Social Psychology 4.1 Flashcards
Social Psychology
The branch of psychology that studies how people think, feel, and behave in social situations
Social cognition
Study of the mental processes people use to make sense of other people
Social influence
Study of the effect of situational factors and other people on an individual’s behavior
Person perception
How we form impressions of ourselves and others
Attribution
Explaining the causes of behavior; has 2 sides
Dispositional attribution
Internal attribution - Stable or unstable - Tendency to assign responsibility for others’ behaviors due to their personality
Situational attribution
External attribution - Stable or unstable - Behavior that is attributed to external factors
Attribution theory
People tend to give a casual explanation for someone’s behavior, often crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition
Fundamental attribution error
- Explains how we view behaviors of others
- Too much weight to personality and not enough to situational variables
Actor-observer bias
- Explains how we view our own actions
- Attribute personality causes of behavior when observing someone else’s behavior
- Attribute situational causes when evaluating our own behavior
Self-serving bias
tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes
Self-handicapping
When a person creates an excuse in advance so they can fall back on it if they do poorly
Self-effacing bias
Modesty bias - Involves blaming failure on internal, personal factors while attributing success to external, situational factors
(Collectivist cultures)
