EPPP UPDATED SOCIAL PSYCH GLOSSARY

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Actor-Observer Effect: In causal attribution, tendency for observer to overestimate effects of dispositional factors when making attribution about actor's behavior but to overestimate effects of situational factors when making self-attributions.
Attitude Inoculations: Method of reducing effectiveness of persuasive message based on medical model; involves giving recipient of message arguments against own position and weak counterargument (refutations against those arguments). Inoculation found particularly effective for reducing persuade-ability.
Attribution (Dimensions): Causal attributions often described in terms of 3 dimensions: internal/external (dispositional/situational); stable/unstable; and specific/global.
Autokinetic Effect: Sherif used the autokinetic effect (appearance that a stationary point of light is moving) to study conformity to group norms.
Bases of Social Power: Methods used to induce compliance in another person. French and Raven identified 6 bases of social power: coercive, reward, expert, legitimate, referent, and informational.
Bystander Apathy: Tendency of people to not intervene in emergency situations when others are present. Bystander apathy attributed to 3 factors: social comparison, evaluation of apprehension, and diffuse or responsibility.
Cathersis Hypothesis: Predicts that act of aggression reduces indv.'s arousal level which then decreases likelihood of acting aggressively again in near future. Research not supportive of this claim.
Central Traits: Characteristics that have greater impact than others on impression formation.
Characteristics of Communication: Several characteristics of communicator affect its persuasiveness- e.g., level of discrepancy btwn two positions of the recipient and the message, the order in which two sides of argument presented (primacy/recency effects), and whether the message is intentionally delivered or is overheard.
Characteristics of Communicator: research on attitude change confirmed that credible communicators more persuasive. One factor that contributes to credibility is trustworthiness.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Festinger's theory of attitude change proposes that inconsistencies in cognitions produce discomfort (dissonance), which motivates indv. to reduce dissonance by changing cognitions.
Contact Hypothesis: Proposes that prejudice may be reduced through contact btwn members of majority and minority groups as long as following conditions are met: members of different groups have equal status and power and provided w/opportunities that disconfirm their negative stereotypes about members of other groups.
Deindividuation Model: State of relative anonymity that allows indv to feel unidentifiable. Deindividuation associated w/increases in antisocial behaviors, b/c deindividuated person's behavior no longer controlled by guilt, fear of evaluation, or other inhibitory factors.
Effects of Crowding: Crowded conditions tend to enhance positive experiences and increase unpleasantness of negative experiences. Males seem to be more stressed by crowded conditions and more likely to react w/increased aggression; apparently b/c males require more personal space.
Effects of Media Violence: Controversy about effects of media violence fueled by research on observational (social) learning. Although evidence to support each side - violence either increases or decreases violence - found in literature, in general, media violence does not seem to have a cathartic effect, but instead, increases viewer aggressiveness.
Effects of Porno: Research assessing exposure to violent porno generally found that it not only increases aggressive behavior but also promotes greater acceptance of violence against women.
Elaboration Likelihood Model: ELM: a cognitive theory of attitude change that distinguished btwn two informational processing routes - central and peripheral. Reliance on central route requires greater mental effort and produces loner-lasting attitude change.
Emotion-In-Relationship Model: A model of emotion in relationships that proposes there is an innate mechanism that generates emotion in response to unexpected events that disrupts ongoing sequences of behaviors.
Equity Theory: Theory of motivation that predicts that motivation (e.g., motivation to remain in a relationship) affected b comparison of input/output ratios.
Field Theory: Lewin's theory of human behavior that describes it as a product of interdependent factors in the person and his/her physical or social environment.
Fundamental Attribution Bias: Attribution error in which observer tends to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when making attributions about an actor's behavior.
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: Theory that aggression is always motivated by frustration. Revised version predicts that frustration leads to aggression in the presence of aggressive cues.
Gain-Loss Effect: Predicts that liking related to pattern rather than amt. of rewards - specifically, people tend to be attracted most to indv who show increasing liking for them and to be least attracted to indv who show decreasing liking for them.
Gender Differences in Affiliation: Research shows females spend more time engaged in conversation, are more likely to talk to people of same sex, and may affiliate more than males do in public places.
