Social Psych Flashcards
Schemata
Schemata (schemas) are cognitive structures that organize past information and experience and provide a framework for processing and understanding new information and experiences.
Field Theory
Lewin’s field theory describes human behavior as being a product of interdependent factors in the person and his or her physical and social environment.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory predicts that learning can occur simply by observing the behavior of a model. It has been used to explain the acquisition of aggressive behaviors (e.g., the effects of media violence).
Fundamental Attribution Bias
The fundamental attribution bias is the tendency for an observer to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when making attributions about an actor’s behavior.
Social Exchange Theory
Social exchange theory predicts that a person’s decision to leave a relationship depends on the relationship’s costs and rewards - i.e., a person is likely to stay in a relationship when rewards exceed costs but leave when costs are greater than rewards.
Effects Of Media Violence
The research has generally confirmed that viewing media violence increases aggression by providing viewers with models for aggressive behavior. In addition, media violence can affect attitudes as well as behavior - e.g., frequent viewing of media violence has been linked to a tendency to overestimate the likelihood that one will be a victim of violence.
Barnum Effect
The Barnum effect is the tendency to accept vague, general descriptions of oneself (e.g., a horoscope) as accurate.
Levels Of Racism
Several investigators argue, to understand the effects of racism, it is necessary to recognize that it operates on multiple levels. These levels may be categorized as cultural, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized.
Social Judgment Theory
latitude
Social judgment theory predicts that people have three “categories of judgment” by which they evaluate persuasive messages - a latitude of acceptance, a latitude of non-commitment, and a latitude of rejection - and that people are most likely to be persuaded when the message is within their latitude of acceptance.
Actor-Observer Bias
In causal attribution, the tendency for an observer to overestimate the effects of dispositional factors when making attributions about an actor’s behavior but to overestimate the effects of situational factors when making self-attributions.
Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias is the tendency to seek or pay attention to information that confirms one’s hypothesis or current beliefs and to ignore disconfirming information.
Jigsaw Method
The jigsaw method is a method of learning in which assignments must be completed by teams with each team member being assigned a different piece of the project. It has been found to improve intergroup relations, cooperation, and self-esteem as well as academic achievement, especially for members of minority groups.
Prison Study
Zimbardo’s prison simulation study demonstrated that people alter their behaviors to fit their assigned roles.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory proposes that inconsistencies in cognitions produce discomfort (dissonance) that motivates the individual to reduce the dissonance by changing his/her cognitions.
Base Rate Fallacy
The base rate fallacy is the tendency to underutilize or ignore relevant statistical (base rate) data and to rely, instead, on irrelevant information when making probabilistic judgments about an event or characteristic.
Emotion-In-Relationship Model
This model of emotion provides an explanation for the experience of strong emotions in close relationships and proposes that there is an innate mechanism that generates emotion in response to unexpected events that disrupt ongoing sequences of behaviors.
Bases Of Social Power
French and Raven identified six bases of social power that induce compliance in another person:
- coercive
- reward
- expert
- legitimate
- referent
- informational
Psychological Reactance
Psychological reactance is the tendency to resist being influenced or manipulated by others, usually by doing the opposite of what is expected or requested.
Robber’s Cave Study (Sherif)
Sherif’s research with boys at a summer camp demonstrated that the most effective way to reduce intergroup hostility is having the members of the groups cooperate to achieve a mutual (superordinate) goal.
Deindividuation Model
Deindividuation is a state of relative anonymity that allows an individual to feel unidentifiable. It has been associated with increases in antisocial behavior, apparently because the deindividuated person’s behavior is no longer controlled by guilt, fear of evaluation, or other inhibitory controls.