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AP Psychology Unit 13

Terms in this set (97)

Social Psychology
The scientific study of the ways in which the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of one individual are influenced by the real, imagined, or inferred behavior or characteristics of other people. The way we influence and are influenced by other people.
Schemata
A set of beliefs or expectations about something/someone based on past experiences that we use to understand novel events. Allows us to make inferences about others.
Primacy Effect
The idea that early information is a greater determinant of attitudes. Early information about someone makes a greater impact than later information in forming impressions.
Cognitive Misers
People who don't like to spend a lot of time figuring someone out and stick with their initial impression of someone to save time.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A person's expectations about another elicits behavior from the other person that confirms the expectations.
Stereotypes
A set of characteristics believed to be shared by all members of a social category. Can become the basis of self-fulfilling prophecies.
Attribution
Theory that addresses the question of how people make judgments about the causes of behavior.
Fritz Heider
Came up with the idea of personal/dispositional and situational attribution.
Personal / Internal / Dispositional Attribution
Behavior that is caused by a certain person's characteristics. For example, someone says they failed a test because they are not smart.
Situational/External Attribution
Circumstances prompted the individual's behavior. For example, someone says they failed a test because their teacher sucks.
Harold Kelley
Built on Heider's ideas and came up with the three criteria used to judge behavior as personal or situational.
Distinctiveness/Consistency/Consensus
Low distinctiveness + low consensus + high consistency = internal attribution
High distinctiveness + high consensus + low consistency = external attribution
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to overemphasize personal causes for others' behavior. Generally works along with actor-observer bias. For example, she cut me off because she is a terrible driver.
Actor-Observer Bias
We underemphasize personal causes for our own behavior. For example, I cut someone else off because I am late for work.
Defensive Attribution / Self-Serving Bias
Tendency to attribute our successes to our own efforts and our failures to external factors. For example, I failed a test because my teacher sucks or I passed a test because I studied hard.
Just-World Hypothesis
Assumption that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. For example, she got herpes because she is a strumpet or she will win the election because she is so nice.
Attitudes
Relatively stable beliefs, feelings, and behaviors directed toward something/someone.
Cognitive / Affective / Behavorial
The three components of an attitude: beliefs and ideas held about the object/person, emotions associated with the object/person, and how we act based on our attitudes.
Self-Monitoring
Tendency to observe a situation to determine how best to act. People who have are high in this are difficult to predict, whereas people who are low in this are easy to predict.
LaPiere Study
Study in which a man went around the country with a Chinese couple and went to restaurants and hotels, all but one of which refused service, and most of which gave good service. Following the study, the researcher sent a survey out to all the locations, and 92% of the responders said they would never serve a Chinese couple. Example of changing attitudes.
Persuasion
Getting someone to change their attitudes. In order to have this happen, the person must pay attention to the message, comprehend the message, and accept the message.
Central Route to Persuasion
This route of persuasion gets people to focus on the message and the facts to form attitudes. Generally less effective.
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
This route of persuasion gets people to focus on incidental cues, such as speaker's attractiveness, position, reputation, etc. Generally much more effective.
Communication Model
Model of persuasion in which the source is a credible person, both sides of an argument are presented, method of transmission is usually video or face to face, and the audience is generally people with low self esteem (the higher the self esteem, the more difficult it is to persuade).
Role Playing
When we adopt a new role, we attempt to conform to social expectations of playing that role. Eventually, we "become" that role.
Zimbardo's Prison Study
Study in which subjects were assigned to be prisoners or prison guards. Those who were prisoners had a drop in self confidence and those who were guards were beating the prisoners and humiliating them. Example of role playing.
Mere Exposure Effect
Our attitude toward someone/something will become more positive with continued exposure. For example, we are more likely to like someone we see frequently.
Cognitive Dissonance
Perceived inconsistency between two cognitions causes discomfort. For example, "I am an honest person, but I cheated on a test." becomes either "I am not that honest," or a focus on thoughts that support one's original belief, such as "I have never stolen, never gotten arrested, never cheated on a final, etc."
Leon Festinger
Came up with the idea of cognitive dissonance.