Heterosexism & Sexual Prejudice: Herek defines HETEROSEXISM as "an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes among nonheterosexual forms of behavior, identity, relationships, or community;" and SEXUAL PREJUDICE as "negative attitudes based on sexual orientation, whether target is homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual."
Illusory Correlation: Refers to tendency to see relationship btwn variables not actually related.
Jigsaw Method: Method of learning in which assignments must be completed by teams w/each team member being assigned a different piece of the project; also improves academic achievement, especially for members of minority groups.
Learned Helplessness: Learned expectation that one cannot control negative life events, which leads to apathy and depression; associated w/internal, stable and global attributions.
Minority Influence: Research shows that minority can influence majority by maintaining consistent (but not dogmatic) position.
Misery Loves Miserable Company: Schacyer's conclusion that people like to affiliate w/those in similar circumstances (i.e., miserable people tend to prefer to affiliate with other miserable people).
Motivational Conflicts: Lewin distinguished btwn 3 motivational conflicts - approach/approach; avoidance/avoidance; and approach/avoidance. Letter involves goal that has both positive and negative aspects and particularly difficult to resolve.
Obediance to Authority (Milgram): Controversial research that evaluated participants;\\' willingness to obey high-status indv even when doing so seemed to harm another person.
Overjustification Hypthesis: Notion that, when people are externally rewarded for a task they previously found intrinsically interesting, their intrinsic interest in task decreases.
Prison Study (Zimbardo): Prison simulation study which demonstrated that people alter their behaviors to fit their assigned roles.
Pseudopatient Study (Rosenhan): Research demostrated that roles of social context and labeling on impression formation. Once admitted to mental hospital, pseudopatients were viewed, esp. by staff, as mental pts even though they no longer exhibited any abnormal behaviors.
Psychological Reactance: Tendency to resist being influenced or manipulated by others, usually done by doing the opposite of what is desired or expected.
Robber's Cave Studies (Sherif): Research at boy's camp that demonstrated that the most effective way to reduce intergroup hostilities is having members of the groups cooperate to achieve a mutual goal.
Schachter & Singer's Epinephrine Studies: Research on perception of emotion that showed that there are physiological differences btwn emotions and that perceptions of emotion depends on combination of physiological arousal and cognitive label for that arousal.
Schemata (Schemas): Cognitive structures that organize past info and experience and provide framework for processing and understanding new info and experience.
Self-Monitoring: S\\Refers to need for and ability to manage impression that others form of us. High self-monitors most concerned w/"public self" and thus strive to match attitudes and behaviors to situation; Low elf=monitors guided by own beliefs and values and attempt to alter situations to match "private self."
Self-Perception Theory: individuals make attributions about their own attitudes and behaviors on basis of observation of their behaviors and other external cues.
Self-serving Bias: In causal attributions, tendency to attribute one's successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.
Self-Verification Theory: predicts that people prefer accurate info (info consistent w/one's self-eval).
Social Comparison Theory: individuals use other (usually similar) people as sources of comparison to eval own attitudes and behaviors.
Social Exchange Theory: interpersonal relationships that focuses on magnitude of costs and rewards.
Social learning Theory: Type of learning that occurs simply as the result of observing the behavior of a model; used to explain the acquisition of aggressive behaviors.
Social judgment Theory: Theory of attitude change that predicts that we have 3 "categories of judgment" by which we eval. persuasive messages - latitude of acceptance, latitude of non-commitment, and latitude of rejection - and that we most likely persuaded when message is within latitude of acceptance.
Superordinate Goals: Goals that can be achieved only when indv or members of diff. group work together cooperatively; found useful for reducing intergroup conflict.
Symbolic (Modern) Racism: Theory about current, less blatant forms of racism that reflect combination of anti-African-American attitudes, strong support for traditional American values, (work ethic) and belief that African Americans violate those values.
Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicts that attitudes are accurate predictors when attitude measure assesses all 3 components of behavioral intention - person's attitude toward engaging in the behavior, what person believes other people think should be done, and person's perceived behavioral control.
Threat of Retaliation: Often reduces aggressiveness, esp. when it comes from person w/high status or power.
Zeigarnik Effect: Tendency to remember interrupted and unfinished tasks better than completed ones.

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