Final final Flashcards
Social psychology
The scientific study of the influence of the real, imagined, or implied presence of others on our beliefs, feelings, and behavior.
We are all amateur ______ ________.
Social psychologists.
Our hypotheses about human behavior reflect a..?
commonsense understanding.
What the issue with amateur hypotheses?
They lack scientific rigor and imparitality.
Hindsight bias
a psychological phenomenon that allows people to convince themselves after an event that they accurately predicted it before it happened.
Advantages of professional social psychologists:
- Begin with observation but continue on.
- conduct experiments with opportunities to learn from multiple participating people and situations in controlled settings.
- Draw conclusions based on more precise and numerous data.
Aronsons first law
People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy.
Dispositional view of human actions.
A dispositional view is that our behaviors are determined by personality traits—for example, a driver in a road rage incident claims the driver who cut her off is an aggressive person.
Define social psychology:
developing an appreciation for a more complex situational view of human behavior.
Social cognition
Area of social psychology
- focuses on development of people’s understanding, storage, and application of information about themselves, other people, and social situations.
Jeremy Bentham
- rationality of human cognition
- happiness calculation and the role of government
- foundational ideas of modern capitalism.
Cognitive misers
describes the ability and tendency of the human brain to problem solve in the most simple and straight-forward ways rather than utilizing more sophisticated and effort-intensive ways. By doing this the brain conserves energy. This concept is widely used in social cognition theory and other area of the social sciences.
Hunter gatherer mind
brain shaped by evolution to facilitate survival in our biological hunter-gatherer ancestors.
What is the limit of people we can have stable, meaningful relationships with?
150 people
Whats the problem with large groups?
more difficulty and stress in larger groups; splintering often occurs.
Human universals
Traits, behavioral tendencies, and motivational systems manifested regardless of culture.
What are things present in all societies?
- Basic emotions
- gender differentiated aggression and child care duties.
- norms of conduct, religion
- stories, myths, music, age related rites of passage
Bias blind spot
Recognizing the impact of biases on the judgement of others, while failing to see biases of one’s own judgement.
Naive realsim
The human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be wrong.
Confirmation bias
Egocentric bias
Egocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one’s own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality
Spotlight effect (gilovich)
the tendency of people to favor information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values and is difficult to dislodge once affirmed.
Cloak of invisibility illusion
People believe that they observe others more than do other people and that they are generally observed less than are others.
Barnum effect
A person’s natural tendency to think that a generic or vague personality description applies specifically to themselves.
Why is bad stronger than good?
Negativity bias has evolved in the human mind.
Negative events are typically more powerful than positive ones.
How can the negativity bias be offset?
generating satisfaction
Automatic processing
- unconscious (implicit) operations
- guides most of behavior as well learned associations or routines
- fast responses to sensory input
Controlled processing
- conscious (explicit) operations
- deals with novel or complex input.
- slower and sequential
Most decisions involve two steps. What are they?
- Quick intuitive, and incomplete reality assessment.
- controlled, deliberate modification of initial assessment.
Automatic thinking requires more?
time, focus, effort, and energy.
Controlled processing cannot do two things ___ ____ _____
at one time.
Heider and simmel
demonstrated human tendency to attribute human intentions and personalities even to inanimate objects
Social pain
feelings of rejection, humiliation or insult.
einsenberger and lieberman
MRI scans revealed brain activation pattern similar for student exclusion and experimentally induced physical pain.
the US-THEM thinking of tribal minds
hardwired automatic impulses toward treating US as friends and THEM as threats.
Social identity theory
most important group memberships feed sense of belonging and self worth
thinking about us and them is shaped is influenced by group memberships
Core group of social motives(5)
- belonging
- understanding other and predicting accurately
- control
- need to matter
- trust
Humans function best when they experience?
sense of belonging, control, freedom to make choices, usefulness, trust, and being loved.
Fundamental attribution error
human tendency to overestimate the importance of personality or dispositional factors relative to situational or environmental influences that occurs when describing or explaining why people do what they do.
Basic principle of social cognition:
All judgment is relative; how we perceive and think about a person or an event depends on its social context.
Contrast effects
change in how good something looks in comparison to a similar item.
Social comparision
- process by which we evaluate our abilities, achievements, attitudes, and other attributes through comparison of others.
- this is countered through a growth mindset.
Schemas
model,framework,outline
mental models used to organize and retrieve information
stereotypes, categories, expectations, attitudes, and mind sets.
