Chapter 13: Social Psychology

Three components of prejudice in addition to stereotypic belief

1) symbolic beliefs about the out-group 2) emotional responses to the out-group 3) past experiences with the out-group

Auto-stereotype

A belief system about discrimination that is widely shared by group members. Researchers suggest that it is possible that auto-stereotype is largely created by media portrayals of discrimination against the group that become part of the belief system of the groups, to be automatically invoked when they think about the discrimination against their group as a whole.

Triangle View of Love

A concept created by Psychologist Robert Sternberg. It comprisese of three major dimensions-- intimacy, commitment and passion. Intimacy is the emotional component that brings closeness, connectedness, and warmth to a relationship. Passion is the motivational component that underlies arousal, physical attraction, and sexual behavior. Commitment is the decision-making arm of love: how will are the partners to stick with the relationship in times of trouble?

Social Schema

A general knowledge structure, stored in long-term memory, that relates to social experiences or people. We use schemas to help reconstruct the past and to organize and interpret our experiences.

Companionate love

A kind of emotional attachment characterized by feelings of trust and companionship; marked by a combination of intimacy and commitment, but passion may be lacking

Meta-stereotypes

A person's beliefs regarding the stereotype that out-group members hold about his or her own group.

Attribute

A positive or negative evaluation or belief held about something, which in turn may affect behavior. When they guide behavior, attitudes help us remain consisten in our actinos and help us use our knowledge about individuals and situations. They help us focus our attention on information relevent to our beliefs, particularly information that can help confirm an existing belief; typically broken down into cognitive, affective and behavioral components

Top-Down Processing

A process used to interpret elementary sensations as meaningful wholes by beginning with global expectations and belief about the world.

Bottom-Up Processing

A process used to interpret elementary sensations as meaningful wholes by building the whole from details received by the sensory equipment.

Ethnocentrism

A tendency for a group to evaluate its own group more positively than other groups.

Social facilitation

The enhancement in performance that is sometimes found when we perform in the presence of others.

Passionate love

An intense emotional state characterized by a powerful longing to be with with a specific person; marked by a combination of intimacy and passion, but commitment may be lacking

Prejudice

An unrealistic negative evaluation of a group and its members (unfair negative feelings)

Exemplar Theories of Stereotypes

Assumes instead that we store memories of particular individuals, or exemplars, and these individual memories form the basis for stereotypes.

Prototype Theories of Stereotypes

Assumes that we store abstract representations of the typical features of a group; we then judge particular individuals based on their similarity to the prototype.

External Attribution

Attributing the cause of a person's behavior to an external event or situation in the environment. The behavior in question is high in consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus.

Internal Attribution

Attributing the cause of a person's behavior to an internal personality characteristic. Internal attributions are common when the consistency of behavior is high, but its distinctiveness and consensus are low.

Discrimination

Behaving in an unfair way toward members of another group (unfair negative behavior)

Aggression

Behavior meant to harm someone.

Covariation Model of Attribution (Consensus)

Consensus tells us whether other people show similar reactions when they are exposed to the same causal event.

Covariation Model of Attribution (Distinctiveness)

Distinctiveness provides an indication of whether the change occurs uniquely in the presence of the event.

Behavioral Component of Attitude

Is a predisposition to act toward the object in a particular way. "Predisposition to act" is important to remember because attitudes do not always culminate in a behavior.

Affective Component of Attitude

Is made up of the feelings that the object engenders

Romantic Love

Is marked by a combination of intimacy and passion (but it may lack commitment)

Empty Love

Occurs when there is commitment but little or no passion or intimacy.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model

One popular theory of attitude change that suggests that two primary routes to persuasion exist: one that is central and one that is peripheral.

Cognitive Component of Attitude

Represents what people know or believe about an object

Social Psychology

Studies how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.

Ingratiation

The attempt to gt someone to like you for some ulterior motive.

