Chapter 17 & 18: Social Psychology Flashcards
Leon Festinger (1954)
Pointed out that self evaluation involves two types of questions: Those that can answered by taking objective measurement and those that cannot. We use both temporal comparison and social comparison
Social cognition
Mental processes associated with peoples perceptions of and reactions to other people
Self concept
The way one thinks of oneself
Our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, characteristics
Self esteem
The evaluation one makes about how worthy one is as a human being
Social comparison
Using other people as a basis of comparison for evaluating oneself
Comparing how attractive someone is to someone else
Reference groups
Categories of people to which people compare themselves
You are like let to compare yourself to those you normally compete against
Relative deprivation
The belief that, in comparison to a reference group, one is getting less than is deserved.
Ex. No matter how much money you receive, it’s less than you deserve in comparison to others.
Social identity
The beliefs we hold about the groups to which we belong
Social perception
The process through which people interpret information about others, draw inferences about them, and develop mental representations of them
Ex. Draw conclusions based on how someone is dressed
Self fulfilling prophecy
A process through which our expectations about another person cause us to act in ways that lead the person to behave as we expected.
Ex. If you’re nice to someone you expect to be nice, they will most likely act in that way since you did
Actor- observer effect
The tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to internal causes while attributing our own behavior (especially errors/failures) to external causes
Attitude
A predisposition toward a particular cognitive, emotional, or behavioral reaction to objects.
Elaboration likelihood model
A model suggesting that attitude change can be driven by evaluation of the content of a persuasive message (central route) or by irrelevant persuasion cues (peripheral routes)
Ex. Rational of argument vs. appearance of messenger
Contact hypothesis
The idea that stereotypes and prejudices toward a group will diminish as contact with the group increases
Matching hypothesis
The notion that people are most likely to form relationships with those who are similar to themselves in physical attractiveness
