Unit 11: Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social perception?
A subfield of social psychology that studies the ways in which we form and modify our impressions of other people.
What is the primacy effect?
To evaluate others in terms of first impressions
What is the recency effect?
To evaluate others in terms of the most recent impression
What is the halo effect?
One trait of a person is used to make an overall judgement of that person
Examples of halo effect.
- Tall = Successful
- Outspoken = Intelligent
- Pleasing accent = Sweet
- Attractive = Successful in jobs and marriages
What are attributions?
Assumptions about why people behave in a certain way
What is the attribution process?
- Assume the person’s behavior comes from their personality
2. Think about the situation the person is in
What is dispositional attribution?
Something WITHIN the person we observe (personality); also called internal attribution
What is situational attribution?
Caused by something OUTSIDE the person we observe (their situation); also called external attribution
What are the consequences of these attributions?
- Distort our views of others
- Generalize other people’s behavior
- Make assumptions, which are often incorrect
What is the fundamental attribution error?
To overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of the situation
Why is it called the “fundamental” attribution error?
It is so widespread and occurs in all cultures
What culture does the fundamental attribution error occur in the most?
Individualistic, western cultures
Who don’t commit the FAE much?
Happily married couples
What is the actor-observer effect?
To attribute our own behavior to situational factors but to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional factors
What is the self-serving bias?
To view one’s success as stemming from internal factors and one’s failures as stemming from external factors
What is just-world bias?
To view actions as reciprocals of morally fair and fitting consequences
Examples of just-world bias?
- She got what she deserved
- What goes around comes around
What is self-fulfilling prophecy?
An individual’s expectations about another person resulting in the other person acting in ways that confirm the expectations
What is the pygmalion effect?
High expectations lead to improved performance in a given area
What is the false-consensus effect?
To overestimate how much other people agree with us
Who is Solomon Asch?
He conducted the conformity experiment – a group of people + an unknown participant guess which lines match each other. The group’s answers are completely off and it tested to see if the unknown participant conformed or not
Who is Fritz Heider?
“Humans are naive scientists”; says that humans are analytical beings who seek to understand and explain behavior; conducted the study of apparent behavior where almost all of the people explained the video of shapes in human terms
Who are Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson?
Pygmalion effect – if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children, then the children’s performance was enhanced (self-fulfilling prophecies)
What is social influence?
The ways in which people influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of others
What is conformity?
Changing our behavior of beliefs to match those of others – behavior is contagious
What is compliance?
Changing one’s behavior due to the request or direction of another person
What is obedience?
Performing an action under the orders of an authority figure