Social PsychologySocial PsychologyThe subfield in psychology that deals with how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by our social interactions with others. Show
Perceiving OthersPerceiving Others Attitudes: An enduring mental representation of a person, place, or thing that typically evokes an emotional response and related behavior
cognitive dissonance theory: The belief that people are motivated to resolve discrepancies between their behavior and their attitudes, beliefs, or perceptions. A-B Problem: the issue of how we we can predict behavior on the basis of attitude
Impressions: people begin forming impressions upon catching a glimpse of a person, literally in the blink of an eye or a mere fraction of a second 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. Attributions: 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. Social psychologist Fritz Heider proposed that people tend to focus more on the behavior of others than on the circumstances in which the behavior occurs
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. PersuasionPersuasion Elaboration likelihood model (ELM): A leading model of attitude change, it is a theoretical model that posits two channels by which persuasive appeals lead to attitude change: a central route and a peripheral route.
Persuasion is influenced by many variables:
Relating to OthersRelating to Others Attraction: Feelings of liking for others, together with having positive thoughts about them and inclinations to act toward them in positive ways.
Love Psychologists consider love to be both a motive (a need or want that drives us) and an emotion (or feeling state). Theories of romantic love: Robert Sternberg’s triangular model of Love: three basic components:
Sternberg believes that different combinations of these three basic components characterize different types of loving relationships Social Perception A subfield of social psychology that studies the ways in which we form and modify impressions of others Primacy effect: the tendency to evaluate others in terms of first impressions recency effect: the tendency to evaluate others in terms of the most recent impression attribution: a belief concerning why people behave in a certain way dispositional attribution: internal, people infer that an event or a person's behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. situational attribution: external, people infer that a person's behavior is due to situational factors. fundamental attribution error: The tendency to attribute behavior to internal causes without regard to situational influences Helping Others prosocial behavior: Behavior that benefits others Psychologist C. Daniel Batson, distinguishes between two types of motives that underlie helping behavior. One type of helping arises from altruistic motives—the pure, unselfish desire to help others without expecting anything in return. But another type is based on self-centered motives, such as the desire to help someone make oneself look good in the eyes of others or to avoid feeling guilty from failing to help. bystander intervention: Helping a stranger in distress. The decision-making model of helping behavior proposed by Bibb Latané and John Darley explains bystander intervention in terms of a decision-making process that can be broken down into a series of five decisions:
social norms: Standards that define what is socially acceptable in a given situation. Influences on helping:
Altruism: unselfish concern for the welfare of others bystander effect: the tendency to avoid helping other people in emergencies when other people are also present and apparently capable of helping Attitudes and Behaviors that HarmAttitudes and Behaviors that Harm prejudice: A preconceived opinion or attitude about an issue, person, or group.
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. discrimination: Unfair or biased treatment of people based on their membership in a particular group or category. 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. According to Allport, intergroup contact can help reduce prejudice, but only under conditions of social and institutional support, acquaintance potential, equal status, and intergroup cooperation. contact hypothesis: Allport’s belief that under certain conditions, increased intergroup contact helps reduce prejudice and intergroup tension. Human aggression:
Group Influences on individual BehaviorGroup Influences on Individual Behavior 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.
compliance: The process of acceding to the requests or demands of others. Marketing: 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. Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram developed a unique and controversial research program to find out whether ordinary Americans would perform clearly immoral actions if they were instructed to do so
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. Evaluation apprehension: concerns that others are evaluating our behavior social loafing: The tendency to expend less effort when working as a member of a group than when working alone. Social decision schemes: rules for predicting the final outcome of group decision making on the basis of the member's initial positions groupthink: Irving 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. deindividuation: the process by which group members may discontinue self-evaluation and adopt group norms and attitudes Polarization effect: the taking of an extreme position What is the process by which we come to understand the causes of others behavior?The process by which we come to understand the causes of others' behavior and form an impression of them as individuals is called attribution.
What is the term for a cause of behavior that is brought about by a person's internal traits or personality characteristics?Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces. When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits.
What is the process through which we seek to identify the causes of others behaviour and to gain knowledge of their stable traits and dispositions known as?The process of trying to determine the causes of people's behavior is known as causal attribution (Heider, 1958).
Is the process by which an individual evaluates his or her thoughts feelings behaviors and abilities in relation to those of others?The social comparison process involves people coming to know themselves by evaluating their own attitudes, abilities, and traits in comparison with others.
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