Priming
Activates schemas through subtle cues. Color perceptions in predictable ways through influence of recent current environmental events.
The power of the primacy effect
early information is more influential than later information
ex: when an individual tries to remember something from a long list of words, they will remember words listed at the beginning, instead of the middle.
Heuristics
mental operations that guide problem solving and making judgments
most common heuristics
- representativeness heuristics
- availability heuristics
- affect heuristics
Representativeness heuristic
focuses on surface similarities to make inferences
availability heuristic
focuses on tendency to predict an event’s likelihood or riskiness based on how easy it is to recall specific examples; priming helps
Affect heuristic
focuses on mental shortcut influenced by current emotions and used to make decisions
False memory
easily transplanted under certain conditions.
Self- justification
the desire we have to justify our actions, beliefs, and feelings.
Cognitive dissonance theory
a state of tension that occurs whenever and individual simultaneously hods two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent.
Ways to reduce cognitive dissonance
changing one or both cognitions so that they are consistent.
adding additional cognitions to bridge the gap between the original ones.
Changing the preexisting attitude to be consistent with the behavior
When is behavior or thinking irrational?
When it prevents us from learning important facts or finding real solutions to problems.
When is it rational?
when we can maintain a positive self image that depicts us as good smart or worthwhile.
Capital punishment study (lord, ross and lepper)
we will distort information to fit our preconceived beliefs.
Consequences of making a decision
(when you make a difficult choice what do YOU do?)
we experience dissonance. a common way to reduce is to focus on the positive aspects of our choice and the negative aspects of the ones we did not choose.
Appliance study (Brehm)
Participants rated appliances and then were given the choice of two (that they had rated as equal)
Ratings increased for the selected appliance and decreased for the appliance not chosen.
Is dissonance reduction conscious?
no
people are unaware of how successfully they will reduce dissonance
Because the process is unconscious, we do not realize that is will protect us from pain in the future.
Foot in the door technique
those who asked to sign a petition on “driver safety” were more likely than controls to agree to have a huge ugly sign that says to drive carefully.
Relationship between external justification and internal justification?
if an individual states a belief that is difficult to justify externally, that person will attempt to justify it internally by making his or her attitudes more consistent with the statement or behavior.
What constitutes external justification?
punishment, reward, praise, a desire to please.
If we use strong punishment to get people to stop doing something they enjoy what will happen?
they will comply only when the punisher is present and then go right back to doing it again when they are no longer present (ex, speeding)
Dissonance would be most strong in situations where the self concept is?
threatened.
dissonance is greatest when
people feel personally responsible for their actions
their actions have serious consequences
The importance of self esteem
the role of self esteem
- we experience the most dissonance in situations that threaten our self esteem.
if a person works hard to attain a goal
that goal will be more attractive to the individual than it will be to someone who achieves the same goal with little or no effort.
if we think we are decent reasonable people, how do we justify our behavior when our actions hurt others?
excuses lol
When disaster is imminent…
deny it and think about something else (climate change)
Hypocrisy model
making individuals aware of their failure to act in accordance with their publicly expressed attitudes or beliefs, thereby inducing cognitive dissonance.
Conformist (team player)
a person who conforms to accepted behavior or established practices.
deviant (noncomformist)
departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior.
Groupthink
groups perceive themselves as invulnerable
they are blinded by optimism
optimism is perpetuated by discouraging dissent.
Conformity
a change in a person’s behavior or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
Chameleon effect
people often mirror one another’s nonverbal behavior and mannerisms.
( findings suggest that we mimic others to reflect and engender feelings of closeness)
Mirror neurons
highly specialized brain cells that are activated both when we perform and action and when we witness another person performing the same action.
Social learning
process of learning by observing
influences on conformity can subtle. (examples)
laugh tracks
Motives for conformity
belonging versus getting information.
Need to belong may have a genetic basis
Two reasons we might conform to others.
to secure our place in the group.
Check the accuracy of our initial impressions.
conformity increases when we have to….
justify our decisions.
Low self esteem does what to conformity
increases it
What age group is the most susceptible to conformity
young people.
Reference groups
groups that we belong to and identify with.
Descriptive norms
reflect out knowledge about what most people do in a given situation.
ex) when lining up in a line, the norm is to go to the end of the line and not to cut in front of others.
Injunctive norms
specify what people should do, often through explicit directives.
Pluralistic ignorance
the collective belief in a false norm created by the ambiguous behavior of others.
most people conform to the display rules.
emotion work
action out an emotion we do not really feel because we believe it is socially appropriate.
