social Flashcards
social psychology
the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people
why are we social species?
- our survival depends on it
- we behave very differently when we are in groups vs when alone
social cognition
the specific area within social psychology that explores how people select, interrupt, remember, and use social information
person perception
- the processes by which an individual uses social stimuli to form impressions of others
ex. what makes you like someone? what makes you trust them?
stereotypes
- generalizations about a groups characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to the next
- some positive, some neg.
- can be anything about a group
Stereotypes in some ways are an extensions of what?
- our normal cognitive tendencies to make quick decisions -the heuristics
- they are sometimes wrong, even though they might be useful in some situations
self-fulfilling prophecy
social expectations that cause an individual to act in such a way that the expectations are realized
-stereotypes have an important effect on people
attributions
-not just making judgements about people but also what determines their actions
attributional theory
the view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of that behavior
3 dimensions of attributions
- internal vs external
- stable vs unstable
- controllable vs uncontrollable
internal vs external causes
-due to something about the person themselves (internal), or something about the environment (external)
stable vs unstable causes
-due to a cause that is fairly permanent, or just a fluke or chance happening
controllable vs uncontrollable causes
the cause of what happened something that can be controlled, or something that is uncontrollable
the (not so) fundamental attribution error (FAE)
general tendency of people to make attributions that emphasize the role of the person (internal) rather than the role of the situation (external)
-only western cultures seem to do this. Collectivist cultures, the opposite is true
self- serving biases
- when we make attributions about ourselves
- when we consider ourselves, theres tendency to give ourselves credit for successes (internal attributions)
- but when we fail we tend to attribute that to the situation (external attribution)
- ex. i win because I’m amazing. I lost because the game was fixed
we also assume that other think the way WE do
true
the false consensus effect
people tend to overestimate the degree to which people think or act the way that we do
attitudes
an individuals opinion and belief about people, objects, and ideas
-peoples behavior is not well predicted by their attitudes (often act in a way that contradicts what we belied)
when are we more likely to act in accordance with our beliefs?
-when our attitudes are strongly held, when we’re really aware of the current influence of our attitudes or when we have vested interest in it
cognitive dissonance
- this is an individuals discomfort that is caused by an inconsistency between our beliefs and actions
ex. when we say one thing and do another - when this is experience one or the other tends to change
ex. sometimes we will even change our attitudes to fit our actions
persuasion
you want to change someone else attitude, how could you?
elaboration likelihood model
elaboration likelihood model
one can use either a central or peripheral route to changing attitudes
-central vs peripheral