Social Psych Flashcards
Social Psychology
Study of causes & consequences of social tendencies in species
Social Behavior
How people interact with one another
Social Influence
How people change each other
Social Cognition
How people think about each other
Agression
Any behavior whose purpose is to harm another
Coopreration
-Behavior by two or more individuals that leads to mutual benefit
-Benefits everyone but only if everyone cooperates
Altruism
Behavior that benefits another without benefiting oneself
Interpreting the behavior of others
Relying on external cues to provide information that helps understand the thoughts and actions of others
Attribution theory
Framework for understanding the reasons behind the actions of others
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to attribute behaviors of others to internal causes, but to attribute own behavior to external causes
Attributions
-The process of how we infer the cause of our own behavior or another person’s behavior
-Strongly influences the opinions of others
-Susceptible to many biases
Impression formation
Process where individuals form either a positive or negative perception about people or groups
Confirmation bias
-Tendency to interpret, seek, & create info in ways that verify existing beliefs
-Info inconsistent with prior beliefs will be processed more slowly & attended to less
-Fast processing of & increased attention to events that are consistent with our initial impression/beliefs
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Process by which expectations about a person eventually lead to that person behaving in ways that confirm those expectations
Behaving in the presence of others
Individuals alter their authentic behaviors when around other people
Social Norms
-General rules of conduct established by society reflecting standards of approval & disapproval
-Exert power over the behaviors of others whether norm is true or false
Individualistic (Western)
Focus on individual gains instead of the whole group
Collectivistic (Eastern)
Focus on benefit of the group instead of the individual