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Psych 101, Social Psychology
For a course based on the book "Psychology in Modules" (paraphrase)
21
Psychology
Undergraduate 1
05/13/2013

Additional Psychology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Social Psychology
Definition

The study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people

Looks at how a group can influence the way a person thinks, acts, and feels.

 
Term
Physical Attractiveness
Definition
  • Matters on some level
  • Infants as young as 3 to 6 months showed a preference for looking at attractive faces
  • Assume attractive people are more friendly, likable, extraverted, successful, and well adjusted
  • What makes a face attractive?
    • Averageness
    • Symmetry
    • Youthfulness
  • Person perception
  • Use social stimuli to form impression of others
  • Predict 70% of congress by looking at their face
 
Term
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Definition
  • Expectations cause individuals to act in ways that make the expectations come true
  • If we believe it …. It will happen
    • Studies: (teachers told specific 'lies' about students, and treated them differently. The children then succeeded or failed accordingly)
      • Late bloomers
      • Aggressiveness
      • Bad classroom vs. good classroom
 
Term
Attribution Theory
Definition
  • Views people as motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior
    • Internal/external causes
      • Good grade cause I am smart or test was easy?
    • Stable/unstable causes
      • Is it permanent or temporary
    • Controllable/uncontrollable cause
      • Did you have power over the cause? 
Term
Attribution Theory Errors and Biases
Definition
  • Fundamental attribution error: People tend to overestimate the importance of internal traits and underestimate the importance of external situations when they try to explain behavior
  • False consensus effect: Overestimation of the degree in which everybody else thinks or acts the way we do
  • Self serving bias:Tendency to take credit for success and blame others for failures
 
Term
Social Comparison
Definition
  • Process by which we evaluate our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to other people
  • We tend to evaluate our opinions and abilities in relation to others around us
  • Downward social comparisons: We try to feel better by comparing ourselves to others who we perceive as having it worse than us
 
Term
Attitudes
Definition
  • Feelings, opinions, and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas
  • Social psychologists look at how attitudes relate to behavior and how they change
 
Term
Conditions for Attitude to Affect Behavior
Definition
  • When attitudes are strong
  • Strong awareness of attitude
  • Vested interest
 
Term
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Definition
  • A person’s discomfort is reflected by a discrepancy between their attitudes and behaviors
  • Change the attitude or change the behavior?
    • more likely to change attitude, it's easier
 
Term
Self Perception Theory
Definition
  • People make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behaviors
  • Example: when someone asks how you feel about a person you are dating you would say you assume you like them because you are spending time with them
 
Term
Altruism
Definition

Unselfish interest in helping another person

Doing something for another person with no gain for your self.

Term

Do we really have true altruism?

 
Definition

Not if Egoism is the motivation....

  • Giving to another person to gain self esteem
  • Giving to present oneself as powerful, component, or caring
  • Avoid censure or failing to live up to expectations
  • Hoping for return of the favor (reciprocity)

 

Term
Psychological Factors in Altruism
Definition
  • Mood and helping:Happy people are more likely to help others
  • Empathy and helping:Able to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes
  • Gender:Women are more likely to help when it involves nurturing, while men are more likely to help when a perceived danger is present and they feel competent to help
 
Term
Bystander Effect
Definition
Tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone
  • 75% help when alone, 50% when 1 other person is present
  • Diffusion of responsibility
 
Term
Social Influence and Its Effect on Behavior
Definition

2 major types studied:

  • Conformity:
    • Change in a persons behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard
  • Obedience:
    • Behavior the complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority
 
Term
Motivations for Conformity
Definition
  • Informational social influence:
    • Influence others have on us because we want to be right
  • Normative social influence:
    • Influence others have on use because we want them to like us
  • Asch’s experiment (line length test)
    • 35% of the time the person conformed
 
Term
The Extremes of Obedience
Stanley Milgrams obedience study (1962)
Definition

Study as a result of the war crimes by Nazi's in world war II

  • Psychiatrist believed fewer than 1 in 25 would got as far as 300 volts and only 1 in 1000 would deliver full 450 volts
  • Almost all gave 300
  • 66% gave 450 volts
 
Term

Social Group Performance

(Possible effects on productivity)

Definition
  • Social Facilitation:
    • Individuals performance improves because of the presence of others
  • Social Loafing:
    • Each persons tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort
 
Term
Group Think
Definition

Refers to the impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision becomes less important than maintaining group harmony

  • Risky shift:Tendency of a group decision to be riskier than average decision made by individual
  • Group Polarization Effect: Solidification and further strengthening of an individuals position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction
 
Term

Philip Zimbardo (1971)

 
Definition

Stanford Prison Study

 

People were given roles of prisoner or guard and people readily accepted those roles

No one quit the study voluntarily

Brutality ensued.
Term
Group Identity
Definition
  • Social Identity:
    • Refers to the way we define ourselves in terms of group membership
  • Social Identity theory:
    • Our social identities are a crucial part of our self image
  • Ethnocentrism:
    • Tendency to favor ones own ethnic group over others
      • In group/out group thinking
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