Compliance
behavior motivated by the desire to seek a reward or avoid a punishment.
Identification
behavior motivated by a desire to be like another person or group.
Internalization
a value or belief that is integrated into our own personal value system
Compliance is about?
power
identification is about?
attractiveness
Internalization is about?
Credibility.
Persuasion
when communication from one person changes the opinions, attitudes or behavior of another person.
opinion
what a person believes to be true
attitude
an opinion that includes and emotional and evaluative component
Media contagion
the rapid transmission of emotions or behaviors through a crowd. teen suicides.
Why are we influenced by familiarity?
the more we are exposed to something the more we like it.
Propaganda
the systematic propagation of a given doctrine
education
the act of imparting knowledge or skill.
Filter bubble
the personalized universe of information that makes it into our social media feeds and therefore gets our attention.
Peripheral routes
Less judicious consideration of the message; affected by simple messages; often irrelevant cues that suggest rightness, wrongness, or attractiveness.
Central routes
A more deliberate process that involves weighing arguments and considering relevant facts and figures and thinking about issues in a systematic fashionl.
We believe those we consider to be?
both experts and trustworthy.
We are influenced by people we like and with whom we?
perceive similarities.
What is more effective than logical appeals?
fear
high self esteem people act right away to a high ____ message
fear
low self esteem people initially do not act but do so ___?
later
Moral emotions
feelings that have a normative judgment
statistics versus a personal example
one clear vivid example can have more impact than statistics
A persuader can get us to do things if those things resonate with?
our self identity
What kind of audience is most receptive?
a fed, relaxed, and happy audience
Inoculation effect
If a weak argument is presented against your stated
position and you defeat it, the process teaches you
how to attack stronger arguments against your
position in the future.
Aggression
any intentional action (physical or verbal) aimed at doing harm or causing pain
is aggression innate or learned?
scientists agree it’s both.
The number one predictor of violence is?
gender
Most cases of extreme violence in the family are perpetrated by?
men
relational aggression
hurting others by sabotaging their repuations and relationships
Catharsis
a release of energy at the center of the belief that some kinds of aggressive acts can serve a useful function by “letting off steam”
Research shows that physical activity neither ______ anger nor reduces subsequent _______.
dissipates; agression.
Retaliation is typically more severe than the initial insult- what is this called?
overkill
“think-drink” effect
when people expect alcohol to have a certain effect on them, it often does.
What feeling is the major instigator of aggression?
frustration
relative deprivation
the deprivation felt when we see others enjoying a better situation or when we are deprived of something relative to our expectations.
Social cognitive learning theory
▪ People learn how to behave through cognitive
processes, such as their beliefs and perceptions of
events, and through observation and imitation of
others.
Weapons effect
The presence of an object associated with aggression
(gun, rifle, or other weapon) can serve as a cue for an
aggressive response.
▪ “The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be
pulling the finger.”
deindividuation
a state of lessened self awareness, reduced concern about what other people think of them, and weakened restraints against prohibited forms of behavior.
ex) You’re at a concert and everyone is jumping up and down, screaming loudly, so you join in.
Desensitization
we become decreasingly distressed by seeing people hurt.
hostile attribution bias
the tendency to interpret the
ambiguous behavior of others in a hostile manner rather
than give others the benefit of the doubt
Altruism
doing something for others, even at the cost of our own immediate comfort or pleasure.
four steps of the scientific method
- observation
- prediction
- fram that guess as a testable hypothesis
- design an experiment
as control increases, impact is?
diminished
Experimental realism
people take the experiment seriously and are involved with the procedures
mundane
how similar the experimental situation is to events that people may encounter in the real world.
The best way to achieve experimental realism is to design a setting that?
will be absorbing and interesting to the participants.
Whats the point of replication?
helps clarify the results and ensure that the original results are repeatable.
Three ethical problems of deception
- it is simply unethical to lie to people
- deception frequently leads to an invasion of privacy
- experimental procedures often entail some unpleasant experiences, such as pain, boredom, anxiety, or embarrassment
Five guidelines for conduction research
Procedures that cause intense pain or discomfort
should be avoided.
▪ Participants should be provided real options for
quitting.
▪ Experimenters should be alert to alternative
procedures to deception.
▪ Experimenters should spend considerable time with
the participants after the experiment is over in a
debriefing session.
▪ Do not perform experiments that use deception “for
the hell of it.”
