Social Thinking Key Terms Flashcards
Social cognition
Concerns the social side of our mental processes and how people make sense of themselves and others around them
Attributions
Judgements about the causes of our own and other people’s behaviour and outcomes
Fundamental attribution error
We underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of personal factors when explaining other people’s behaviour
Actor-observer bias
The tendency to make situational attributions to explain our own behaviour and personal attributions to explain the behaviour of others
Self-serving bias
The tendency to make personal attributions for ones own successes and situational attributions or ones own failures
Impression formation
The process of how, with what information and to what effect people make judgements of others
Recency effect
The tendency to attach more importance to the most recent information that we learn about a person
Primary effect
The tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person
Stereotype
A shared belief about person attributes, usually personality traits, but often also opinions or behaviours of a group or category of people
Self-fulfilling prophecy
When people’s erroneous expectations lead them to act towards others in a way that brings about the expected behaviours, thereby confirming their original impression
Self-schemas
Mental templates, derived from memory of past experience, which represent a person’s beliefs about the self in a particular domain
Self-perception theory
We make inferences about our own attitudes by observing how we behave
Social comparison theory
Comparing our beliefs, feelings and behaviours with those of other people
Reflected appraisals principle
We incorporate the views others have of us into own self-concept
Self-discrepancy theory
Distinguishes among representations of our actual self, our ideal self and our ought self
Goal
Desired state specifying a concrete event an individual is striving for
Regulatory focus theory
The two self-guides are concerned with the pursuit of different types of goals
Promotional goals
Goals concerning the pursuit of ideals
Prevention goals
Goals concerning the pursuit of obligations
Personal identity
That part of an individual’s identity derived from their personality traits, idiosyncratic characteristics and interpersonal relationships
Social identity
That part of an individual’s identity derived from the knowledge of belonging to particular groups
In-groups
Groups individuals belong to
Out-groups
Groups individuals do not belong to
Self-esteem
An individual’s sense of self-worth, or the extent to which the individual appreciates, values or likes him or herself
Better-than-average-effect
The tendency to evaluate ourselves more favourably than the average peer
Sociometer
Internal monitor of social acceptance and belonging
Collective self-esteem
A measure of the value one places on ones social groups
Attitude
A positive, neutral or negative evaluative reaction towards a stimulus, such as a person, action, situation, object or concept
Explicit attitude
Attitude measured using self-report instruments such as questionnaires
Implicit attitude
Attitude measured using reaction-time-based indirect measures
Theory of cognitive dissonance
People strive for consistency in their cognitions
Dissonance
A state of discomfort arising when two or more cognitions are inconsistent with each other
Central route to persuasion
When people think carefully about the message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling
Peripheral route to persuasion
When people do not scrutinise the message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as a speaker’s attractiveness or a messages length or emotional appeal
Communicator credibility
How believable we perceive the communicator to be
