Psychology Final Part 1

• Social psychology


  The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to each other
• Social cognition


  The process that enables humans to interpret social information and behave appropriately in a social environment
• Attribution


  An explanation of the cause of behavior
• Fundamental attribution error


  Tend to make internal attributions for other people's behavior and underestimate the role of situational factors
• Fundamental attribution error


  • Even when people knew that the author's choice of an essay topic was externally caused, they assumed that what he wrote reflected how he really felt about Castro
• The fundamental attribution error occurs more in individualistic (Western) cultures than in collectivistic (Eastern) cultures
• Individualistic culture


  Personal emphasized, views people as unique, encourages self-expression, and emphasizes competitiveness
• Collectivistic culture


  Social-emphasized, views people as a part of a group, discourages self-expression, and emphasized group harmony
• Attitude


  An evaluation
• Explicit attitude


  Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report; behavior we are monitoring and can choose; verbal behavior→ what we say
• Implicit attitude


  Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious; we do not monitor this→ facial expressions
• Attitudes and actions


  Action predicts attitudes
• Cognitive dissonance


  Feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is inconsistent with one's attitudes
• Ways to resolve cognitive dissonance

  • Change your behavior to match your attitude
  • Change your attitude to match the behavior
  • Come up with other beliefs to help lessen the sting on continuing to engage in the negative behavior
• Central route persuasion


  Listening carefully and thinking about the arguments (the content of the message), attitude change that is long-lasting and resistant to change
• Peripheral route persuasion


  Instead of elaborating on the arguments, are swayed by superficial clues (anything in the periphery rather than the message), attitude change that is temporary
• Social role


  A title, position or status that carries expectations for acceptable behavior
• Social role


  • The stanford prison experiment→ Simbardo and his colleagues randomly assigned male volunteers to play roles for 2 weeks as prisoners and guards; students assumed the roles quickly and it was shut down after six days
• Social role


  • Abu Ghraib prison
• Conformity


  An individual's behavior to correspond to the behavior of a group of other people
• Soloman Asch's classic line study


  • Examined how pressure from a group could lead people to conform, even when they knew the rest of the group was wrong
• Normative conformity


  Stems from a desire to be liked and accepted
• Normative conformity


  • Teens may dress in a certain style because they want to look like their peers
• Informational conformity


  Stems from belief that others know more than you do
• Informational conformity


  • When an individual travels to a new country they rely on how natives interact and talk with them
• Prejudice


  A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group based solely on their membership in that group
• Prejudice


  • A college student may feel discomfort around people with developmental disabilities
• Stereotype


  A generalization about a group of people
• Stereotype


  • People with developmental disabilities may be stereotyped as friendly and unintelligent
• Discrimination


  An unjustified negative or harmful action toward the members of a group simply because of their membership in that group
• Discrimination


  • People with disabilities might not get interviewed and hired for a job, even though they're capable and qualified
• Ingroup


  A social group to which you believe you belong (us)
• Ingroup


  • Religious community, sports team
• Outgroup


  A social group to which you believe you do not belong (them)
• Outgroup


  • Non-religious neighbors next door to a religious community center
• Ingroup bias


  The tendency to hold a more positive attitude toward the ingroup than the outgroup (favoritism)
• Outgroup homogeneity


  Assumption that all members of an outgroup are essentially similar
• Cross-race effect in face recognition


  People are worse at recognizing faces of races other than their own (an outgrowth of outgroup homogeneity)
• Just-world hypothesis


  The notion that the world is fair and unfortunate events happen to those who deserve them (victim blaming)
• Scapegoat hypothesis


  The notion that prejudice can be fueled by the need to find someone to blame