Chapter 11: Social PsychologyAssignment
internal and external causes
- internal attributions include all the causes inside and specific to the person, such as his or her traits or abilities. External attributions include all causes outside the person, such as social pressure, aspects of social situation, money, and or luck.
controllable/uncontrollable causes
- we perceive that people have power over some causes but not all - picnic example: can control food, what you bring, etc., can't control the weather
Which of the following are ways to reduce cognitive dissonance?
-Change the behavior causing the dissonance. -Change the attitude causing the dissonance.
Critics of evolutionary psychology theory cite which of the following findings to bolster their criticism of evolutionary theory in attraction?
-Variation in mate preference -Cross-cultural variation in gender behavior
When are attitudes more likely to guide behavior?
-When a person rehearses and practices his or her strong attitudes -When a person is very aware of his or her own attitudes -When a person has strong attitudes
obedience
-behavior that complies with the explicit demands of an individual authority - is a change in behavior in response to the commands of others
evolutionary psychologists
-focus on gender differences in the accounting of attraction. The goal for both sexes, by this account, is to procreate. -argue that humans have the decision-making ability to change their gender behavior and are not locked in to past behavior patterns.
social cognition
-how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information -the way that individuals think in social situations
Groupthink
-refers to the impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony -is a type of thinking in which group members share such a strong motivation to achieve consensus that they lose the ability to critically evaluate alternate points of view.
attribution theory
-theory seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual's behavior, what the specific causes of that person's behavior are. -identifies the important dimensions at work in attributions. it states that people are motivated to dicover the underlying caues of behavior in order to make sense of that behavior
stereotype
A generalized belief about a group of people that does not consider any variations form one individual to another
conformity
Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
Which of the following are contributing factors in prejudice?
Competition for resources that are scarce Cultural learning Feeling bad about oneself
Ethnocentrism involves which of the following?
Encouraging in-group/out-group thinking Taking pride in one's group Asserting one's group as superior over other groups
social psychology
Is the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
romantic love or passionate love
Love with strong components of sexuality and infatuation, often predominant in the early part of a love relationship.
self-fulfilling prophecy
an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true.
discrimination
an unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of group simply because the person belongs to that group.
Heuristics
are cognitive shortcuts that enable us to make decisions rapidly
attitudes
are evaluations of people behaviors, beliefs, and concepts. -describes an opinion or perspective that someone has towards a person, a behavior, a belief or a concept.
Collectivistic cultures
cultures value the group and cooperation.
To reduce dissonance by rationalizing the amount of effort we put into something is called_______
effort justification
peripheral route
factors such as the attractiveness of the person giving he message or the emotional power of an appeal
egoism
helping another person for personal gain, such as to feel good, or avoid guilt
elaboration likelihood pathways of persuasion:
identifies two ways by which a message can be persuasive. centeral rourte and a peripheral route
The Implicit Associations Test (IAT) is designed to assess
implicit racism
normative social influence
influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
empathy
is a person feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another
stereotype threat
is an individual's fast-acting -self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on negative stereotype about his or her group ex: Checking a box that asks respondents to indicate their ethnicity can, in turn, activate
stable and unstable causes
is the cause relatively enduring and permanent, or is it temporary? ex: did Aaron blow up at his girlfriend because he is a hostile guy or because he was in a bad mood that day
affectionate love or companionate love
love that occurs when an individual has a deep, caring affection for another person and desires to have that person near
altruism
means giving aid to another person with the ultimate goal of benefiting that person, even if it incurs a cost of oneself
social facilitation
occurs when an individual's performance improves because of the presence of others argued that the presence of other individuals arouses us the arousal produces energy and facilitates our performance in groups if our arousal is too high, however, we are unable to learn new or difficult task efficiently
implicit racism
prejudicial attitudes that exist on a deeper, unconscious level.
cognitive dissonance
psychological discomfort caused by two inconsistent thoughts
person perception
refers to the processes by which we form impressions of others
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
halo effect
tendency of an interviewer to allow positive characteristics of a client to influence the assessments of the client's behavior and statements ex:Antonio is attractive, so he is also a good student.
informational social influence
the influence other people have on us because we want to be right ex:members of the groups may know something we don't so we follow the group to be right
group polarization effect
the solidification and further strengthening of an individual's position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction
bystander effect
the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present ex: study showed when alone about 75% of the time people take action but this dorps to 50% when others are around
social loafing
the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable
ethnocentrism
the tendency to favor one's own ethnic group over other groups
effort justification
the tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
self-seving bias
the tendency to take credit for one's own successes and to deny responsibility for one's own failures
social identity
the way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership
the evolutionary perspective of reciprocity is
to secure the survival of the family's genes, even if the helped individual isn't actually
persuasion
trying to change someones attitued and often behavior as well
prejudice
unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group and its members
individualistic cultures
value personal accomplishments, differences, and uniqueness
mere exposure effect
we are more lily to like something if you have been exposed to it before even if we don't know we've seen it before
fundemental attribution error
when observers make attributions about behaviors, they often overestimate the importance of internal traits and underestimate the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of another person's behavior
Deindividuation
which occurs when being part of a group reduces personal identitiy and erodes the sense of personal responsibility
