Glossary S Flashcards
When someone or some object stands out from its background or is the focus of attention
salience
Mental frameworks centering on a specific theme that help us to organize social information
schemas
Splintering of a group into distinct factions following an ideological rift among members.
schism
A style characterized by high self-esteem
and high interpersonal trust. This is the most successful and most desirable attachment style.
secure attachment style
A tendency to direct attention away from information that challenges existing attitudes. Such avoidance increases resistance to persuasion.
selective avoidance
Refers to the tendency to respond to a threat to one’s self-concept by affirming one’s competence in another area
(different from the threat).
self-affirmation
How we characterize ourselves, which can vary depending on what identity is salient at any given moment.
self-construal
Achieved by refraining from actions, we like and instead performing actions we prefer not to do as a means of achieving a long-term goal.
self-control
Putting ourselves down or implying that we are not as good as someone else.
self-depreciating
A framework used to study motivation that involves two forms of human initiative: intrinsic and extrinsic. People persist longer at tasks they are intrinsically motivated to complete and gain enjoyment from, whereas extrinsic motivation to achieve awards or financial gains is less likely to promote happiness.
self-determination theory (SDT)
The goal of increasing the positivity of one’s
self-image.
self-enhancement
The degree to which we perceive ourselves positively or negatively; our overall attitude toward ourselves. It can be measured explicitly or implicitly.
self-esteem
This perspective suggests that to maintain a positive view of ourselves, we distance ourselves from others who perform better than we do on valued dimensions and move closer to others who perform worse than us. This view suggests that doing so will protect our self-esteem.
self-evaluation maintenance model
Attempting to present ourselves to others as having positive attributes.
self-promotion
Limited capacity to engage our willpower and control our own thinking and emotions.
self-regulation
The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to
internal causes (e.g., one’s own traits or characteristics) but negative outcomes or events to external causes (e.g., chance, task difficulty)
self-serving bias
Theory that addresses the processes by
which we lead others to agree with our views of ourselves; wanting others to agree with how we see ourselves.
self-verification perspective
When we use one group as the standard but shift to use another group as the comparison standard when judging members of a different group.
shining standards
The consistent finding that people
respond positively to indications that another person is similar to themselves and negatively to indications that another person is dissimilar from themselves.
similarity-dissimilarity effect
Negative stereotyping and discrimination directed toward people who are single.
singlism
The manner in which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world.
social cognition
The process through which we compare ourselves to others to determine whether our view of social reality is, or is not, correct.
social comparison
Festinger (1954) suggested that people
compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative.
social comparison theory
Refers to the process by which emotions experienced by one person spread to others
social contagion
Situations in which each person can increase their individual gains by acting in one way, but if all (or most) people do the same thing, the outcomes experienced by all are reduced.
social dilemmas
Having a sense of that you know other persons because you know their reputations, often by knowing other people they know too.
social embeddedness
When the presence of an audience improves task performance.
social facilitation
Addresses the consequences of perceiving
ourselves as a member of a social group and identifying with it; predicts how we respond when our group identity is salient. Suggests
that we will move closer to positive others with whom we share an identity but distance from other ingroup members who perform poorly or otherwise make our social identity negative
social identity theory
Efforts by one or more persons to change the behavior, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others
social influence
The process through which we acquire new information, forms of behavior, or attitudes from other people.
social learning
The view prejudice is acquired through direct and vicarious experiences in much the same manner as other attitudes.
social learning view (of prejudice)
Reductions in motivation and effort when individuals work in a group compared to when they work individually
social loafing
Composed of individuals with whom we have
interpersonal relationships and interact with on a regular basis.
social networks
Rules indicating how individuals are expected to behave in specific situations.
social norms
The process through which we seek to know and understand other people.
social perception
A combination of aptitudes that help individuals who possess them to interact effectively with others, thereby increasing their attractiveness.
social skills
Drawing on the emotional and task resources provided by others as a means of coping with stress.
social support
A form of eye contact in which one person continues to gaze steadily at another regardless of what the recipient does.
staring
The individual’s position or rank within the group.
status
Can occur when people believe that they might be judged in light of a negative stereotype about their group or that, because of their performance, they may in some way confirm a negative stereotype of their group.
stereotype threat
Beliefs about social groups in terms of the traits or characteristics that they are believed to share. Stereotypes are cognitive frameworks that influence the processing of social information.
stereotypes
Response scales that are open to interpretation and lack an externally grounded referent, including scales labeled from
good to bad or weak to strong. They are said to be subjective because they can take on different meanings depending on the group
membership of the person being evaluated.
subjective scales
Classical conditioning of attitudes by exposure to stimuli that are below individuals’ threshold of conscious awareness.
subliminal conditioning
A subset of a group that is not consistent with the stereotype of the group as a whole
subtype
Goals that tie the interests of both sides in a
conflict together rather than driving them apart. These are goals that can only be achieved by cooperation between groups.
superordinate goals
Social influence resulting from the mental
representation of others or our relationships with them.
symbolic social influence
Behavior in which individuals closely match
their actions to those of others.
synchronous behavior
A method of research in which behavior is
systematically observed and recorded.
systematic observation
Processing of information in a persuasive
message that involves careful consideration of message content and ideas.
systematic processing
