Psych II: Social Psychology - Attribution; Vocabulary

Situational (External) Attribution

Attributions are those that relate to external factors, often for a failure.

Dispositional (Internal) Attribution

Attributions are those that relate to the person's behaviors being considered, including his or her beliefs, attitudes and personality characteristics.

Actor/Observer Bias

Explains the errors that one makes when forming attributions about the behavior of others.

Roles

The patterns and the style of statements and behaviors a person is able to perform across contexts.

Central Routes to Persuasion

The route that involves weighing arguments and considering relevant facts and figures, thinking about issues in a systematic fashion and coming to a decision.

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Foot in the Door Phenomena

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

Self Serving Bias

The tendency to assign internal attributes to successes and external factors to failures.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

Attribution Theory

The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A dual process theory model of persuasion, describing the interaction between an argument and relevant psychological factors of the person who receives the argument.

Low ball

A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.

Philip Zimbardo

Conducted the famous Stanford Prison experiment to study the power of social roles to influence people's behavior

Leon Festinger

Formulated the theory of cognitive dissonance.

Door in the Face

In this persuasive technique, a ridiculous request is made knowing that you will refuse followed by a smaller request that is more acceptable

Cognitive Dissonance

Inner tension that a consumer experiences after recognizing an inconsistency between behavior and values or opinions.

Social Cognition

Mental processes associated with people's perceptions of, and reactions to, other people.

Role Playing

Participants pretend they are in a particular setting and the researcher observes their behavior, or they describe how they would behave

Peripheral route to persuasion

When people make decisions based upon emotional appeals and incidental cues.