Social Psychology (Chapter 4)

Locus of Causality

Attribution of behavior to either an aspect of the actor (internal) or to some aspect of the situation (external).

The tendency to attribute an attitude, desire, or trait to the actor that corresponds to the action is called the: covariation principle. actor-observer effect. fundamental attribution error. correspondent inference.

correspondent inference

Downward counterfactuals allow people to feel ____ about what happened. neutral better equal worse

better

Transference is a process whereby we activate _____ of a person we know and use the schemas to form an impression of someone new. scripts schemas attributions stereotypes

schemas

Upward counterfactuals generally make people feel ____ about what actually happened. worse uncertain more positive better

worse

Norman is 86 years old. When looking back at his life, what statement is Norman MOST likely to say? "I wish I didn't eat such unhealthy foods." "I wish I didn't take the government job." "If only I didn't smoke." "If only I had graduated from college."

"If only I had graduated from college."

Fundamental Attribution Error

(FAE) The tendency to attribute behavior to internal or dispositional qualities of the actor and consequently underestimate the causal role of situational factors.

Transference

A tendency to map on, or transfer, feelings for a person who is known onto someone new who resembles that person in some way.

At what age do most children develop a theory of mind? 14 years of age 1 year of age 4 years of age 4 months of age

4 years of age

A Three Stage Model

A behavior is observed and labeled. An internal attribution is made. Situational factors will be considered if there is a motivation for accuracy and if cognitive resources are available.

False Consensus

A general tendency to assume that other people share our own attitudes, opinions, and preferences.

Fusiform Face Area

A region in the temporal lobe of the brain that helps us recognize the people we know.

Forming Impressions of Others

A region in the temporal lobe, the fusiform face area, helps us recognize faces. We have evolved to quickly size up physical indicators of health, strength, and similarity, perhaps for survival reasons.

Halo Effect

A tendency to assume that people with one positive attribute (e.g., who are physically attractive) also have other positive traits.

Bobby was very distracted at football practice when planning plays for Friday's game. Choose the answer that BEST explains Bobby's experience at Friday's football game. Bobby remembered all of the plays. Bobby was not able to retrieve the information needed to win the game. Bobby was able to consolidate the information into long-term memory. Bobby was not paying the attention needed to encode the information presented at practice.

Bobby was not paying the attention needed to encode the information presented at practice.

Recall the findings from Carol Dweck's (1975) investigation of causal attributions of elementary-school boys and choose the BEST answer. Boys tended to attribute their difficulties to a stable, internal cause. Boys tended to attribute their difficulties to the unstable, internal factors or to external factors. Boys tended to attribute their difficulties to stable, external factors only. Boys tended to blame their parents for their performance.

Boys tended to attribute their difficulties to the unstable, internal factors or to external factors.

Mirror Neurons

Certain neurons that are activated both when one performs an action oneself and when one simply observes another person perform that action.

Information and input that is ______ activated is called short-term memory. unconsciously previously currently subconsciously

Currently

Upward counterfactuals

Imagined alternative where the outcome is better than what actually happened. Upward counterfactuals—"if onlys"—make us feel worse but prepare us to avoid similar ills in the future. They are best applied when we have the possibility of exerting control over future outcomes.

Downward counterfactuals

Imagined worse alternative outcomes to something that actually happened. Downward counterfactuals—"It could have been worse: at least. . ."—are best applied when there is no possibility of future action, or we're unable to exert control over outcomes.

Short-Term Memory

Information and input that is currently activated. (Encoded)

Long-Term Memory

Information from past experience that may or may not be currently activated. Information that is actively rehearsed or is otherwise distinctive, goal relevant, or emotionally salient gets consolidated or stored into our long-term memory for later retrieval.

Changing First Impressions

Initial impressions can change when people act in unexpected ways. We are more likely to change an initially positive impression of someone when he or she does negative things than we are to change an initially negative impression when the person does positive things.

Dimensions of Causal Attributions

Locus of causality refers to whether attributions are made to an internal attribute of the actor or to some external factor in the person's environment. Stability refers to whether a causal factor is presumed to be changeable or fixed. People who believe that attributes can change are more likely to seek opportunities to improve in areas related to that attribute.

Building An Impression from Top Down

Our impressions of others are based instead on the schemas we have about people like them. Building an impression from the top down is a way of forming impressions that are based on our own preconceived ideas.

Remembering

Our memories are often reconstructions rather than objective facts and are subject to bias. These reconstructed memories are influenced by our schemas, which generally guide us to remember information that is consistent with the most salient schema.

Theory of Mind

Peoples' thoughts, desires, feelings, and intentions based on what we know about them and the situation they are in.

Ease of retrieval effect

Process whereby people judge how frequently an event occurs on the basis of how easily they can retrieve examples of that event.

Negativity Bias

Research suggests that we are particularly sensitive to detecting the negative things in our environment. Neglecting to notice a beneficial person or event can cost us valuable resources but is unlikely to cause irreparable harm, but failing to attend to a dangerous person or event can be lethal. Thus, the process of evolution seems to have biased us toward attending most carefully to negative information.