Tomoko is asked to explain what makes her teacher so great. Tomoko responds that her teacher is a kind, gentle person. Tomoko’s appraisal of her teacher best represents:
the dispositional view
Aronson’s first law reminds us that:
situations can cause most normal people to behave in abnormal ways.
The authors argue that 613 parents murdering their children and then taking their own lives in the Jonestown massacre is an example of:
the situation and how social influence is often primarily responsible for behavior, not the personalities of subjects
In Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” young, psychologically normal men were randomly assigned to the role of playing a guard or a prisoner. After five days, the “prisoners” grew withdrawn and unsympathetic, while “guards” became sadistic and brutal. In general, the results of this study probably indicate that:
the situation is often primarily responsible for behavior, not the personalities of subjects
In Asch’s study of conformity, which involved a comparison of the lengths of different lines, subjects were told that the experiment was about perceptual judgment. Telling subjects this:
was part of the experimenter’s cover story
Psychiatric interviews of subjects in Milgram’s obedience study (in which subjects believed they were delivering intense electric shocks to another person) conducted one year following the study revealed:
that many subjects believed their participation in the study had been both instructive and enriching
Aronson believes that the study of social psychology is:
an art and a science
________ realism refers to the impact an experiment has upon a subject; ________ realism refers to the degree to which laboratory procedures are similar to commonly occurring events in the outside world.
Experimental; mundane
If researchers find a positive correlation between cowardice and nosebleeds, it most likely means that:
there is an association between the two variables
The postexperimental session (debriefing):
allows the experimenter to explain the details to the participants to protect the dignity of the participants
The term “cognitive miser” refers to our tendency:
to take shortcuts in processing complex information
Aronson reports the results of an experiment in which people who were asked to insulate their homes were given information either about how much money they would save if they insulated or about how much money they would lose if they didn’t insulate. Based on results of this study, if you were trying to sell insulation, you would be wise to:
emphasize how much is lost by not insulating
Julie sees a stranger do poorly on a test. She automatically assumes that the stranger is stupid. She has committed an error best thought of as:
fundamental attribution error
Elizabeth, a literature major, believes that the author James Joyce was the most brilliant writer since Shakespeare. A friend asks her if Joyce had positive attitudes about women or whether he was very sexist. Elizabeth has no knowledge whatsoever about Joyce’s private life.
Based on the halo effect, Elizabeth’s probable answer to her friend would reflect which of the following?
a favorable or an unfavorable impression of someone biases our future expectations and inferences about that person
In a study by Aronson and Jones, students solved anagrams. Some students started extremely well but their performance declined, while other students started slowly but then improved. The total scores correct between the students were identical. The results indicated that coaches who were motivated to improve the students’ performance:
rated the slow starters as more intelligent
The human mind’s two thinking systems are:
controlled processing and automatic processing
According to a survey gauging people’s reactions to scientific evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer:
smokers were far less likely to believe the report than nonsmokers were
Darrin Lehman and Shelley Taylor studied college students who lived in Los Angeles, the site of an impending earthquake. In their interviews with students, they found that:
students living in seismically unsafe buildings tended to underestimate the damage that would result from a major quake
Aronson argues that typically when dissonance arises, it is because we:
have done something that violates our view of ourselves
In a study discussed in the text, students were paid either $20 or $1 for telling collaborative subjects that a dull task was actually interesting. Which group showed greater attitude change in actually rating the task as interesting?
The group that told the lie for $1
Cognitive dissonance is defined as a state of tension:
that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent
Research participants were less likely to blame the victim in Harber’s research that used a sexual assault scene from the movie The Accused when:
they were instructed to feely express their deepest thoughts and feelings about the movie
In a study by Davis and Jones, subjects volunteered to insult a “fellow student” by telling him he was a shallow, untrustworthy, and dull person. How did these subjects justify their hurtful behavior toward the other student, who had done nothing to deserve criticism?
By finding the other student less attractive than before they had insulted him
Meeus and Raaijmakers found that subjects were more likely to make negative remarks about a job applicant’s performance if:
the subjects believed the applicant would not be receiving the remarks until some later time
According to the research by Chartrand and Bargh, students:
liked chameleons more than nonchameleons
Aronson describes a study in which male students were observed showering to determine if they complied with a request to conserve water. Subjects showered alone, with a conserving model, or with two conserving models. The percentages of subjects who conserved water in the alone, one model, two model conditions were:
6%, 49%, 67%, respectively
According to Irving Janis, the maladaptive phenomenon of “groupthink” is more likely to occur when:
concurrence-seeking processes override realistic considerations of alternative courses of action
A good rule of thumb to use in predicting conformity in an ambiguous situation is that there will be a greater dependence on __________ when physical reality is lacking as a basis for judgment.
social reality
In Milgram’s study of obedience, which of the following participants was (were) a confederate of the experimenter?
the learner
Which of the following is not characteristic of internalization?
