Exam 4 Flashcards
Attribution Theory
Fritz Heider, the theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.
Fundamental attribution error
the tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
People in _________ cultures are somewhat more sensitive to the power of situation.
East Asian
Peripheral route persuasion
occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness.
Central route persuasion
occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
Cognitive dissonance theory
Leon Festinger, the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent.
Normative social influence
influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.
Informational social influence
influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
Social facilitation
improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.
Social loafing
the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort than when individually accountable.
Deindividuation
the loss of self-awareness and self-control occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Group polarization
the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.
Groupthink
Irving Janis, the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
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.
Ingroup
“us” - people with whom we share a common identity.
Outgroup
“them” - those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.
Scapegoat theory
the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
Other-race effect
the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races.
Frustration-aggression principle
the principle that frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression.
Social script
culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations.
Mere exposure effect
the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.
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 intertwined.
Equity
a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.
Self-disclosure
the act if revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.
Social trap
a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.
Mirror-image perceptions
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.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
a belief that leads to its own fulfillment.
Superordinate goals
shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.
GRIT
Charles Osgood, Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction - a strategy designed to decrease international tensions.
Self-serving bias
people tend to make INTERNAL attributions for POSITIVE outcomes, and blame NEGATIVE outcomes on EXTERNAL attributions.
Compliance
yielding to a direct, explicit appeal meant to produce certain behavior or agreement to a particular point of view.
Autokinetic effect
a phenomenon in which a small dot of stationary light in a dark room appears to move after a while.
Three important features of aggression
- Is a behavior
- Is intentional, and the intent is to harm
- The victim WANTS to avoid the harm
Psychodynamic theories
view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
Unconscious
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
Free association
a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.
Id
a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Operates on the pleasure principle.
Pleasure principle
how the id operates, seeks immediate gratification.
Ego
the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. Operates on the reality principle.
Reality principle
how the ego operates, satisfies the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Superego
the part of the personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations.
Psychosexual stages
the childhood stages of development, during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
Oral stage
0-18 months, pleasure centers on the mouth (sucking, biting, chewing).
Anal stage
18-36 months, pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control.
Phallic stage
3-6 years, pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings.
Latency stage
6-puberty, a phase of dormant sexual feelings.
Genital stage
puberty on, maturation of sexual interests.
Oedipus complex
a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Identification
the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.
Fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.
Defense mechanisms
the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression
the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Regression
retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
Reaction formation
switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
Projection
disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
Rationalizing
offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.
Displacement
shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
Denial
refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.
Collective unconscious
Carl Jung, concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.
Projective test
a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics.
Thematic Apperception Test
Henry Murray, a projective test in which people make up stories about pictures they are shown.
Rorschach ink blot test
most widely used projective test, seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
False consensus effect
the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.
Terror-management theory
a theory of death-related anxiety that explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.
Humanistic theories
view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.
Self-actualization
Maslow, the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.
Rogers’ three conditions for growth-promoting climate
- Genuineness
- Acceptance
- Empathy
Unconditional positive regard
Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.
Self-concept
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
Personal inventory
a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
the most widely researched and clinically used personality test, developed to identify emotional disorders but now used for other purposes.
Empirically derived test
a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.
The big five factors
- Conscientiousness
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
- Openness
- Extraversion
Social-cognitive perspective
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits and their social context.
Reciprocal determinism
the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.
Self-efficacy
one’s sense of competence and effectiveness.
Medical model
the concept that mental illnesses have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cured, often through hospitalization.
Epigenetics
the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change.
DSM-5
the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders; a system for classifying psychological disorders.
Generalized anxiety disorder
a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.
Panic disorder
marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations.
Phobia
marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation.
Major depressive disorder
a person experiences two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, one of which must be either depressed mood or loss of interest/pleasure.
Mania
a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgment is common.
Bipolar disorder
a disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.
Rumination
compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes.
Dissociative disorders
controversial, rare disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.