Conformity
Voluntary yielding to social norms, even at the expense of one's own preferences. Can be strengthened by an unfamiliar situation, a larger group, unanimity of a group, if a group is high status, and if it is a collectivist culture.
Solomon Asch
Did an experiment in which a group of confederates and one subject had to say which line was closest in length to the actual line. The subject tended to conform to the group when the confederates all gave the wrong answer.
Compliance
Change in behavior in response to an explicit request from another person or group.
Robert Cialdini
Came up with methods of gaining compliance.
Foot-in-the-Door
Getting someone to say yes to a small request first. For example, having someone sign a petition, then coming back and asking them to put a sign up on their lawn that supports the petition.
Lowballing
Get compliance then raise the price of the compliance. For example, getting someone to buy a car at a reduced price, then adding in extra costs to get it back to the original price.
Door-in-the-Face
Getting someone to decline a large request, then asking for something smaller. For example, asking for a $500 donation, then asking for a $5 donation after the person says no.
Obedience
Change in behavior in response to a command from another person, typically an authority figure.
Stanley Milgram
Experiment in which subjects were told to shock someone every time the person got an answer wrong (even though the shocks were fake). 63% of the subjects fully complied, despite the screams of the person being shocked.
Social Facilitation
In the presence of others, performance is stronger on easier tasks. Also, performance can be weaker on difficult tasks in the presence of others, unless we have expertise. For example, runners who run in a group have faster times than when running alone.
Altruism
Helping behavior that is not linked to personal gain.
Kitty Genovese
Woman who was mugged and killed, despite there being plenty of bystanders that heard her screams. No one called 9-1-1 due to the bystander effect.
Bystander Effect / Diffusion of Responsibility
Helpfulness and altruism decrease as the amount of bystanders increases.
Darley and Latane
Researchers who did a study in which a room was filled with smoke with a subject inside. When the subject was alone, he sought help immediately. When the subject was in a room full of confederates who were just sitting there, he did nothing.
Social Exchange Theory
Theory that states behavior is dictated by desire to maximize benefits and minimize the costs of helping. For example, someone will help someone out if the situation is not dangerous.
Reciprocity Norm
Someone is more likely to help someone out if that person has helped them out before.
Social Responsibility Norm
People will help those out that are dependent on them.
Deindividuation
Loss of personal sense of responsibility in a group. People are more likely to engage in risky behavior when anonymous. Helps to explain mob behavior.
Mob Behavior
When a group of people acts together as a massive unit.
Snowball Effect
When one vocal person convinces a few people, who convince a few more, etc.
Group Polarization
Shift of the group toward a more extreme position following group discussion between like-minded individuals.
Risky Shift
Increased willingness of individual to take risks when making decisions as a group as opposed to making decisions as individuals.
Social Loafing
Tendency to expend less effort when part of a large group. There is a decrease in individual accountability.
Hawthorne Effect
Behavior improves when one is being studied by others. Based on the studies of an electric factory.
Groupthink
Pressure to conform to group makes everyone in the group have the same beliefs and attitudes. Realistic and logical decision making gives way to the desire to have consensus.
Culture
Greatly influences attitudes and behaviors.
Cultural Truisms
Beliefs that most members of a society accept as self-evidently true. People in the culture do not question these. For example, eating dog is unacceptable in American culture.
Norm
Shared expectations about how to behave in a given culture.
Cultural Assimilator
The explanations for why members of a culture have a particular behavior. Understanding these helps to maintain an open mind about other cultures' norms and values.
Ethnocentrism
The belief that one's own culture is superior.
Prejudice
An intolerant, unfavorable, and rigid attitude toward a group of people; negative stereotypes.
Discrimination
An act or series of acts that denies opportunities and social esteem to an entire group of people or individual members of that group.
Ultimate Attribution Error
Tendency to use stereotyped beliefs about a group to make internal attributions about shortcomings and external attributions about successes.
Social Inequalities
Those who "have" feel justified and often use negative stereotypes of "have nots" to justify inequalities.
In-Group vs. Out-Group
We have the need to belong for feelings of identity, solidarity, and safety. Those who are outside the group are threatening. Most of the hatred we feel is reserved for those most like us.
In-Group Bias
Belief that those with whom you identify are not only different, but better than those outside the group.
Frustration Aggression Theory
People who are frustrated in their goals may turn their anger away from the proper target toward another, less powerful target..
Authoritarian Personality
Personality pattern characterized by rigid conventionality, exaggerated respect for authority, and hostility toward those who defy social norms.
Racism
Prejudice or discrimination directed at a particular racial group based on the belief that certain groups are innately inferior.
Institutionalized Racism
Racist attitudes that are held by the vast majority of people living in a society where stereotypes and discrimination are the norm.
Scapegoat Theory
Blame others for when things go wrong for us. Tendency is to blame a "weaker" group/group in minority. For example, the Jews during the Black Plague and the Holocaust.
Jane Elliot
Elementary education teacher who did an experiment on her class in which she made those with brown eyes inferior to those with blue eyes to show how quickly racism works.
Recategorization
Assumes prejudice can be linked to categorization, or how we group, usually based on stereotypes. Try to expand our schema for a particular group.
Controlled Processing
Train ourselves to be more mindful of people who differ from us. Think about examples that fall out of the stereotypes.
Improving Contact
Group members must have equal status and need one-on-one contact with members of the other group. Relations are improved when groups come together to cooperate.
Superordinate Goals
Goals that override differences and require cooperative contact between groups. First used by Muzafer Sherif in a study on two groups of boys in boy scout camp encouraged to be competitive with one another, but then forced to work together to survive.
Interpersonal Attraction
What determines whether we want to befriend someone?
Proximity/Propinquity
We are attracted to people who are in the same space as us. This is the main factor in determining interpersonal attraction.
Complementary Traits
Needs or skills that complete or balance each other.
Reward Theory of Attraction
A social-learning view that says we like best those who give us maximum rewards at minimum cost.
Exchange
We like people who reward us. There should be an even amount of this.
Equity
A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.
Intimacy
How much trust and closeness is there in a relationship? There should be self disclosure (telling secrets), and it should be equal.
Love
Similar to friendship, however there is a physiological arousal, all-encompassing interest in each other, fantasizing about each other, and a relatively rapid swing of emotions. This also includes passion, closeness, fascination, exclusiveness, sexual desire, and intense caring.
Passionate / Romantic Love
Intense physiological arousal, psychological interest, sexual desire, being "in love." Predominates in the early part of a relationship.
Companionate/Affectionate Love
Deep, caring affection for a person. Necessary for relationships to succeed in the long term.
Sternberg's Triangular Theory
Complete or consummate love occurs when all 3 of the following are present: intimacy (closeness/connectedness), passion (physical/sexual attraction), and commitment (cognition of loving someone/long-term maintenance of relationship).
Self-Disclosure
The ability to tell someone your secrets shamelessly.
Aggressopn
Behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
Biological Influences on Aggression
Genetic: animals bred for aggression, identical twin correlation is high
Neural: amygdala in limbic system triggers it, frontal cortex inhibits it
Biochemical: testosterone levels (determined by aggression, and determine aggression), alcohol
Psychosocial Influences on Aggression
Frustration-Aggression principle states that people who are denied resources they think they deserve are aggressive, hot temperatures and foul odors, reinforcement for being aggressive, ostracism, and exposure to violent television and video games.
Catharsis Theory
Theory that watching violent television and playing violent video games relieves aggressive drives in people. This has been disproven since people are actually more aggressive when they watch violent TV and play violent video games.
Great Person Theory
Theory of leadership that states the person has personal qualities that qualifies that person to lead.
Right Place-Right Time Theory
Theory of leadership that states circumstances are optimal for an individual with particular characteristics to be a leader, so they are able to lead.
Contingency Theory
Theory of leadership that says leadership depends on the traits of the leader, the circumstances, and the interaction of the group itself.
Henry Fielder
Came up with the Contingency Theory.
Task Oriented Leader
Leader who is all about getting things done in an orderly fashion. Very good for extreme circumstances.
Relationship Oriented Leader
Leader who is all about making everyone feel accepted and makes them feel like they're contributing to a group. Very good for moderate circumstances.
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