Chapter 12: Social Psychology

Question 1

Nonverbal Behavior

Answer 1

The facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms and movements by which one communicates with others.

Question 2

Attributions

Answer 2

People’s explanations for events or actions, including other people’s behavior

Question 3

Just World Hypothesis

Answer 3

People try to make sense of apparently senseless things, like rape and murder. Try to find a reason victim provoked act of violence, like “he deserved it.”

Question 4

Personal Attributions

Answer 4

Explanations that refer to people’s internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods or efforts

Question 5

Situational Attributions

Answer 5

Explanations that refer to external events, such as weather, luck, accidents, or other people’s actions.

Question 6

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 6

When explaining other people’s behavior, the tendency to overemphasize personality traits and underestimate situational factors.

Question 7

Correspondence Bias

Answer 7

Tendency to expect the behaviors of others to correspond with our own beliefs and personalities

Question 8

Actor/Observer Discrepancy

Answer 8

When interpreting our own behavior, we focus on situations. When interpreting other people’s behavior, we focus on dispositions.

Question 9

Subtyping

Answer 9

When we encounter someone who does not fit a stereotype, we put that person in a special category, rather than alter the stereotype

Question 10

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 10

People’s tendency to behave in ways that confirm their own expectations or other people’s expectations

Question 11

Prejudice

Answer 11

Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype

Question 12

Discriminiation

Answer 12

The inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice

Question 13

Ingroups

Answer 13

Groups we belong to

Question 14

Outgroups

Answer 14

Groups we do not belong to

Question 15

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

Answer 15

We tend to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members

Question 16

Ingroup Favoritism

Answer 16

The tendency for people to evaluate favorably and priviledge members of the ingroup more than members of the outgroup

Question 17

Superordinate Goals

Answer 17

Goals that require people to cooperate. These tend to reduce hostility between groups.

Question 18

Attitudes

Answer 18

People’s evalutations of objects, events, or ideas

Question 19

Mere Exposure Effect

Answer 19

Greater exposure to an item, and therefore greater familiarity with it, causes people to have more-positive attitudes about the item

Question 20

Attitude Accessibility

Answer 20

The ease or difficulty that a person has in retrieving an attitude from memory. Predicts behavior consistent with the attitude

Question 21

Explicit Attitudes

Answer 21

Attitudes a person can report

Question 22

Implicit Attitudes

Answer 22

Attitudes that influence a person’s feelings and behavior at an unconscious level

Question 23

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 23

An uncomfortable mental state due to a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior

Question 24

Postdecisional Dissonance

Answer 24

After making a difficult decision between colleges, a person would be motivated to focus on positive aspects of the chosen school and negative aspects of the other schools

Question 25

Persuasion

Answer 25

The active conscious effort to change an attitude through the transmission of a message

Question 26

Factors that affect persuasion

Answer 26

Source (who delivers the message), content (what the message says), receiver (who processes the message)

Question 27

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Answer 27

The theory that persuasive communication leads to attitude changes in two fundamental ways: central route vs. peripheral route.

Question 28

Central Route

Answer 28

When persuasion motivates people to process information and they are able to process that information. Involves use of rational cognitive processes. Leads to strong attitudes that last over time and can be actively defended.

Question 29

Peripheral Route

Answer 29

Route persuasion takes when people are not motivated to process information or unable to process it. Leads to more-impulsive action. These attitudes are weaker and more likely to change over time.

Question 30

Social Facilitation

Answer 30

When the mere presence of others enhances performance; bicyclists pedal faster when they ride with others.

Question 31

Social Loafing

Answer 31

The tendency for people to work less hard in a group than alone; caused by feeling less personally responsible for output. Does not happen when people know individual efforts can be monitored. Blindfolded people don’t shout as loudly when they are told others are shouting.

Question 32

Deindividuation

Answer 32

A state of reduced individuality, reduced self-awareness, and reduced attention to personal standards; this phenomenon may occur when people are part of a group. Eg. mob behavior

Question 33

Risky-Shift Effect

Answer 33

Groups often make riskier decisions than individuals do. Children in a group are more likely to try something dangerous.

Question 34

Group Polarization

Answer 34

Initial attitudes of group members determine if the group becomes riskier or more cautions. If most of the group members are somewhat cautions, then the group may become even more cautious. When a jury discusses a case, the discussion tends to make the individual jurors believe more strongly in their initial opinions about defendant’s guilt/innocence

Question 35

Groupthink

Answer 35

When group members are so concerned with maintaining cohesiveness they end up making bad decisions out of cordiality; decision to launch space ship the Challenger despite a problem with one of its parts.

Question 36

Conformity

Answer 36

The altering of one’s behavior and opinions to match those of other people or to match other people’s expectations. Primarily due to Nomative influence and Informational influence.

Question 37

Normative Influence

Answer 37

When we go along with a crowd to avoid looking foolish

Question 38

Informational Influence

Answer 38

When we assume that the behavior of a crowd represents the best way to respond

Question 39

Social Norms

Answer 39

Expected standards of conduct, which influence behavior.

Question 40

Compliance

Answer 40

The tendency to agree to do things requested by others

Question 41

Foot-In-The-Door Effect

Answer 41

If people agree to a small request, they become more likely to comply with a large and undesirable request–once people commit to a course of action, they behave in ways consistent with that course

Question 42

Door in the Face

Answer 42

People are more likely to agree to a small request after they have refused a large request.

Question 43

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

Answer 43

The extent to which people feel frustrated predicts the likelihood that they will act aggressively

Question 44

Prosocial

Answer 44

Tending to benefit others

Question 45

Altruism

Answer 45

The providing of help when it is needed, without any apparent reward for doing so

Question 46

Inclusive Fitness

Answer 46

The idea that natural selection occurs at the genetic level, rather than the individual level. It might be more adaptive to pass on your genes rather than focusing on individual survival

Question 47

Kin Selection

Answer 47

People are altruistic toward those with whom they share genes

Question 48

Reciprocal Helping

Answer 48

Idea that one animal helps another because the other may return the favor in the future. Explains altruism toward non-relatives

Question 49

Bystander Intervention Effect

Answer 49

The failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need. Eg. Kitty Genovese murder. Thought to be the result of bystanders expecting other bystanders to help, fear of making social blunders in ambiguous situations, due to ability to remain anonymous, and fear of risk to themselves.

Question 50

Matching Principal

Answer 50

The most successful romantic couples also tend to be the most physically similar

Question 51

Passionate Love

Answer 51

State of intense longing and sexual desire. Usually experienced early in relationships.

Question 52

Compassionate Love

Answer 52

A strong commitment to care for and support a partner

Question 53

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Answer 53

Being overly critical, holding the partner in contempt, being defensive, and mentally withdrawing from the relationship. Maladaptive strategies that typically lead couples to discord and dissolution