Unit 4 Flashcards
Personality Psychology
Book:The scientific study of personality and its development, structure, traits, processes, variations, and disordered forms (personality disorders).
IMOW: The study of individual differences in thinking, feeling, and behavior.
Social Psychology
Book: The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
IMOW: The study of how people influence and interact with one another.
Person Perception
Book: How we form impressions of ourselves and others, including attributions of behavior.
IMOW: How we form impressions and make judgments about others.
Attribution Theory
Book: The theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person’s stable, enduring traits (a dispositional attribution).
IMOW: Explains how people determine the causes of behavior, either situational or personal.
Fundamental Attribution Error
Book: The tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
IMOW: The tendency to blame others’ actions on their personality rather than the situation.
Actor-Observer Bias
Book: The tendency for those acting in a situation to attribute their behavior to external causes, but for observers to attribute others’ behavior to internal causes. This contributes to the fundamental attribution error (which focuses on our explanations for others’ behavior).
IMOW: We blame our own actions on the situation but others’ actions on their personality.
Prejudice
Book: An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves negative emotions, stereotyped beliefs, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.
IMOW: A negative attitude toward a group based on stereotypes.
Stereotype
Book: A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.
IMOW: A generalized belief about a group of people.
Discrimination
Book: Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.
IMOW: Acting unfairly toward people based on group membership.
Just-World Phenomenon
Book: The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
IMOW: The belief that people get what they deserve.
Social Identity
Book: The “we” aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group memberships.
IMOW: The part of our self-concept based on group memberships.
Ingroup
Book: “Us” — people with whom we share a common identity.
IMOW: A group we identify with and feel connected to.
Outgroup
Book: “Them” — those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.
IMOW: A group we see as different from our own.
Ingroup Bias
Book: The tendency to favor our own group.
IMOW: Favoring our own group over others.
Scapegoat Theory
Book: The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
IMOW: Blaming an outgroup for problems to relieve frustration.
Other-Race Effect
Book: The tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. Also called the cross-race effect and the own-race bias.
IMOW: The tendency to better recognize faces of our own race.
Attitudes
Book: Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.
IMOW: Feelings and beliefs that influence our reactions to things.
Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon
Book: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
IMOW: The tendency to agree to a larger request after agreeing to a small one.
Role
Book: A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.
IMOW: A set of expectations about how a person should behave in a situation.
Leon Festinger
A social psychologist best known for developing cognitive dissonance theory, which explains how people experience psychological discomfort when their beliefs and behaviors conflict, leading them to change one to reduce the inconsistency. He also studied social comparison theory, which suggests people evaluate themselves by comparing to others. His work greatly influenced social psychology by explaining attitude change and decision-making.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Book: The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.
IMOW: The discomfort we feel when our actions and beliefs don’t match, leading us to change one.
Persuasion
Book: Changing people’s attitudes, potentially influencing their actions.
IMOW: The act of convincing someone to think or act differently.
Peripheral Route Persuasion
Book: Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness.
IMOW: Influencing people using superficial cues (like attractiveness or celebrity endorsements).
Central Route Persuasion
Book: Occurs when interested people’s thinking is influenced by considering evidence and arguments.
IMOW: Persuasion using facts, logic, and reason.