Social Flashcards
Actor-observer bias
The tendency for explanations of other individuals’ behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation, and for explanations of one’s own behaviors to do the opposite (that is, to overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality).
Authority bias
The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion.
Availability cascade
A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”).
Bandwagon effect
The tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same.
Ben Franklin effect
A person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.
Bias blind spot
The tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself
Cheerleader effect
The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.
Courtesy bias
The tendency to give an opinion that is more socially correct than one’s true opinion, so as to avoid offending anyone.
Defensive attribution hypothesis
Attributing more blame to a harm-doer as the outcome becomes more severe or as personal or situational similarity to the victim increases.
Defensive othering effect
Occurs when perceived similarities with the stigmatized group trigger a protective behavior of distancing (othering) self (or someone else) from “others” as a means to avoid a certain negative outcome associated with “others.”
Egocentric bias
Occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would credit them with.
Extrinsic incentives bias
An exception to the fundamental attribution error, when people view others as having (situational) extrinsic motivations and (dispositional) intrinsic motivations for oneself
False consensus effect
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
False uniqueness bias
The tendency of people to see their projects and themselves as more singular than they actually are.
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior
Group attribution error
The biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise.
Groupthink
The psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Halo effect
The tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in others’ perceptions of them
Hostile attribution bias
The “hostile attribution bias” is the tendency to interpret others’ behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign.
Illusion of asymmetric insight
People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them.
Illusion of transparency
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others, and to overestimate how well they understand others’ personal mental states.
Illusory superiority
Overestimating one’s desirable qualities, and underestimating undesirable qualities, relative to other people.
Ingroup bias
The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
Intentionality bias
Tendency to judge human action to be intentional rather than accidental.
Just-world hypothesis
The tendency for people to want to believe that the world is fundamentally just, causing them to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s).
Moral luck
The tendency for people to ascribe greater or lesser moral standing based on the outcome of an event.
Naïve cynicism
Expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself.
Naïve realism
The belief that we see reality as it really is – objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who don’t are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.
Not invented here
Aversion to contact with or use of products, research, standards, or knowledge developed outside a group.
Outgroup homogeneity bias
Individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.
Puritanical bias
Refers to the tendency to attribute cause of an undesirable outcome or wrongdoing by an individual to a moral deficiency or lack of self-control rather than taking into account the impact of broader societal determinants
Pygmalion effect
The phenomenon whereby others’ expectations of a target person affect the target person’s performance.
Reactance
The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice
Reactive devaluation
Devaluing proposals only because they purportedly originated with an adversary.
Self-serving bias
The tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.
Sexual over perception bias / Sexual under perception bias
The tendency to over-/underestimate sexual interest of another person in oneself.
Social comparison bias
The tendency, when making decisions, to favour potential candidates who don’t compete with one’s own particular strengths.
Social cryptomnesia
A failure by people and society in general to remember the origin of a change, in which people know that a change has occurred in society, but forget how this change occurred; that is, the steps that were taken to bring this change about, and who took these steps. This has led to reduced social credit towards the minorities who made major sacrifices that led to the change in societal values.
Social desirability bias
The tendency to over-report socially desirable characteristics or behaviours in oneself and under-report socially undesirable characteristics or behaviours.
Shared information bias
known as the tendency for group members to spend more time and energy discussing information that all members are already familiar with (i.e., shared information), and less time and energy discussing information that only some members are aware of (i.e., unshared information)
Trait ascription bias
The tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior, and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
Third-person effect
A tendency to believe that mass-communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.
Ultimate attribution error
Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group.
Worse-than-average effect
A tendency to believe ourselves to be worse than others at tasks which are difficult.