It is based on the admiration or liking of another.
In his studies of obedience to authority, Milgram found that:
the closer subjects were to the victim, the less they shocked him
Appeals to identity in persuasive messages are ______ to persuade people to action.
more likely
In a study by Hovland and Weiss, subjects heard arguments regarding the feasibility of atomic submarines. Subjects were more persuaded by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer rather than the Soviet newspaper Pravda because:
Oppenheimer was perceived as an expert and trustworthy source of information, unlike Pravda
Generally, high-fear appeals are more effective than low-fear appeals in producing behavior change when:
specific instructions are provided on how to avoid painful consequences
One way of decreasing the persuadability of members of an audience is:
to forewarn them that someone is going to try to persuade them
“Persuasive communications, if blatant or coercive, can be perceived as intruding upon one’s freedom of choice, thereby activating a person’s defenses to resist the messages.” This statement reflects the central idea of which of the following theories or concepts?
reactance theory
To change a person’s attitude the most, a communicator should present a position that is highly distant or discrepant from the person’s initial position.
The statement is true only for high-credibility communicators.
According to research presented in the text, people with high self-esteem are most likely to be persuaded by campaigns using:
high fear
Both opinions and attitudes are primarily cognitive in nature. However, attitudes:
have both an emotional and an evaluative component
A Gallup poll found that each additional violent sequence per hour of TV predicted a _____ increase in the number of people who said they were afraid to walk alone at night in their neighborhood.
1%
According to Feshbach and Feshbach’s correlational study of empathy and aggression in children:
as empathy increases, aggression decreases
A meta-analysis of 98 studies that included nearly 37,000 research participants found:
that both violent and prosocial video games have direct effects on their players
Patterson measured the hostility of high school football players both one week before and one week after the football season. He found that:
players exhibited an increase in hostility over the course of the season
The “think-drink” effect indicates that aggressive behavior in men may be strongly related to:
the men’s expectations about the effects of alcohol
Kuo conducted a study in which he raised a kitten in the same cage as a rat. As an adult, the cat refrained from attacking the rat, and, in fact, the two became close companions. The cat never chased or attacked any other rats as well. This study indicates that:
aggressive behavior can be inhibited by early experiences
In a study by Berkowitz, subjects were made angry in a room containing either a gun or a badminton racket. Later, when given a chance to administer shocks to a “fellow student,” subjects who had been in the room with the gun shocked the other person more than those who had been in the room containing the badminton racket. This study demonstrates:
the power of “aggressive cues” in facilitating aggressive behavior
In Kahn’s experiment, students could express their hostile feelings toward a medical technician who had made derogatory remarks about them. Compared to students who were not allowed to vent, students who vented:
disliked the technician more after expressing their aggression
The pain we receive always feels ________ the pain we inflict.
more intense as
Categorization
The grouping of objects or people by key characteristics
Prejudice
negative attitude toward all members of a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in the group.
When does categorization start
in infancy; early on, we can categorize by gender, age and race (visual)
Stereotype
reflects the belief that a particular attribute is characteristic of the group as a whole regardless of the actual variation among the group’s members.
Glick and fiske (on sexism)
Hostile sexists: hold negative stereotypes of women
Benevolent sexists: hold positive stereotypes of women.
Are there any prejudice free humans?
nope
The second component of prejudice is _______, rooted in gut feelings that resist rational argument
emotional
What part of the brain has elevated activity when you see pictures of an outgroup member but little response when you see someone in the in group?
amygdala
(The amygdala is a small part of the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions, especially fear, and social stimuli)
Discrimination
unfair treatment of members of a stigmatized group.
Does the gender pay gap still exist?
yes :(
Black children are suspended at nearly ____ _____ the rate of white children even in preschool
three times
What do social scientists believe about people who are prejudiced but conceal it?
Social scientists believe that a significant number of people continue to be prejudiced but are concealing it—even from themselves.
How does the Implicit Association Test (IAT) work?
it measures the speed of people’s positive and negative associations to a target group. Here’s how it works: You sit at a console and are shown a series of faces you must sort as quickly as you can.