Causal Attribution

The explanation that people use for what caused a particular event or behavior.

The Primacy Effect

The idea that initially encountered information has a disproportionate influence on attitudes (e.g., the first speaker in a policy debate influences the audience's policy approval).

Prosopagnosia

The inability to recognize familiar faces.

Misinformation Effect

The process by which cues that are given after an event can plant false information into memory. Example: Was there shattered glass when the two cars collided/smashed together?

Availability Heuristic

The tendency to assume that information that comes easily to mind (or is readily available) is more frequent or common.

Correspondent Inference

The tendency to attribute to the actor an attitude, desire, or trait that corresponds to the action.

Actor-Observer Effect

The tendency to make internal attributions for the behavior of others and external attributions for our own behavior.

Representativeness Heuristic

The tendency to overestimate the likelihood that a target is part of a larger category if it has features that seem representative of that category.

Discounting Principle

The tendency to reduce the importance of any potential cause of another's behavior to the extent that other potential causes exist.

Covariation Principle

The tendency to see a causal relationship between an event and an outcome when they happen at the same time.

Counterfactuals

These alternatives that run counter to what actually happened are known as counterfactuals. A close miss is more upsetting, because it's easier to imagine a better counterfactual. Kahneman and Tversky explained that the close miss is more upsetting because it is much easier to imagine a counterfactual in which you would have saved 5 minutes and made the flight than a scenario in which you would have saved 35 minutes and made it.

Decoding Minds and Behavior

We build an impression from the bottom up when we gather individual observations of a person's actions to draw an inference about who he or she is. Our impressions are often quite accurate, even with minimal information. We are also pretty good at understanding what people are thinking.

Building An Impression From Bottom Up

We build an impression from the bottom up when we watch what a person does and says, then, on the basis of those observations, form an impression in our minds of who the person is.

Perceiving Through Schemas

We build an impression from the top down when we use a preexisting schema to form an impression of another. These preexisting schemas are often heuristics that include transferring an impression we have of one person to another, assuming that similar traits go together, and relying on stereotypes. Such heuristics can lead us to make biased judgments.

Fundamental Attribution Error

We tend to attribute the behavior of others to internal qualities. We generally attribute our own behavior to the situation. Although the FAE occurs across different cultures, collectivist cultures often emphasize situational factors more than individualistic cultures do.

Covariation Model

When an attribution is high in consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness, we attribute the behavior (Reese's love of the movie) to an external cause. (The movie must be great!)

Effort for Unexpected or Important Events

When motivated, we make and test hypotheses for causes of the event. We consider the consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus information regarding the event. Motivational biases can lead us to adjust our attributions to support our own preferred beliefs.

Memory for Schema-Consistent and Inconsistent Information

When the schema came before the list of behaviors, participants mainly recalled behaviors that were highly inconsistent with the schema. Although a schema can color memory in either a positive or negative light, people have a general tendency to show a rosy recollection bias and to remember events more positively than they actually were (Mitchell et al., 1997).

What is the BEST description of a counterfactual? situations based on alternatives situations that are non-factual alternatives that run counter to what actually happened alternatives that run in conjunction with what actually happened

alternatives that run counter to what actually happened

The tendency to see a causal relationship between an event and an outcome when they happen at the same time is called the: covariation principle. correspondent inference. actor-observer effect. discounting principle.

covariation principle

Locus of causality is the attribution of behavior to either an ______ aspect of the actor or to some _____ factor of the situation. external; internal extrinsic; intrinsic intrinsic; extrinsic internal; intrinsic

intrinsic; extrinsic

People often base their judgment on how ______ information comes to mind and the _____ with which people can retrieve it. readily; ease often; ease quickly; extent readily; extent

readily; ease

The tendency to assume that information that comes easily to mind is more frequent or common is called: the availability heuristic. schema-resistant information. the misinformation effect. schema-consistent information.

the availability heuristic

The tendency to reduce the importance of any potential cause of another's behavior to the extent that other potential causes exist is called: the covariation principle. magical thinking. the correspondent inference. the discounting principle.

the discounting principle

The tendency of social perceivers' assessments of an individual on a given trait to be biased by the perceivers' more general impression of the individual is called: fundamental attribution error. the representativeness heuristic. the halo effect. false consensus.

the halo effect

When cues that are given after an event create false information into memory, it is called: the misinformation effect. schema-resistant information. the availability heuristic. schema-consistent information.

the misinformation effect.

The tendency to overestimate the likelihood that a target is part of a larger category if it has features that seem symbolic of that category is called: the halo effect. false consensus. the representativeness heuristic. the fundamental attribution error.

the representativeness heuristic

A set of ideas about other people's thoughts, desires, feelings, and intentions, given what we know about them and the situation they are in, is called: countertransference. theory of mind. mirror neurons. transference.

theory of mind

Imagined better alternative outcomes to something that actually happened are called: downward counterfactuals. upward counterfactuals. positive counterfactuals. negative counterfactuals.

upward counterfactual