AP Psych Unit 9 Flashcards
Attribution Theory
the theory that we explain people’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition “That man is yelling because he’s a bad person
Dispositional Attributions
Internal Characteristics (Personal Traits) such as personality and intelligence
Situational Attributions
Environmental Factors
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency for observers, for analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the
situation and to overestimate the impact of a person’s disposition “Because of the Fundamental Attribution Error I believe that the
man is yelling because he is a bad person, not because he’s under a lot of stress.”
Actor-Observer Bias
Tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes
Self-Serving Bias
We attribute causes of behavior to external causes if we fail & internal causes if we succeed. (I passed my test because I am smart or I failed my test, because my teacher doesn’t teach me well)
Just-World Phenomenon
the tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get “Homeless people are lazy and don’t work so they deserve to be poor.”
False-consensus effect
when you believe that everyone else shares your opinions and attitudes
Confirmation bias
is the tendency to search for or put more value on information that confirms your beliefs, while disregarding opposing information
Halo effect
believe someone is good, you will interpret all of their actions as good, and fail to notice their bad traits
Self-schemas
They are made up of many categories such as but not at all limited to:
○ Gender - the biologically and socially influenced characteristics by which people define male and female
○ Race - A group of human beings distinguished by physical traits, blood types, genetic code patterns or genetically
inherited characteristics
○ Ethnicity - Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common
heredity and cultural traditions
● Gender-being Male or female-males understand males and females understand or fit in with females.
● Race and ethnicity-difference in biological traits-different races relate to others of the same race
● While race is a social construct without a genetic reality, it is still a very powerful force both for good (pride in one’s group)
and for evil (systemic racism).
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
a belief that leads to its own fulfillment
Mirror-Image Perception
mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive
Attitude
feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events
“The student has a bad attitude towards his teacher so he doesn’t do his homework for that class.”
Elaboration Likelihood Model of Attitude Change
People are more likely to carefully process persuasive messages when they are motivated and capable of considering all available information
Peripheral Route Persuasion
occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speakers’ attractiveness “Ads for
makeup often uses peripheral route persuasion to get people to buy the product.”
Central Route to Persuasion
occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts “Doctors often use central route persuasion when talking about medical treatments.”
Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon
Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request
Door in the face phenomenon
when someone starts with a large request that the other person would turn down, and then asking a more reasonable request that the person would accept.
Low-Ball Technique
pitching an attractive offer and then increasing the price with the sole aim of earning profit
Cognitive Dissonance
the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. “Ms. Kong
hated Justin Bieber but likes one of his songs so she’s had to match her thoughts and likings.”
● Change their conflicting behavior to make it match their attitude
● Change their current conflicting cognition to justify their behavior
● Form new cognitions to justify their behavior
Solomon Asch
the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions
Stanley Milgram (1963)
Designed one of the more famous experiments in the history of psychology on obedience. Measured the willingness to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscious
Philip Zimbardo
American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later severely criticised for both ethical and scientific reasons.
Social Influence
the ways people are affected by the real or imagined pressures of others
Chameleon Effect
Unconsciously mimicking others automatically without thought or effort
Conformity
adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard
Normative Social Influence
influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval to avoid disapproval. Example: You wear
army pants and flip flops to fit in with the popular kids
Informative Social Influence
influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality. Example: you go to a football game for the first time and stand up, because everyone is standing up.
Obedience
Changing one’s behavior at the direct command of an authority figure
Milgram Experiment
His experiments involved instructing study participants to deliver increasingly high-voltage shocks to an actor in another room, who would scream and eventually go silent as the shocks became stronger.
Milgram also found that obedience is highest when:
● The person giving the orders was close at hand and perceived to be an authority figure
● The authority figure is associated with a prestigious institution
● The victim is depersonalized and/or at a distance
● There are no role models for defiance
Role
a set of expectations about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior. When
randomly assigned to behave like prison guards or prisoners, subjects adopted that role to the point where guards became abusive to prisoners and prisoners planned a rebellion against the guards (even though subjects were allowed to opt out at any time). This emphasizes the power of role play
Group Think
the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives “During debates, many people will agree to disagree to avoid conflict.”
