Social Psychology Flashcards
(34 cards)
What is social psych?
The study of how people relate to and influence each other.
Who is Norman Triplett?
First social psych experiment in 1897 on social facilitation. Cyclists performed better with pacers than riding alone.
Who’s Kurt Lewin?
Founder of social psych. Developed field theory, the total of influences on individual behavior. A person’s life space is a collection of forces on the individual.
Who’s Fritz Heider?
Founded attribution theory, the study of how people infer the causes of others’ behavior. Also founded balance theory, the student of how people make their feelings or actions consistent to preserve psychological homeostasis.
What is actor-observer attributional divergence?
The tendency for the person who is doing the behavior to have a different perspective on the situation than a person watching the behavior.
What is self-serving attributional bias?
Interpreting one’s own actions and motives in a positive way, blaming situations for failures and taking credit for successes.
What is illusory correlation?
Assuming two unrelated things have a relationship.
What is slippery slope?
A logical fallacy that says a small, insignificant first step in one direction will eventually lead to greater steps that will eventually have a significant impact.
What is hindsight bias?
Believing after the fact that you knew something all along.
What is false consensus bias?
Assuming most people think as you do.
Who is Lee Ross?
Had subjects believe a statement, but were later told it was false. Subjects continued to believe the statement as if they created their own logical explanation for it.
What is base-rate fallacy?
Overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familar with.
What is M.J. Lerner’s just world bias?
It is the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people–blame the victim.
Who is Ellen Langer?
Studied the illusion of control, the blief that you can control things you have no influence on.
What is representativeness heuristic?
Use of a shortcut about typical assuptions rather than using actual logic.
What is availability heuristic?
When people think there is a higher proportion of one thing in a group than is b/c examples of taht one thing come to mind more easily.
Who is Leon Festinger?
Founded cognitive dissonance theory–it is is uncomfortable for people to have beliefs that do not match their actions.
What is Daryl Bem’s self-perception theory?
Alternative to cognitive dissonance–when people are unsure of their beliefs, they take cues from their own behavior.
What is the overjustification effect?
Tendency to assume that we must not want to do things that we are paid or compensated to do.
What is gain-loss theory?
Suggests that people act in order to obtain gain and avoid loss.
What is social exchange theory?
Humans interact in a ways that maximize reward and minimize costs.
Two types of self-presenation?
Self-monitoring and impression management.
What is social facilitation?
Tendency for the presence of others to either enhance or hinder performance. Robert Zajonc found that the presence of others helps with easy tasks, but hinders complex tasks.
Who is Morton Deutsch?
Created the prisoner’s dilemma and the trucking company game story to illustrate the struggle between cooperation and competition.
