves involving skills and strengths

Self-esteem: person’s general perception or attitude about themselves

Self-actualize: Carl Rogers’ belief that people are motivated to reach their full potential

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

Agreeableness: a personality trait that describes a person's ability to put others needs before their own.

Openness to experience: refers to one’s creativity, curiosity and willingness to try new things

Extroversion: refers to how outgoing or shy someone is

Conscientiousness: tend to be hardworking, responsible and organized

Emotional stability: refers to how consistent one’s mood or emotional state is.

Reciprocal determinism: refers to the idea that behavior, personal factors (like thoughts and emotions), and the environment all interact and influence each other in a continuous loop.

Self-efficacy: refers to an individual's belief in their ability to successfully perform a specific task or achieve a particular goal.

Internal locus of control: refers to when people feel as if they are responsible for what happens to them

External locus of control: refers to people who generally believe luck, and other forces out of their control determine their destinies.

Explanatory style: the kind of attributions people make about things that happens to them

Optimistic explanatory style: making internal, global and stable attributions for good things that happen and external, unstable and specific attributions for bad experiences.

Pessimistic explanatory style: tend to explain bad events as being caused by internal, stable, and global factors.

Personality inventories: Questionnaires that ask people to provide information about themselves.

Personality is defined as unique attitudes, behaviors and emotions that characterize a person

Type A: Aggressive and angry, always seem to be on a time pressure. Very ambitious and competitive, are the work hard play hard type of people. Shown to be at higher risk of heart disease

Type B: Relaxed and easygoing

• NOTE: Not all people fit into either of these types, they can also fit into neither and both.

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality

Freud’s Parts of the Mind

Id:

• Follows pleasure principle and exists at birth

• is part of the unconscious processes

• contains instincts and psychic energy (intuition?)

• Infants are solely propelled by their Id

Ego

• Follows the reality principle

• Negotiates demands of the Id with that of the environment’s limitations

• Partly in the conscious mind and unconscious mind

• Mediator between Id and Superego

• Protects the conscious mind from what’s going on in the unconscious

Superego

• Conscience

D

Defense Mechanisms

Example: Muffy left her boyfriend Biff, the quarterback for Alvin, the star of the school’s chess team. Biff is devastated, but his ego can choose from many defense mechanisms

Repression:

• When asked how he’s doing with the breakup, Biff claims he doesn’t even think about her anymore

Denial

• He continues to act as if they’re still together

Displacement

• Person A is mad at Person B but takes it out on person C

• Biff displaces his feelings onto his brother

Projection

• Person A is feeling something for person B and insists that person B feels the same (even if it may not be true)

• Biff insists that Muffy still cares for him

Reaction Formation

• Biff begins to sleep with his childhood stuffed toy

Rationalization

• Biff believes he can know find a better girlfriend

Intellectualization

• Biff embarks on a project about failed teen romances

Sublimation

• Biff devotes himself to writing poetry and publishes a volume before graduating high school

Carl Jung’s Theories

• Individuals personal unconscious contains painful or threatening memories that the person doesn’t wish to confront - termed complexes

• Collective unconscious is passed down through species, and explains the similarities we see among cultures

  • contains multiple archetypes, which he defined as universal concepts

  • Ex. light vs dark, dark’s association with bad and social image

Alfred Adler

• Called an ego psychologist

• downplayed the impact of unconscious and focused on that of the ego’s conscious role

  • believed people are motivated by failure - termed inferiority

  • the desire to achieve - superiority

  • known for work on the importance of birth order in shaping personality

Projective Tests

• Rorschach inkblot test

• interpretations reflect unconscious thoughts due to the ambiguity of the images

• Are believed to be unreliable though, due to the reliance on therapist’s interpretation

Humanistic Theories of Personality

Determinism: belief that what happens is dictated by past happenings

• Personality is determined through events in childhood and the environment one was raised in

• Humanistic theories focus on self concept and esteem

Trait Theories

• Believe people’s personality can be described by their main traits

Raymond Cattell: Developed the 16 PF test to measure what he believed were 16 main traits present in all personalities

Paul Costa and Robert McRae: Proposed personality can be described using the Big Five