Social Facilitation
Improved performance on simple or well learned tasks in the presence of others “Because of social facilitation, I’m even better at doing this activity around others.”
Social inhibition
The mere presence of others can impair performance on tasks that one is not particularly good at (e.g., a novice pool player will perform less well in front of a group).
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 “A lot of kids in group projects will take part in social loafing if the group receives one big grade.”
Deindividuation
he loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity “deindividuation is very common during sporting events.”
Diffusion of responsibility
phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other
bystanders or witnesses are present.
Group Polarization
the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group “Political rallies tend to
strengthen people’s views because of group polarization.”
Bystander effect
the idea that people are less likely to help if others are around, because we assume that someone else will help instead
Reciprocity Norms
The expectation that we should return help and not harm those who have helped us.
Social Norms
rules for accepted and expected behavior
Social Dilemma
A situation in which a self-interested choice by everyone will create the worst outcome for everyone
Social Trap
a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior
Prisoner’s Dilemma
is a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome. The typical prisoner’s dilemma is set up in such a way that both parties choose to protect themselves at the expense of the other participant
Conflict
is a disagreement of actions, goals, or ideas
Superordinate Goals
shared goals that can only be achieved through cooperation
GRIT
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction - a strategy designed to decrease international tensions “Bush
said he’d kick Saddam’s ass so Saddam said he’d make us swim in our blood.”
Ingroup
“Us” people with whom we share a common identity “The group that I associate with has blue eyes.”
Outgroup
Them” those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup “The other group has brown eyes.”
Ingroup Bias
the tendency to favor our own group “Blue eyed people are better.”
Ethnocentrism
is the prejudicial belief that one’s culture is superior to all other cultures. People tend to justify their culture’s social
systems while judging others’ as “bad” or “wrong.”
Prejudice
unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Generally involves stereotyped beliefs,
negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action
Stereotype
a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people
Segregation
unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members
Scapegoat Theory
the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame “The Germans used the Jews as the reason
Implicit bias
refers to attitudes and beliefs that occur outside of our conscious awareness and control
Explicit biases
are biases we are aware of on a conscious level (for example, feeling threatened by another group and delivering hate
speech as a result), and are an example of system 2 thinking
Other-race Effect
the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races
Out-group homogeneity effect
s the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members
Contact Hypothesis
Bringing members from different groups together will reduce prejudice (exposure) improve positive attitudes
Altruism
unselfish concern for the welfare of others “Saving someone’s life despite having to risk your own.”
Prosocial behavior
refers to any action that benefits other people
The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
Psychological altruism does exist and is evoked by the empathic desire to help someone who is
suffering
Social Exchange Theory
Our social behavior is an exchange process. The aim is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
Social Responsibility
Largely learned, it is a norm that tells us to help others when they need us even though they may not repay us
Aggression
any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy
Biological Basis for Aggression
Genetics, head injury, and testosterone
Frustration-Aggression Principle
the principle that frustration - the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal - creates anger,
which can generate aggression “I didn’t win the soccer game so we started yelling at the other team.”
Social Script
culturally provided mental files for how we act
● Modeling of aggressive behaviors from family, friends, tv, etc
Interpersonal Attraction
All of the forces that lead people to like each other, establish relationships, and in some cases, fall in love
Proximity
The closer together people are physically, the more likely they are to form a relationship/friendship
Physical Attractiveness
People tend to like those whom they find physically attractive
Mere Exposure Effect
the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them
Similarity
The more similar two people are in attitudes, background, and other traits, the more probable it is that they will like each other
Passionate Love
an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship
Companionate Love
the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with
whom our lives are intertwine
Equity
a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it
Self-disclosure
revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others
Matching hypothesis states
that people have a tendency to choose partners whose level of attractiveness they believe to be equal to their own
Reciprocity of Liking
people have a very strong tendency to like people who like
them
Sternberg’s Components of Love
proposes that love is composed of three distinct but interrelated components: intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment
Consummate Love
The most complete and ideal form of love, combining intimacy, passion, and commitment