How do many people who regard themselves as unprejudiced behave under certain conditions?
Many people who genuinely regard themselves as being unprejudiced will, under certain conditions, behave in a prejudiced way.
What is a key factor in justifying our biases?
Whether we believe an individual has control over his or her situation.
Four basic social-psychological causes of prejudice
- Economic and political competition or conflict
- Displaced aggression
- Maintenance of status or self image.
- Conformity to existing social norms.
Data suggests that competition and conflict breed what?
prejudice
- these goals can be political, economical, or ideological.
Scapegoating
the process of blaming innocent and powerless others for our troubles
demagouge
a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using a rational argument.
What is a powerful determinant of prejudice?
A powerful determinant of prejudice is embedded in our need to justify our behavior and sense of self.
Several studies have shown that a good predictor of prejudice is whether a person’s social status is?
low or declining
Looking down on outgroups can do what to our self esteem
boost our self esteem.
attributional ambiguity
creates the difficulty that members of minority groups may have in interpreting the feedback they receive about their work.
Prejudice through conformity
if the people around us hate a certain group, we will hate the same group to fit in with the ‘in’ group.
Self fulfilling prophecy
our stereotypes cause us to act in such a way as to elicit from those others the very characteristics and behaviors we expect. (we are mean to someone we perceive as mean, causing them to be mean.)
Stereotype threat
people who are targets of negative stereotypes can ironically, end up confirming them by trying to disconfirm them.
When one person hurts another, the aggressors tends to blame the?
target, turn the victim into a non person and hurt that other person again.
Why don’t information campaigns work?
people are not inclined to sit still and take in information that is dissonant with their beliefs and attitudes.
Contact hypothesis
once brought into direct contact, prejudiced people would encounter real human beings rather than stereotypes, leading to greater mutual understanding and friendship.
Interdependence
a situation in which individuals need one another to succeed in reaching a mutual goal.
Jigsaw classroom.
changed system to require cooperation and interdependence among students.
Outcome of the jigsaw classroom.
students quickly let go of sterotypical expectations and worked together.
Perspective talking
actively contemplating others experiences, otherwise known as empathy- strongly reduced automatic expression of racial bias.
Four consistent factors have a profound influence on our choice of friends and lovers, what are they?
1.Close proximity
2.Those we think are similar
3. Those who like us
4.Those who are physically attractive
Why is close proximity important in our choice of friends and lovers
- proximity makes it likelier that we will have repeated exposure
- we crave familiarity
Why is similarity important in our choice of friends and lovers
- people who share our attitudes and opinions provide us with social validation for our beliefs
- PERCEIVED similarity is enough to increase attraction.
Pratfall effect
a high degree of competence makes us more attractive, but some evidence of fallibility increases our attractiveness still further.
Why is being liked important in our choice of friends and lovers
- insecure people will accept almost anyone who expresses interest
- secure people are more selective
- someone who is insecure may even seek out a less attractive person to diminish the possibility of being rejected
Why is close physical attractiveness important in our choice of friends and lovers
- in long term relationships the similarity of the attractiveness was crucial in determining whether they stayed together.
- what is beautiful is good, but what is good becomes beautiful.
Paradox of choice
an abundance of choice leads people to be less happy with the choices they finally make.
Gain loss theory of attraction
increases in positive, rewarding behavior from another person have more impact on us than does constantly rewarding behavior from that person.
gain situation in attraction
you will like someone most if they dislike you initially and grow to like you.
loss situation in attraction
you will dislike someone most if they like you initially and grow to dislike you.
Exchange relationships
relationships in which the people involved are concerned about reciprocity and equity.
Communal relationships
neither of the partners keep score. They believe it will all balance out in the end.
The closer and more intimate the relationship the more _____ it becomes.
communal
Passionate love
characterized by strong emotions, exhilaration, unquenchable sexual desire, and intense preoccupation with the beloved.
Companionate love
a milder, more stable experience marked by feelings of mutual trust, dependability, and warmth.
Does passionate love or companionate love deepen over time
companionate love
Authenticity in relationships
the freedom to share your true feelings and beliefs (even negative ones) with your partner
Four destructive forms of communication
- hostile criticism
- defensiveness
- contempt
- stonewalling
Straight talk
a person’s clear statement of his or her feelings and concerns without accusing, blaming, judging, or ridiculing the other person
Why is immediate feedback imporant
direct expression of a feeling helps prevent its escalation, which is harder to resolve.
is it better to express feelings or judgements to another person
Feelings are more effective to express.
