Social Psych Midterm Flashcards
Social Psychology
scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
Fundamental Attribution Error
tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behavior is due to their own personality traits and to underestimate the power of social influence
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
an expectation of how someone will act, that expectation influences how you act towards that person, this causes that person to act how you originally expected them to, “I was right about them”
Example of Fundamental Attribution Error
we see someone acting like an assholes so we would automatically assume they are an asshole
Naive Realism
idea that people believe that they perceive things accurately
What motivates people?
hunger
fear
need for control
rewards
love
need to feel good about ourselves
need to be accurate
Wall Street Game v. Community Game
a study where 2/3 played competitively compared to the community where 1/3 played competitively
Example of social influence
effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors
What are the advantages of using experiments/experimental method?
You get to observe both groups and measure the differences in their responses
Benefits of Observational Method?
shows at least 2 judges independently came up with the same observations, researchers ensure that the observations are not subjective or biased
Benefits of Correlational Method?
technique that assesses how well you can predict one variable form another
Benefits of Experimental Method?
determines if one variable causes another
How do researchers come up with their theories and their research?
research comes from scientists not feeling satisfied with current answers to problems
Does correlation equal causation?
No
Types of research design?
observational
correlational
experimental
Internal Validity
You are confident that the results are correct and not based on other factors
External Validity
examines whether the study findings can be generalized to other contexts
social cognition
how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions
social perception
study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people
Heuristics
mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently
Barnum Effect
tendency for people to believe that vague personality descriptions uniquely apply to them
Automatic thinking v. Control thinking
automatic thinking: thinking that is unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless
control thinking: thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful
Analytic thinking v. Holistic thinking
analytic thinking: ability to identify a problem and develop solutions
holistic thinking: focuses on the whole picture and relationships of things
Counterfactual thinking
mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been
Schemas
mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember
Nonverbal communication cues
facial expressions
tone of voice
gestures
body position and movement
touch
gaze
6 basic emotions
anger
sadness
fear
disgust
happy
surprise
Internal attribution
deciding that the cause of the behavior was something about him, like his personality, his disposition, his attitude, character, etc
Two-step attribution process
initial, automatic thought that the person’s behavior must be due to something about that person (internal attribution), then after getting more information, we can adjust our thinking to include situational or social impacts on the behavior
Self-serving attribution
explanations for one’s success that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors
