Personality and social psychology Flashcards
Type theory
Old-school way of personality psychology. Ideas surrounding personality types.
What is personality psychology?
The study of why people act the way they do and why different people act differently
Trait theory
New school theory for personality psychology. Emphasis placed on individual traits to describe personality.
Big five personality index.
Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.
Type a personality
Characterized by Drive, competitiveness, aggressiveness, tension, and hostility and is most commonly found in upper upper to middle-class man.
Authoritarianism
The disposition to view the world as full of power relationships. Authoritarian individuals are either highly domineering or highly submissive. They’re measured on the fascism scale or F scale
Abraham Maslow
Proposed the theory of the hierarchy of need.
External locus of control
A personality characteristic that causes one to view events as the result of luck or fate.
Internal locus of control
Personality characteristic that causes one to view events as the outcome of their own actions.
Implicit theories about personality
When people make assumptions about the dispositions of an individual based on the actions of that person.
Dispositional attribution
The tendency for others to think that actions are caused by a person’s personality other than the situation. Also called the fundamental attribution error.
Barnum Effect
The tendency to agree with and except personality interpretations that are provided.
Phenomenological view
Theory of personality that focuses on and the individual’s unique self and experiences.
Self-awareness
The temporary condition of being aware of how you feel, think, or what you’re doing.
Mirrors
Tend to make people more self-aware. Small mirrors tend not to make people very self-aware, well I’ll large mirrors make people extremely self aware
Self-monitoring
Characterized by scrutiny of one’s own behavior, motivation to act appropriately rather than honestly, and ability to mask true feelings.
Self-consciousness
The trait that refers to how often one generally become self-aware.
Self-esteem
Knowing that you are worthwhile and being in touch with your actual strengths. About 50% of people perceive themselves accurately and about 35% perceive themselves narcissistic.
Self efficacy
A person’s belief that he or she can effectively perform a certain task
Narcissism
Distinct from self-esteem. Narcissism is believing that you are better than you really are or look better than you really do. It is a sort of unrealistic self-esteem.
Self handicapping
Self-defeating behavior that allows one to dismiss or excuse failure
Learned helplessness
After a series of events in which one may feel helpless or out of control, a negative or pessimistic explanatory style develops. The person basically gives up in general and exhibits a helpless disposition.
OCEAN
Wait to remember the big five. O equals openness, C equals conscientiousness, E equals extroversion, A equals agreeableness, N equals neuroticism.
Norman Triplett
Conducted the first social psychological experiment in 1897. He found that cyclist perform better when paste by each other than when they were out alone.
Actor observer attribution divergence
The tendency for the person who is doing the behavior to have a different perspective on the situation that a person watching the behavior
Self-serving attributional bias
Interpreting one’s own actions and motivations in a positive way, blaming situations for failures and taking credit for successes. We all like to think we are better than average.
Illusory correction
Assuming the two unrelated things have a relationship
Slippery slope
A logical fallacy that says a small, insignificant first step and one direction will eventually lead to greater steps that will eventually have a significant impact.
Hindsight bias
Believing after the fact that you knew something all along
Halo effect
Thinking that if someone has one good-quality then he has only good qualities
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Occurs when one’s expectations somehow draw out or in a sense cause the very behavior that is expected.
False consensus bias
Assuming most other people think as you do
Lee Ross
Studied subjects who were first made to believe a statement and then later told it was false. The subject continue to believe the statement if they had processed it and devise there only logical explanation for it.
Base rate fallacy
Overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familiar with
M. J. Lerner’s just world bias
The belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
Illusion of control
The belief that you can control things when you actually have no influence on them.
Oversimplification
The tendency to make simple explanations for complex events
Representativeness heuristic
A shortcut about typical assumptions to gas up and answer rather than relying on actual logic.
Availability heuristic
When people think there is a higher proportion of one thing in a group then there really is because examples of that one thing come more easily to mind.
Cognitive dissonance theory
Leon Festinger. Suggest that it is uncomfortable for people to have believes that do not match their actions. After making a difficult decision, people are motivated to back their actions up by toting corresponding beliefs.
Self perception theory
Daryl Bem. Office and alternative explanation to cognitive dissonance. When people are unsure of their beliefs, they take their cues from their own behavior.
Over justification effect
Follows from self perception theory. It is the tendency to assume that we must not want to do things that we are paid or compensated to do.
Gain loss theory
Suggest that people act in order to obtain game and avoid loss
Social exchange theory
Suggests that humans interact in ways that maximize reward and minimize cost
Self presentation
React in ways that are in line with our attitudes are in ways that will be accepted by others.
Self-monitoring
The process by which people pay close attention to their actions.
Impression management
Behaving in ways that might make a good impression depending on the different social situation
Social facilitation
The tendency for the presence of others to either enhancer hinder performance.
Social comparison
Evaluating one’s own actions, abilities, opinions, and ideas by comparing them to those of others.
Equity theory
The idea that people feel most comfortable and situation in which rewards and punishments are equal, fitting, or highly logical.
Conformity
Going along with real or perceived group pressure.
Compliance
When people conform publicly but not privately
Acceptance
Changes in actions and beliefs to conform
Dissenter
An individual who speaks out against conformity
Reactants
The refusal to conform that may occur in the event of a blatant attempt to conform
Stanley Milgram
Performed the shock experiment. The experiment explored how people respond to the orders of others. Often considered highly unethical today.
Philip Zimbardo
Performed the Stanford prison experiment.
Deindividuation
Occurs when an individual identity or accountability is deemphasized. This may be the result of mingling in a crowd, wearing uniforms, or otherwise adopting a larger group identity.
Bystander effect
People are less likely to help when other people are present
Diffusion of responsibility
The tendency that the larger the group, the less likely individuals in the group will actor take responsibility.
Social loafing
The tendency to work less hard in the group is the result of diffusion of responsibility.
Competition
Can cause conflict in a group
