HPS121-T2-Ch17-Social Thinking and Behaviour

Question 1

Attitude:

Answer 1

a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a stimulus (e.g. towards a person, action, object or concept).

Question 2

Attribution:

Answer 2

a judgement about the causes of our own and other people’s behaviour.

Question 3

Bystander effect:

Answer 3

the principle that the presence of multiple bystanders inhibits each person’s tendency to help, largely due to social comparison or diffusion of responsibility.

Question 4

Catharsis:

Answer 4

the idea that performing an act of aggression discharges aggressive energy and temporarily reduces our impulses to aggress

Question 5

Central route to persuasion:

Answer 5

occurs when people think carefully about a message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling.

Question 6

Communicator credibility:

Answer 6

the degree to which an audience views a communicator’s expertise and trustworthy.

Question 7

Companionate love:

Answer 7

an affectionate relationship characterised by commitment and caring about the partner’s well-being; sometimes contrasted with passionate love, which is more intensely emotional.

Question 8

Deindividuation:

Answer 8

a state of increased anonymity in which a person, often as part of a group or crowd, engages in disinhibited behaviour.

Question 9

Discrimination (classical conditioning):

Answer 9

the occurrence of a conditioned response to one stimulus but not to another stimulus.

Question 10

Discrimination (social behaviour):

Answer 10

treating people unfairly based on the group to which they belong.

Question 11

Door-in-the-face technique:

Answer 11

a manipulation technique in which a persuader makes a large request, expecting you to reject it and then presents a smaller request.

Question 12

Fundamental attribution error:

Answer 12

the tendency to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of personal factors when explaining other people’s behaviour.

Question 13

Group polarisation:

Answer 13

when a group of like-minded people discusses an issue, the ‘average’ opinion of group members extreme.

Question 14

Groupthink:

Answer 14

the tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are motivated to seek agreement.

Question 15

Implicit prejudice:

Answer 15

prejudice that is hidden from public view, either intentionally or because the person is not aware that he or she is prejudiced.

Question 16

informational social influence:

Answer 16

following the opinions or behaviour of other people because we believe that they have accurate knowledge and that what they are doing is ‘right’.

Question 17

Kin selection:

Answer 17

the view that organisms are most likely to help others with whom they share the most genes - namely, their offspring and genetic relatives.

Question 18

Lowballing:

Answer 18

a manipulation technique in which a persuader gets you to commit to some action and then - before you actually perform the behaviour - she or he increases the ‘cost’ of that same behaviour.

Question 19

Matching effect:

Answer 19

in romantic relationships, the tendency for partners to have a similar level of physical attractiveness.

Question 20

Mere exposure effect:

Answer 20

the tendency to evaluate a stimulus more favourably after repeated exposure to it.

Question 21

Normative social influence:

Answer 21

conformity motivated by gaining social acceptance and avoiding social rejection.

Question 22

Norm of reciprocity:

Answer 22

the tendency to respond in kind when other people treat us well or poorly.

Question 23

Passionate love:

Answer 23

a form of love that involves intense emotional arousal and yearning for one’s partner.

Question 24

Peripheral route to persuasion:

Answer 24

occurs when people do not scrutinised a message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as a speaker’s attractiveness or a message’s emotional appeal.

Question 25

Prejudice:

Answer 25

a negative attitude toward people based on their membership in a group.

Question 26

Primary effect:

Answer 26

in impression formation, out tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person.

Question 27

Realistic conflict theory:

Answer 27

maintains that competition for limited resources fosters prejudice.

Question 28

Self-fulfilling prophecy:

Answer 28

occurs when people’s erroneous expectations lead them to act toward others in a way that brings about the expected behaviours, thereby confirming the original impression.

Question 29

Self-perception theory:

Answer 29

maintains that we make inferences about our own attitudes by observing how we behave.

Question 30

Self-serving bias:

Answer 30

the tendency to make relatively more personal attributions for success and situational attributions for failures.

Question 31

Social compensation:

Answer 31

working harder when in a group than when alone to compensate for other members’ output.

Question 32

Social exchange theory:

Answer 32

a theory proposing that a social relationship can best be described in terms of exchanges of rewards and costs between the two partners.

Question 33

Social loafing:

Answer 33

the tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working collectively in a group than when working alone.

Question 34

Social norms:

Answer 34

shared expectations about how people should think, feel and behave.

Question 35

Social role:

Answer 35

a set of norms that characterises how people in a given social position (e.g. ‘the university student’, ‘the police officer’) ought to behave.

Question 36

Stereotype:

Answer 36

a generalised belief about a group or category of people.

Question 37

Stereotype threat:

Answer 37

the anxiety created by the perceived possibility that one’s behaviour or performance will confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group.

Question 38

Theory of cognitive dissonance:

Answer 38

states that people strive to maintain consistency in their beliefs and actions and that inconsistency creates dissonance (i.e. unpleasant arousal) that motivates people to restore balance by changing their cognitions or behaviour.

Question 39

Theory of planned behaviour:

Answer 39

maintains that our intention to engage in a behaviour is strongest when we have a positive attitude toward that behaviour, when subjective norms (our perceptions of what other people think we should do) support our attitudes, and when we believe that the behaviour is under control.

Question 40

Triangular theory of love:

Answer 40

maintains that various types of love result from different combinations of three core factors: intimacy, commitment and passion.