Social Psychology Part 1 Flashcards
Social Psychology
how people think about, influence, and relate to other people; Study of everything we do, and why we do it; how we think about relationships with others and other people; Overlaps with many other areas of psychology
Areas of Social Psychology
Social Cognition, Social Behavior, Social Influence, Intergroup relations, close relationships
Social Cognition
how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information; has many sub-areas
Sub-areas of Social Cognition
Attribution, Person Perception, The Self, Attitudes
Attribution
Sub-area of social cognition
determining why people do what they do; Searching brain for why something is being done by individuals, what is cause of behavior
Example: why someone is digging through their bag during an exam (cheating? New pencil?)
Sorting/reflective thoughts for Attribution Theories
- Internal vs. External causes
- Stable vs. Unstable causes
- Controllable vs. uncontrollable causes
Internal vs. External causes
(Blaming it specifically on the individual) Internal Example: tripped in front of you since a person is clumsy
Internal vs. External Example: driving slowly since they are an incompetent driver vs. they have their pet fish in the front seat
Stable vs. Unstable causes
Habitual lateness of an individual vs. something outside of that (traffic, caught by train)
Controllable vs. Uncontrollable
Could they control what happened to them/effected them or not?
Example: could not control the traffic or train arrival, but can control other factors…
How do you explain another person’s behavior?
We typically attribute others’ behavior to internal causes, even though that is not always accurate
Fundamental Attribution Error
people tend to overestimate the importance of stable, internal traits and underestimate the importance of temporary, external situations when seeking explanations for others’ behavior
Self-serving bias
we often attribute our own behavior to whichever explanation benefits us the most; Always allow ourselves off the hook for things when it doesn’t go well/goes negatively
Agree with positives of ourselves (like getting good grades or being a great athlete) but allow ourselves off the hook when it is negative; Not necessarily a bad thing, can motivate us to continue to make an effort after we have failed ourselves in the past (TO AN EXTENT, gauge yourself)
False Consensus Effect
overestimation of the degree to which everyone else thinks and acts as we do
Tend to surround ourselves with people like us
Many people outside the bubble you have that disagree with you
Discussing things certain ways with friends goes differently when discussing it the same way with others/strangers (if discussed in friend-like matter, Friends agree vs. strangers taken aback)
Person Perception
Sub area of social cognition
how do we think about other people; forming impressions, feelings and attitudes about others; Deals with first impressions, how people see each other during a first encounter
Body language, way they speak, way they look
Are first impressions really that important?
- IT IS IMPORTANT, VERY POWERFUL; Should not let it influence them as much as it does, but it happens (because of the primacy effect)
Stereotype
generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not account for individual variability; sometimes it is accurate, but often overgeneralized
Example: all people who play chess are smart, anyone that votes republican is rich
Why do we stereotype?
Biologically built to categorize(form concepts)
“shortcut”-easier(easier thinking on the brain)
Self-fulfilling prophecy
expectations cause individuals to act in ways that make the expectations come true
Example: having a stereotype that boys behave worse than girls to a teacher, so the teacher treats them differently by punishing boys more; boys misbehave from this, which then fulfills the stereotype of the teacher
Stereotype Threat
type of self-fulfilling prophecy in which anxiety about being negatively stereotyped actually causes underperformance
Attractiveness
human physical features that others rate as high in objective physical appeal
Hard to study, since “beauty in eye of beholder”
In studies some rate pictures of real people and/or computer-generated pictures; however, people often agree in studies about the extremes (like the most and least attractive)
What stereotypes do we have about beautiful people?
Beautiful people are rated much higher in friendliness, honesty, and other good traits
Those rated as less/the least attractive given more negative characteristics
**Still stereotyping if you think the opposite of “most attractive” people!!(Selfish, vain, rude); don’t do that!!
Social Identity
defining oneself in terms of group memberships
Ingroup: “your group”, Outgroup: “comparison group”
Example: identifying as part underneath umbrella of people (like college student, sister, Zoology major) for the Ingroup
Conflicts with groups/division: Often want to de-franchise other groups; Can see outgroup and ingroups being created when put into a group(like the 2-party system, teams against each other, etc.)
Prejudice
prejudgment; unjustifiable and usually negative attitude about a group and its members
Generally, involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition towards discriminatory actions
varying from obvious to implicit/hidden bias
Discrimination
unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members
varying from obvious to implicit/hidden bias
The Self
sub-area of social cognitionhow we view ourselves
The Self
sub-area of social cognition, how we view ourselves
Self-Esteem
the degree to which we have positive or negative feelings about ourselves, Sum of all negative and positive feelings;
Higher = positive, lower = negative
Self-Esteem
the degree to which we have positive or negative feelings about ourselves, Sum of all negative and positive feelings
Higher = positive, lower = negative
Which individual do you think has higher self-esteem?
Subject A: has positive illusions about herself, tends to have a self-serving bias; Tends to think you are better than actually are, blames failures on other things
Subject B: is more realistic about her good and bad characteristics
Subject A!! Although deceiving, something is protecting you from pessimistic thoughts of world; Subject B tends to be more depressed
