Week 18 Module Flashcards
Social psychology
The scientific study of how a person’s thoughts and feelings and behaviour are influenced by the real/imagined or implied presence of others
Self schema
Beliefs people hold about themselves that guide how they process self relevant information - how they categorize and store information about themselves
Self concept
An individuals perception of self, including knowledge/feelings/ideas about oneself. It is used as a basis for how we describe ourselves, made up of self schemas
Schemacity
The important of particular self-schemas to ones self concept
Aschematic
Not having a schema for a particular category or situation
Self awareness
The ability to recognize oneself as a distinct enemy
Introspection
Looking inwards to ones own thoughts and feelings
Affective forcasting
demonstrates a lack of self knowledge. predicting how one would feel about a future emotional event. People tend to predict worse off
Self perception theory
when internal cues are difficult to interpret, people sometimes determine their attitudes and feelings by observing their own behaviour
Looking glass self
The notion that other people are mirrors in which we see ourselves
Social comparision theory
Theory that people evaluate their own abilities by comparing themselves to others
Sociometer theory
States that self- esteem evolved as a way to measure interpersonal relationships
Terror management theory
States that all human behaviour is motivated by the fear of our own mortality
Research in sociometer theory has demonstrated
Strong correlation between self esteem and experiencing acceptance/rejection from others
Things that increase your self esteem would also improve others opinions of you
Public feedback affects a person’s level of self esteem but private feedback doesn’t
Self-handicapping
Engaging in behaviours designed to sabotage one’s own performance in order to provide a subsequent excuse for failure
Basking in reflected glory
Associating with others who are successful to increase one’s self esteem
Downward social comparision
Defensive tendencies to compare oneself w/ others who are worse off than oneself
Self serving cognitions
General beliefs about the self that serve to enhance self esteem
3 self serving cognitions
Better than average
Unrealistic optimism
Self serving attributions
Self-discrepancy theory
Our self esteem and emotional states determined by how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves
3 “selfs”
Ought self (what they and important others 'ought' to be) actual self (Refers to peoples beliefs regarding their attributes) deal self (refers to peoples beliefs regarding what they would like to be)
Attributions
Explanations for the causes of ones own and others behaviours
Covariation principle
An attribution theory in which they and other people behave in a certain way
3 kinds of helpful variation
Consistency
Consensus
Disctinctiveness
Heuristics
Information processing rule of thumb
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to over estimate the impact of personal factors and under estimate the impact of situational factors when attributing the causes of another’s behaviour
Knowledge across situations hypothesis
People usually judge the behaviours of those whom they know well to be more flexible and more dependent on the situation than the behaviour of those they know less well
Visual orientation hypothesis
we attribute behaviour to personality different than we do ourselves because we see the environment only through our own eyes, but we focus on other people and ignore the environment
Person positivity bias
The tendency to evaluate individuals more favourable than groups
Trait negativity bias
The tendency to be influenced by negative information more than positive information
Primacy effect
The tendency for information that was presented earlier to be more influential than info that was presented later
Continuum Model of Impression formation
Initial categorization Personal relevance Attention and interpretation Confirmation categorization recategorization piecemeal integration pubic expression and further assessment
Minimal groups phenomenon
An experimental method in which people are assigned to arbitrary groups and preform tasks or make judgements based on group membership
Out-group homogeneity effect
The tendency to perceive out-group members as alike, while perceiving in-group members as distinct and diverse
Realistic conflict theory
Groups tend to have more friction with each other when they would compete for resources and will be more cooperative with each other if they feel solidarity or have unified goals
Social identity theory
That self-concept is made up of both personal and social identity. Refers to the groups and categories to which a person belongs
Evidence in support of social identity theory
The more strongly people identify with a group, the greater the in group bias they display
Group identification increases when one’s group is successful in some way
If people suffer from a decrease in self esteem, they put down/disrespect other groups more
Derogating out-groups increases self esteem
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Stereotyped-based expectancy that causes a person to act in a manner consistent with the stereotype
Pygmalion effect
Teachers told specific student has greater IQ than the others. After months he showed so. Teachers expectations created outcome, not reality.
Stereotyped threat
A fear among members of a group that they may confirm or be judged in terms of a negative stereotype when they are in situations relevant to the stereotype
5 main functions of attitudes
Utilitarian Social adjustive Value expressive Ego-defensive Knowledge
Bradley effect
Phenomenon in US elections where non-white candidates do better in opinion polls than actual elections
Explicit attitudes
Memory that can be described fully and verbally and of which a person is consciously aware
Implicit attitudes
Memory that can’t be fully described verbally and of which a person may be completely or partially unaware of
Implicit association test
A flexible task designed to tap automatic associations between concepts and attributes
Attitude/Behaviour specificity matching model
Very specific attitudes predict a corresponding specific behaviour very well, but do not predict general patterns of responding across many behaviours
Elements that effect attitudes
Accessibility Knowledge Ambivalence Certainty Importance
Message learning therapy
A theory that proposes that an individual must attend to, comprehend, yield to and retain a message in order to be persuaded. If the process stops at any stage, persuasion will not occur.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
States that there are 2 routes through which persuasion messages are processed: the central route and the peripheral route
Cognitive dissonance theory
Theory that holding inconsistent cognitions arouses psychological tension that people become motivated to reduce
Self-persuasion
Behaving in ways that conflict ones beliefs or values leads to change in either behaviour or beliefs
Counter attitudinal behaviour
Behaviour that goes against how you really feel
3 Attitudinal mofels
Attitude/behaviour specificity model
Elaboration likelihood model
Counter attitudinal behaviour
