Social Influences on Beliefs and Behavior

Question 1

Define: social cognition

Answer 1

-an area in social psychology concerned with social and cultural influences on thought, memory, perception, and beliefs

Question 2

Define: attribution theory

Answer 2

-people are motivated to explain their own and others’ behavior by attributing cause of behavior to a situation or disposition

Question 3

What are the 2 types of attributions?

Answer 3

• situational attribution (cause of action as situation or environment)
• dispositional attribution (cause of action as a trait or motive of person)

Question 4

Define: fundamental attribution error

Answer 4

-tendency to overestimate personality factors and underestimate influence of a situation in explaining other people’s behavior

Question 5

What are 3 cognitive biases that are relevant to attribution’s people often make?

Answer 5

• choosing the most flattering and forgiving attributions of our own lapses
• holier-than-thou effect
• believing the world is fair and just

Question 6

The notion that many people need to believe the world is fair and justice is served, and bad people are punished and good people are rewarded is called…

Answer 6

-just-world hypothesis

Question 7

Believing we are not influenced by external circumstances can…

Answer 7

• distort communication
• impede conflict resolution
• lead to serious misunderstandings

Question 8

In a happy state of mind…

• attribute lapses to _________
• attribute good behavior to _________

In an unhappy state of mind…

• attribute lapses to _________
• attribute good behavior to _______

Answer 8

• situation, disposition

- disposition, situation

Question 9

Define: attitude

Answer 9

-a belief about people, groups, ideas, or activities

Question 10

______ attitudes shape our conscious decisions and actions.

Answer 10

-explicit

Question 11

______ attitudes we are unaware of.

Answer 11

-implicit

Question 12

Define: cognitive dissonance

Answer 12

tension resulting from…

• simultaneous conflicting cognitions
• a belief incongruent with behavior

Question 13

People restore cognitive consistency by…

Answer 13

-dismissing evidence that would otherwise throw their fundamental beliefs into question

Question 14

Define: familiarity effect

Answer 14

-tendency of people to feel more positive towards something the more familiar they are with it

Question 15

Define: validity effect

Answer 15

-tendency of people to believe a statement is true or valid simply because it has been repeated many times

Question 16

______ increases perception that familiar statements are true

Answer 16

-repetition

Question 17

What traits for certain attitudes have been found to be heritable?

Answer 17

• openness to experience

- conscientiousness

Question 18

Is there a genetic component of religiosity?

Answer 18

-yes

Question 19

Some psychological scientists maintain that belief systems have evolved in human societies as organized in a left-right dimension. Explain.

Answer 19

1-a person advocates social change or supports the system as it is
2- a person thinks inequality is a result of human policies and can be overcome, or is inevitable and should be accepted as part of the national order

Question 20

What methods have been used across culture and context to bring an ordinary person into a cult, or suicide bomber, or the like?

Answer 20

• person is subjected to entrapment
• all person’s problems are explained by one single attribution
• person in offered a new identity and salvation
• person’s access to disconfirming information is severely controlled (doubt suppressed, critical thinking deintegrated)