Social thinking

Question 1

What is interpersonal attraction?

Answer 1

what makes people like each other

Question 2

What are the five factors that affect attraction?

Answer 2

Physical attraction
Self disclosure
Reciprocity
Proximity
Characteristic similarities such as in attitudes, intelligence, height, etc

Question 3

What is Aggression?

Answer 3

Physical, verbal, and nonverbal behavior with intention to cause harm or increase social dominance

Question 4

Which part of the brain is in charge of Aggression?

Answer 4

Used to be managed by Amygdala, now prefrontal cortex(more complex), and hormones

Question 5

What is Cognitive neoassociation model

Answer 5

aggression increases when negative feelings like pain is present

Question 6

What are the four types of attachments and how do they differ?

Answer 6

Secure attachment: consistent caregiver; strong preference to caregiver

Avoidant attachment: caregiver shows no interest in the distressed child, and child shows no preference to the caregiver over strangers

Ambivalent attachment: caregiver’s response is inconsistent and the child shows distress when caregiver leaves but ambivalent when returns

Disorganized attachment: caregiver is erratic/abusive. The child shows no clear pattern of behavior to caregiver’s absence/presence and may repeat what the caregiver did.

Question 7

What is Social support?

Answer 7

reality that one is cared for by a social network

Question 8

What are the five kinds of social support?

Answer 8

Emotional support: comforting
Esteem support: affirming skills/qualities
Material support: physical/monetary
Informational support: providing useful info
Network support: provide sense of belonging

Question 9

What is Foraging?

Answer 9

searching for and exploiting food resources

Question 10

What is mating system and what are the different kinds?

Answer 10

How a group is organized in terms of sexual behavior.
Monogamy:
Polygamy
Promiscuity

Question 11

What is mate choice?

Answer 11

aka intersexual selection.

selection of a mate based on attraction and traits

Question 12

What is Altruism?

Answer 12

form of helping behavior at his/her cost

Question 13

What is Game theory?

Answer 13

attempts to explain decision-making like playing a game: more benefits -> yes, more harm -> No

Question 14

What is Inclusive fitness?

Answer 14

Measure of an organism success in the population. This is based on the number of offsprings, success in supporting offsprings, and ability of the offsprings to support others

Question 15

What is social perception/social cognition? What are required?

Answer 15

how we generate impressions of people. Perceiver, target, situation.

Question 16

What is Implicit personality theory?

Answer 16

there are sets of assumptions that people make about how different types of people, traits, and their behavior are related

Question 17

What are primacy effect, Recency effect, and Reliance of central traits and how are they different?

Answer 17

Primacy effect: when first impression is more important than subsequent impressions
Recency effect: when most recent info about a person is most important in forming impression
Reliance on central trait: tendency to form impression based on traits that are important to perceiver

Question 18

What is Halo effect? example?

Answer 18

When general impression causes bias in judging one’s character, skills, and quality.
ex. I like Kathy, so Kathy is a good student.

Question 19

What is just-world hypothesis?

Answer 19

tendency to believe that good things happen to good people, bad things to the bad

Question 20

What is self-serving bias? and how does it play a role in people with high self-esteem?

Answer 20

tendency to think that success if b/c of one’s own ability but failure is from external factors. High self-esteem people tend to show more self-serving bias. But depression people tend to show the opposite

Question 21

What is Attribution theory?

Answer 21

Tendency to infer the causes of other people’s behavior

Question 22

What is the difference between Dispositional and Situational attributions? and how are these related to the Attribution theory?

Answer 22

These two causes are the main two reasons for making attributions.
Dispositional attributions are internal; they are related to one’s personality, attitudes, beliefs.
Situational attributions are external; they are related to luck, money, connection, etc.

Question 23

What are the three kinds of cues and how do they differ?

Answer 23

Consistency cues: consistent behavior of a person over time. High consistency will lead to internal attribution, attributing one to “he is like that.” ex. Adam trolling and teasing others consistently(high consistency) -> he likes to tease people and can be disrespectful,(rather than thinking that he must have had a bad day this morning so he is not in a good mood)

Distinctiveness cues: refers to the extent to which a person engages in similar behavior across a series of scenarios. High distinctiveness -> not so often scenarios. ex. if Lawrence gets mad and furious at the pastor when he is really calm most of the time, we may attribute this behavior to Situational(external), meaning that his fury is caused by external factors(pastor not listening).

Consensus: relate to the extent to which a person’s behavior differs from others. High consensus -> everybody else is doing the same as you, low consensus -> you are doing something different compared to other people.
High consensus leads us to think that particular behavior is attributed to situational. Low consensus behavior leads us to think that it is attributed to dispositional. ex. If i am late to a reunion but 10 others were also late, then people will think it is due to external factors. If i am the only one late then people will think it is because i’m a lazy person(internal factors).

Question 24

What is Fundamental Attribution error?

Answer 24

Bias toward making dispositional attribution over situational attribution especially in negative context. ex. obese people exercising is seen -> obesity is due to his/her own laziness, but due to external factors.

Question 25

What is Actor-observer bias? In what kind of society is this commonly seen?

Answer 25

When in negative context, we tend to blame external factors for our behavior. In more individualistic society such as europe and north america

Question 26

How does the perception of success and failure differ between Individualistic society such as Europe and North America and Collectivist society such as Africa and Asia?

Answer 26

Individualistic: more Actor-observer bias. Success is by him/herself but Failure is due to external factors.

Collectivist: opposite

Question 27

What is Attribute substitution?

Answer 27

When individuals must make judgments that are complex but instead substitute a simpler solution or heuristic

Question 28

What is Stereotype content model?

Answer 28

attempts to classify stereotypes with warmth and competence

Question 29

What is Self-fulfilling prophecy? provide an ex.

Answer 29

when expectation(stereotype) creates conditions that lead to confirmation of the expectation.
ex. when exposed to negative stereotype, it creates anxiety/negative feelings for me even though i may be perfectly capable of something. Now my performance is reduced and have fulfilled the prophecy.

Question 30

What is Stereotype threat? provide an ex.

Answer 30

experiencing anxiety/concern about confirming a negative stereotype; it can eventually lead to reduction of performance and then self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 31

How is prejudice, stereotype, and discrimination differ?

Answer 31

stereotype = cognitive
prejudice = affective
discrimination = behavioral

Question 32

How do Ethnocentrism and Cultural relativism differ?

Answer 32

Ethnocentrism is thinking that one’s culture is superior than others but Cultural relativism is thinking that other cultures are just different.