Ch. 13

Question 1

Social psychology

Answer 1

the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.

social cognitions

social influences

social relations

Question 2

Person perception

Answer 2

physical attractiveness
“beautiful is good” stereotype

Question 3

self fulling prophecy

Answer 3

an expectation or belief that can influence your behaviors, thus causing the belief to come true.

Question 4

Attribution theory

Answer 4

Attributions: explanations for why people behave the way they do
attempt to discover underlying causes of behavior
internal/external causes
stable/unstable causes
controllable/uncontrollable causes

Question 5

Attribution theory errors

Answer 5

the tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others’ behavior

Question 6

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 6

overestimate internal traits
underestimate external causes

Question 7

the self as a social object

Answer 7

Self-Esteem
positive illusions
views of ourselves that are not necessarily rooted in reality

Question 7

Heuristics

Answer 7

cognitive shortcuts that speed decision making
stereotypes (representativeness heuristic)

Question 8

social influence:conformity

Answer 8

changes in behavior, attitudes, or values because of real or imagined group pressure

Question 9

Asch’s experiment

Answer 9

Why do we conform?
informational social influence
normative social influence
Resisting Conformity
The Bystander Effect

Question 10

bystander effect

Answer 10

occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation, against a bully, or during an assault or other crime.
Resisting Conformity
(diffusion of responsibility)

Question 11

Milgram’s experiments (1965-1974)

Answer 11

Milgram’s study: people have a tendency to obey, and will do things that go against conscience when ordered by an authority.
Factors contributing to willingness to obey

Question 12

informational social influence

Answer 12

where a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.

Question 13

normative social influence

Answer 13

where a person conforms in order to be accepted and belong to a group.

Question 14

Close relationships

Answer 14

Three influencing factors: Proximity, Familiarity, Physical Attractiveness

Question 15

the matching hypothesis

Answer 15

a theory of interpersonal attraction which argues that relationships are formed between two people who are equal or very similar in terms of social desirability.

Question 16

Attractiveness and resource exchange

Answer 16

one hopes to acquire a particular resource in exchange for the resources desired by one’s partner.

Question 17

false consensus effect

Answer 17

overestimating the degree to which everyone else thinks or acts the way we do
use our outlook to predict that of others

Question 18

halo effect

Answer 18

common halo effect example is attractiveness, and the tendency to assign positive qualities to an attractive person.

Ex.ted bundy

Question 19

“Better-than-Average effect”

Answer 19

the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared with their average peer.

Question 20

self serving bias

Answer 20

tendency to take credit for success and deny responsibility for failure