Stereotypes

The collection of beliefs and impressions held about a group and its members; common stereotypes include those based on gender, race, and age. The central problem with stereotypes is that they lead us to judge individuals on the basis of our expectancies about the group they belong to.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The fact that causal attributions tend to overestimate the influence of internal personal factors and underestimate the role of situational factors.

Covariation Model of Attribution

The first thing you'll look for is some factor that happens at the same time as, or covaries with, the behavior change. We rely on three additional pieces of information to help us make the appropriate inference: consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus

Obedience

The form of compliance that occurs when people respond to the orders of an authority figure

Self-Perception Theory

The idea that people use observations of their own behavior as a basis for inferring their internal beliefs. Example: if I sit down and practice the piano for two hours a day, I must like music and think I have at least a bit of musical talent. This theory makes no reference to distress or any kind of emotion.

Diffusion of responsibility

The idea that when people know, or think, that others are present in a situation, they allow their sense of responsibility for action to diffuse, or spread out widely, among those who are present.

Deindividuation

The ideal that we feel less accountable for our behavior when we're in a group setting can lead to deindividuation, which is the loss of individuality, or depersonalization, that comes from being in a group.

Social interference

The impairment in performance that is sometimes found when an individual performs in the presence of others

Attributions

The inference processes people use to assign cause and effect to behavior

Consummate Love

The love relationship in which passion, intimacy, and commitment are all present.

Bystander effect

The reluctance to come to the air of a person in need when other people are present

Social Cognition

The study of how people use cognitive processes-- such as perception, memory, thought, and emotion-- to make sense of other people as well as themselves.

Social Influence

The study of how the behaviors and thoughts of individuals are affected by the presence of others

Group Polarization

The tendency for a group's dominant point of view to become stronger and more extreme with time. Some of the same factors that promote conformity promote polarization.

Groupthink

The tendency for members of a group to become so interested in seeking a consensus of opinion that they start to ignore and even suppress dissenting views. The result of groupthink is general closed-mindedness and an overestimation of the uniformity of opinion.

Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy

The tendency for members of groups experiencing discrimination to minimize discrimination directed toward themselves as individuals, but to agree with other group members that discrimination against the group as a whole is significant. Research indicates that two somewhat-independent psychological processes may be operating to create this discrepancy. 1) A tendency for members of discriminated-against groups to minimize discrimination as a possible explanation for failures in their lives. 2) When asked about discrimination against their group, disadvantaged group members are influenced by an auto-stereotype regarding societal discrimination against their group.

Reciprocity

The tendency for people to return in kind the feelings that are shown toward them. It helps lead to interpersonal attraction because it is self-fulfilling and because people who like you tend to be reinforcing and accepting of your actions.

Actor-observer Effect

The tendency to attribute others' behavior to internal forces and our own behavior to external forces

Conformity

The tendency to go along with the wishes of the group; when people conform, their opinions, feelings, and behaviors generally start to move toward the group norm.

Self-serving Bias

The tendency to make internal attributions about our own behavior when the outcome is positive and to blame the situation when our behavior leads to something negative.

Social Loafing

The tendency to put out less effort when several people are supposed to be working on a task that when only one is working. Whether it occurs in a particular situation will depend on many factors, including the importance of the task, the cohesiveness of the group, and the personalities of the group members.

Cognitive Dissonance

The tension produced when people act in a way that is inconsistent with their attitudes; attitude change may occur as a result of attempting to reduce cognitive dissonance. According to this theory, if the discrepancy between what you believe and how you act is great, you will tend to change your beliefs to match the behavior.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

This approach works on the affective component of the attitude and usually involves simply exposing people to the attitude or produce to be adopted, without any deep processing of rational arguments.

Central Route to Persuasion

We are likely to change our attitudes when we're motivated and inclined to process an incoming persuasive communication with care and attention. When we listen carefully to the arguments and then judge them according to their merits.

Covariation Model of Attribution (Consistency)

When assessing consistency, we try to determine whether the change occurs regularly when the causal event is present

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Effect

When our expectations about the actions of another person actually lead that person to behave in the expected way.