• Agreeableness

• Extroversion

• Conscientiousness

• Openness to experience

• Emotional Stability

The way psychologists narrow down such traits is by using Factor Analysis

• allows researchers to use correlations among traits to see which cluster together as factors

Gordon Allport believed a full understanding of someone’s personality was impossible without looking at his or her personal traits

• Differentiated among three different types of personality traits

• Suggested that a small number of people are profoundly influenced by one trait, and it affects all they do

• Central dispositions are more often apparent

• Crit

Critics of trait theories say they underestimate the importance of context

Social Cognitive Theories

• blend of cognitive and social psychology, mixing the influence of behavior patterns and environmental factors

Albert Bandura

• suggested personality was created by the interaction of a person and their environment

• Said people with high self-efficacy are most likely to be optimistic in their ability to get things done.

Julian Rotter

• Locus of Control theories

• said a person’s locus can have an impact on how the person thinks of themselves and acts.

• internals tend to be healthier (locus)

Explanatory Styles

Optimistic: getting a good test grade, attributing it to your intelligence or awesomeness

Pessimistic: failing a test, attributing it to your lack of intelligence, believing you’ll never pass again, etc

Chapter 15 Motivation & Emotion

Instincts: Automatic behaviors performed in response to specific stimuli

Drive reduction theory: theory that our behavior is motivated by our biological needs

Homeostasis: a balanced internal state

Arousal theory: theory that we seek an optimum level of arousal or excitement

Boredom susceptibility: aversion for repetitive experiences of any kind, routine work, or dull and boring people and extreme restlessness under conditions when escape from constancy is impossible

Optimal level of arousal: a level of mental stimulation at which physical performance, learning, or temporary feelings of wellbeing are maximized

Yerkes-Dodson law: When we perform well at an easy task with a high level of arousal, but the same level of arousal could prevent one from performing a difficult task.

Incentives: stimuli we’re drawn to due to learning

Self-determination theory: suggests that people can become self-determined when their needs for competence, connection, and autonomy are fulfilled.

Hypothalamus: an area of the brain that produces hormones that control: Body temperature. Heart rate. Hunger. Mood

Ghrelin: Influences short term hunger, communicates hunger cues to the brain.

Leptin: Produced by fat cells, signals the brain that you are satiated and are no longer hungry.

Sexual orientation: a person's identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are sexually attracted

Twin studies: used to investigate the roles of genetics and environment in various traits, behaviors and conditions. These studies involve examining the similarities and differences between identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins.

Extrinsic motivations: motivations driven by outside sources and external factors such as money, grades, food, etc.

Intrinsic motivations: motivations driven by internal factors such as enjoyment, satisfaction, happiness, etc.

Lewin's motivational conflicts theory

Approach-approach conflict: occurs when you must choose between two desirable outcomes.

Avoidance-avoidance conflict: when you must choose between two unattractive outcomes

Approach-avoidance conflict: occurs when one event or goal has both attractive and unattractive features

Facial feedback hypothesis: Idea that suggests we infer our emotions from our facial expressions

Cognitive appraisal: mental interpretations of emotional experiences

Cognitive label: an essential component of the way we experience emotion is the labeling of physical sensations and feelings

Display rules: a socially learned standard that regulates the expression of emotion.

Drive Reduction Theory

• Our body craves homeostasis

• theory that our body is motivated by biological needs (food, water, warmth)

• Primary & Secondary

  • Primary: Biological needs (thirst, hunger)

  • Secondary: Learned needs (money, something ot satisfy primary drive)

• Cannot explain all motivations

Incentive Theory

• Sometimes behavior can be pulled by a desire

• We learn to associate stimuli with rewards and others with punishments, motivating us to behave in order to get the reward

Self determination Theory

• Autonomy is the belief we have the power to make choices important to us

• Competence is the belief that we have the skills and knowledge needed to accomplish tasks important to us

• Relatedness is the belief and ability to form relationships with those important to us.

