Test 6 Study Guide Flashcards
What is the study of how people think, influence, and relate to each other?
Social psychology
What is social cognition?
The area of psychology that explores how people select, interpret, remember and use social information
What is personal perception?
Process which we use stimuli to form impressions of each other
What is a stereotype?
A generalization about group’s characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another
How does a self fufilling prophecy work in regards to stereotyping?
Expectations cause individuals to act a certain way that serves to make expectations come true
What did Rosenthal and Jaconsen prove?
The power of stereotypes and other sources to influence expectations on human behavior
What is the process which we come to understand the causes of other’s behavior and form impressions of them as an individual?
Attribution
What is the attribution theory?
Views people as motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of that behavior
What is the fundamental Attribution error?
refers to the tendancy of observers to overestimate the importance of internal traits and underestimate the importance of external traits
What is the false consensus effect?
overestimating the degree to which everyone thinks or acts the way they do
What are positive illusions?
Rosy views of themselves not rooted in reality
What is the self serving bias?
Tendency to to take credit for our sucess and to deny responsibility for our failures when we make attributions about our own behavior
What is self objectification?
Tendency to see ourselves as an object in others eyes
What is a stereotype threat?
Individuals self fufilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about his/her group
What are opinions and beliefs about people, objects and ideals about how we feel about the world?
Attitudes
When do attitudes guide a person actions?
When-
the person shows a strong awareness of an attitude and reherses and practices it
When the person has a vested intrest
When the persons attitudes are strong
What are the main two theories about behavior affecting attitudes?
Cognitive dissonance theory
Self perception theory
What is effort justification in regards to cognitive dissonance?
Means coming up with a rationale for the amount of work we put into getting something
What is the feeling that we notice an inconsistancy between what we do and what we believe?
Cognitive dissonance
What is the theory of Self perception?
Individuals make infrenses about their attiudes by observing their behavior
What are Hovland’s 4 Elements of Persuation?
The communicator
The medium
The Target
The message
What is the central route in persuation?
Engaging the audience w/a sound, logical arguement
What is the periphrial route in persuation?
Involves factors such as appeal
What are the two techniques for sucessful persuation?
Foot-into-the-door technique
Door-in-the-face
