Unit 9 - Social Behavior Pt.1 Flashcards
Attribution Theory - Fritz Heider
Tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, the situation, or disposition (personality traits).
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors.
Effects of Positive/Negative Attribution
When a bad thing occurs, positive (situational) attribution leads to tolerant reaction; Negative (dispositional) attribution leads to unfavorable reaction.
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to make dispositional attributions about your successes and situational attributions about your failures.
Attitude
Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a certain way.
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
Influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness, includes snap judgments.
Central Route to Persuasion
Focuses on facts and the content of the message in order to convince the listener; gives evidence and arguments that appeal to logical reasoning.
Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
Door-In-The-Face Technique
Refusing a large request increases the likelihood of agreeing to a second, smaller request.
Stanford Prison Experiment Results - Philip Zimbardo
When we assume a role, we take on the attitudes and actions of that role.
Role
A set of expectations (norms) about a social position.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognition) are inconsistent; we change our actions or attitudes to reduce tension.
Chameleon Effect
Unconscious mimicry one one’s interaction partners.
Conformity
Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
Conformity Experiment Results - Solomon Asch
Subject is relatively likely to give the same answer as the group, even if it’s obviously incorrect.
Normative Social Influence
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection.
Informational Social Influence
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality; to follow a group because you believe that their beliefs are correct or right.
Obedience Experiment Results - Stanley Milgram
About 60% of the subjects went to the end; Obedience to authority can keep people from following their own morals and standards.
Social Facilitation
Improved performance on tasks in the presence of others.
Social Loafing
Tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort towards attaining a common goal than when tested individually.
Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Group Polarization
Enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group.
Groupthink
Desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives; poor decisions are made to preserve harmony in a group.
Prejudice
Unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members; made up of stereotypes.
Stereotype
A generalized belief about a group of people.
Just-World Phenonmenon
Tendency of people to believe that the world is just, and people get what they deserve and deserve what they get; “Bad things happen to bad people”
In-Group/Out-Group
Share a common identity/Those perceived as different; “Them”
In-Group Bias
Give people of the in-group preferential treatment
Ethnocentrism
A prejudiced view of the world primarily from the perspective of one’s own culture; assuming the superiority of one’s ethnic group over others
Scapegoat Theory
Prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame (alleviates negative emotions).
Other-Race Effect
Recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races.
Aggression
Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy
Causes of Aggression
Genetic Influences: Animals have been bred for aggressiveness
Neural Influences: Limbic system (amygdala) and the frontal lobe
Biochemical Influences: Testosterone
Frustration-Aggression Principle
Principle that frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression.
