Chapter 13 PSY 201

Self-perception Theory

(Take on how behavior influences attitudes/Bems theory) Individuals make inferences about their attitudes by observing their behavior.

Conformity

A change in a person's behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard.

The communicator (Source)

A key factor in persuasion is the person doing the persuading.

Explicit Racism

A person's conscious and openly shared attitude, which might be measure using a questionnaire.

Empathy

A person's feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another.

Personality

A trait most strongly associated with prosocial behaviors.

Stereotype threat

An individual's fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about his or her group.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Another concept introduced by Festinger. The psychological discomfort caused by two inconsistent thoughts.

The medium

Another persuasion factor is the medium or technology used to get the message across. (Factor of persuasion)

Social Cognition

Area of social psychology that explores how people select, interpret, remember, and use social info.

Internal Causes

Attributions are causes insides and specific to the person.

External Causes

Attributions are causes outside the person, such as social pressure.

Social Exchange Theory

Based on the notion of social relationships as exchange of goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits.

Obedience

Behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual authority.

Mood

Determines whether or not we engage in kind behaviors. The research literature strongly concludes that happy people are more likely than unhappy people to help others.

Investment Model

Examines the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive alternative partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships.

Stereotype

Generalizations about a group's characteristics that does not consider any variations from from individual to another.

Social Contagion

Imitative behavior involving the spread of actions, emotions, and ideas.

Socioeconomic Status

Is a sociocultural factor in prosocial behavior.

Romantic Love (Passionate love)

Love with strong components of sexuality and infatuation.

Altruism

Means giving to another person with the ultimate goal of benefiting the person, even if it incurs a cost to oneself.

Egosim

Means helping another person for personal gain, to avoid guilt.

Social Facilitation

Occurs when an individual's performance improves because of the presence of others.

Deindividuation

Occurs when being part of a group reduces personal identity and erodes the sense of personal responsibility.

Inoculation

One way to resist persuasion. Giving people a weak version of a persuasive message and allowing them time to argue against it can help individuals avoid persuasion.

Attitudes

Our opinions and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas--how we feel about the world.

False consensus effect

Overestimating the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way we do.

Social comparison

Process by which we evaluate our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to others.

Implicit racism

Refers to attitudes that exist on a deeper, hidden level.

Social loafing

Refers to each person's tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort.

Groupthink

Refers to the impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony.

Fundamental attribution error:

Refers to the tendency of observers to overestimate the importance of internal traits and underestimate the importance of external factors when they explain an actor's behavior.

Self-Objectification

Refers to the tendency to see oneself as an object in others' eyes.

Self-serving bias

Refers to the tendency to take credit for our successes and to deny responsibility for our failures when we make attributions about our own behavior.

Aggression (Genes are important)

Social behavior with the objective of harming someone, either physically or verbally.

Social Identity theory

States that our social identities are a crucial part of our self-image and a valuable source of positive feelings about ourselves.

Social Psychology

Study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.

The target (The audience)

The audience or target of a message can play a role in message persuasiveness. (Factor of persuasion)

Frustration

The blocking of an individuals attempts to reach a goal, triggers aggression.

The message

The final aspect of persuasion is the message itself. (Factor of persuasion)

Informational social influence

The influence other people have on us because we want to be right.

Normative social influence

The influence others have on us because we want them to like us.

Group polarization effect

The solidification and further strengthening of an individual's position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction.

Foot-in-the-door

The strategy involves making a smaller request at the beginning, saving the biggest demand for last.

Risky shift

The tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by the individual group members.

Bystander effect

The tendency for an individual to be less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to favor one's own ethnic group over other groups.

Affectionate love (Companionate)

The type of love that occurs when individuals desire to have the person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person.

Prejudice

Unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual's membership in a particular group.

Attribution Theory

Views people as motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior.

Controllable/uncontrollable causess:

We perceive that people have the power over some causes but not others.

Stable/unstable causes:

Whether the cause of behavior is relatively enduring and permanent or temporary influences attributions.

Elaboration likelihood model

identifies two pathways of persuasion: a central route and a peripheral route.

Social Identity

refers to the way we define ourselves in terms of our group membership.