Exam #1 Flashcards
____ _____(within the discipline of social psychology) is how individuals attempt to explain social behavior and events by looking at other people – that peoples’ thought processes and subjective perceptions of the social world around them influence their actions and behaviors
attribution theory
____ ___ relies heavily on theory and conceptual argument to explain the process of how internal thoughts (in a person’s mind) influence behavior
attribution theory
“She is always late to the class. She is very tardy” or “Ricardo is always sleeping in class. He’s always sleepy” this is an example of ……
internal attribution. we use internal, i.e., personality/ dispositional factors to explain others’ behavior.
-we only use the information that can be observed.
” I was late to the class because of the chaotic traffic” or “Ricardo is sleeping in class. He must be sleeping late every night”
external attribution. something on the outside caused/influenced the behavior.
-something on the outside may have influenced the behavior.
The ___________ model provides a universally useful structure for examining cognition…
information processing
Benefit of the ________________ : Instead of focusing on what the content of the final social interaction was (aggressive behavior, stereotyping behavior, positive attitude change), the model focuses on the process of a person’s cognition before they execute that social behavior
information processing model
Criticisms of this model:
• Since this model is based on what cognitive psychologists were interested in studying, it focuses solely on the process of the brain while leaving out a number of concerns central to social psychology.
• The model falls short in considering how emotion or motivation affect social cognition/ social interaction.
information processing model
This model ________ does not address involuntary social cognition or interaction – where yours or other’s behavior is neither attended to or remembered, but nonetheless leaves a lasting influence on your behavior.
information processing model
Person #1 will make try to make FEWER inferences about person #2’s traits when Person #2’s socially appropriate behavior can be explained by Person #1’s personality (as well as social norms). is known as ___________
or
Person #1 will make MORE judgements about Person #2’s traits when Person #2’s socially inappropriate behavior can be explained only by Person #1’s personality.
Correspondent inference theory
-it can go both ways. Either someone will judge you less if they can explain why you are doing certain actions or someone will make more judgements if they cannot find out why you are doing a certain action.
ex: Ricardo runs by the street naked. Someone has taken his clothes but no one knows that, only him. However, other people will judge him and think/ASSUME he is crazy. they are making MORE judgments of Ricardo, this is known as _______.
Correspondent inference theory
ex: If you read about someone getting into a car accident, you assume it’s because he’s a bad driver and not because he was simply unlucky. ASSUMING, not taking into consideration other motives or factors.
Correspondent inference theory
- People explain events in terms of things that are present when the event occurs
- People explain events in terms of things that are absent when an event does not occur
Example:
Suppose that you learned that your child got detention in school last Monday, but that he also gets detention in most of his other classes on that day. In fact, he gets detention most Mondays and most other days of the week, even though most other students do not get detention for their behavior. Most likely you would conclude that your child might have a behavior problem at school.
Kelly’s Covariation Theory
we use _____ to explain why people socially interact with each other
attribution theory
_______ deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment
attribution theory
____ argues that people match an observed event with “schemas” – or generalized causal explanations conceived in the mind – that they already believe.
Schema Theory
___ allow us to quickly make sense of the people around us and either engage in social interaction with these people or avoid social interaction with these people
schemas
using ___ too much to guide your intuitions and actions can lead you to discriminate against people based on how they appear, speak, etc.
– this can lead someone to develop ____ ____ which could influence them to avoid social interaction with some people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc.
persistent schemas
example of a ____ _____, stereotypes, social roles, scripts, worldviews, and archetypes.
-These ___ ___ help us to remember important this for the future. For example, if we encounter a dog that growls at us and we almost get bit. The next time you see a dog and it starts to growl you do not want to be around it.
social schemas
an example of ______ ____ is the meaningless video that most people interpreted as two males fighting for a females when in reality it was nothing.
schema theory
_________ ______: The idea here is that we generally are very efficient at coming up with cognitive schema for people based on limited information – this can be good or bad
Good: Identifying a potential threatening social situation before it happens - Stereotyping / Bad: Being prejudiced against a certain person
Impression-Memory Inconsistency
The theory is that you should have better memory of a person’s positive traits if you had a positive impression of that person’ and vice versa (if you have a negative impression of someone, you mostly remember their negative behaviors).
-suggests cognitive devices are at work to pay special attention to information that conflicts with our already existing impressions of a person
Impression-Memory Inconsistency
____ ___ (as a socially motivated cognitive process) comes from the limits of our brain
impression formation
The theory here is that when we encounter a new person, there are a lot of new things about this person that we encounter for the first time.
• We see, hear, smell, etc. everything new about this person at first, but our attention can only handle a limited amount of information at a time – just think, you didn’t really process the color of my shirt until I just said it (you were paying attention to other things)
So, our cognitive processes form impressions of new individuals we meet using schemas – our brains usually do this very efficiently so that we can quickly decide whether this new person is friendly or dangerous, warm or cold, attractive or unattractive (your life may depend on it)!
impression formation
- ______ refer to the inference of personality traits from behaviors.
- In ______ the inferred trait is attached to the actor, and –in ____ it is attached to a communicator.
trait transference (STT)
Spontaneous Trait Inference
STT