Predicts that this combination of elements is what motivates us to achieve our goals and work towards them

Hunger Motivation

Biological Basis

• Hypothalamus monitors and helps control body chemistry, including when we feel hungry

• Parts of the hypothalamus have specific functions in relation to hunger cues

  • Lateral: when stimulated, causes you to eat. If destroyed or damaged, inhibits hunger and causes you to starve unless forced to eat

  • Ventromedial: Causes you to stop eating when stimulated. Makes you overeat and gain weight if destroyed

• Hormones also play a role: Leptin and Ghrelin

• Set point theory describes how the hypothalamus decides which signal to send

  • states that hypothalamus wants to maintain an ‘optimum body weight’

  • tells us to stop eating if we go above that set weight

  • lowers metabolic rate and increases hunger hormones to tell us we should eat if we drop below the said weight.

  • Not all researchers believe this, but it has something to do with learning and cognition and how it impacts weight maintenance.

Psychological Factors in Hunger motivation

• External factors like the attractiveness of the food, availability of it can motivate us to eat

• Internal factors are our hunger cues

• some people respond more to internal factors than external ones, these such factors may be learned.

• Garcia Effect: whenever nausea is paired with a food or drink, we don’t eat that food or drink anymore even though it wasn’t the direct cause for the nausea

• Culture and background impact food preferences, foods you were raised with will be more appetizing.

Eating Disorders

Bulimia: Eating large amounts of food in one sitting (binge) and then getting rid of it by vomiting, exercising excessively or using laxatives (purging)

• Obsessed with food and weight

• Tend to be average or slightly above in weight

Anorexia: Starving oneself to below 85% of normal body weight, refusing to eat in order to lose weight

• Tend to be 15% below the typical weight of someone their age, height and size.

Sexual Motivation

• Vital for continuation of species.

• Sexual response progresses through 4 stages

  • Initial Excitement: Genital areas are engorged with blood; respiration and heart rate increase

  • Plateau Phase: Respiration and heartrate remains elevated as genitals secrete fluids to prepare for coitus

  • Orgasm: Rhythmic genital contractions that may help conception, respiration, and heart rate increase further; males ejaculate, often accompanied by a pleasurable euphoria

  • Resolution Phase: Respiration and heart rate become normal. Males experience a refractory period before their next orgasm, females don’t experience this.

• Psychological Factors

  • Studies show psychological factors are more influential on sexual motivations

  • Sexual desire can be present even when capability is lost

Twin Studies

• Indicate a twin is more likely to be gay if their twin is gay.

• Some theorize hormones in the womb may impact development and influence sexual orientation

Social Motivation

Achievement Motivation

• Examines our desire to master complex tasks and knowledge to reach our own personal goals.

Note: Optimum arousal and Achievement Motivation differ in the fact that achievement motivation works towards a certain goal, while optimum arousal doesn’t. It seeks to ascertain a certain level of arousal whether or not it progresses to a bigger goal.

• People with high achievement motivation tend to challenge themselves more and consistently feel motivated to do so.

Extrinsic/Intrinsic Motivation

• studies show intrinsic motivation to be more effective in creating long term strategies in work environments, as it provides a reliable outcome

  • extrinsic motivations will end, and so will the desired behavior unless there is an intrinsic factor as motivation

• Behavior of management is studied through these motivations, there are two theories of management style based off of this

  • Theory X: Managers believe employees will work only if rewarded with benefits, or threatened with punishment

  • Theory Y: Managers believe that employees are internally motivated, and policies should encourage this internal motive.

Theories on Emotion

• Emotional state is closely related to motivation

  • Carl Lange and William James theorized:

  • we feel emotion because of biological changes caused by stress

• Walter Cannon and Philip Bard contradicted this theory

  • Believed that biological changes and awareness of our emotional states occur at the same time

  • Believed that the thalamus is responsible for both these aspects

    • taking information about the environment and simultaneously sends signals to the autonomic nervous system and the cerebral cortex

    • Research showed this was an overestimation though.

• Current theories and research demonstrates biological changes may be involved in emotions, but aren’t the sole cause

Two Factor Theory

• Emotion depends on the interaction between biological and cognitive aspects of an experience

• Explains emotional experiences in a more complete way compared to Cannon-bard and James-Lange

• People who are already physiologically aroused, experience

• the emotion more intensely

  • Ex. If your heart rate is up, you’re going to be more surprised by a ‘surprise’ than in your resting state.

Nonverbal Emotions

• Facial expressions we make for basic emotions may be part of our physiological make up

• However, some cultures may restrict or control how people express emotions