Psyc vocab for 13
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Social Psychology
- The discipline that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to other people
- Social Cognition
- The study of how people use cognitive processes-such as perception, memory, thought, and emotion- to help make sense of other people as well as themselves.
- What is the most important feature of a first impression?
- Physical appearance is the first thing that is available to us, so appearance plays an especially important role in how we first come to percieve others
- Social Schemas
- A general knowledge structure, stored in long-term memory, that relates to social experiences or people
- Stereotypes
- The collection of beliefs and impressions help about a group and its members
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- A condition in which our expectations about the actions of another person actually lead that person to behave in the expected way
- Attributions
- The inference process people use to assign cause and effect to behavior
- Internal Attribution
- Things in a person (ie personality)cause a person to behave or feel a certain way
- External Attributions
- Things outside a person (ie family, accidents, work, social roles) "cause" a person to behave or feel in certain ways
- Actor-Observer effect
- The overall tendency to attribute our own behavior to external sources, but the behavior of others to internal forces
- Self-serving bias
- The tendency to make internal attributions about one's own behavior when the outcome is positive and to blame the situation when one's behavior leads to something negative
- Fundamental Attribution Error
- When people seek to interpret someone else's behavior, they tend to overestimate the influence of internal personal factors and underestimate teh role of situational factors.
- Attitude
- A positive or negative evaluation or belief held about something, which in turn may affect one's behavior; they are typically broken down into cognitive (thinking or knowledge aspect), Affective (feeling or emotional), and behavioral (action) components
- Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
- Developed by Richard Petty and John Capioppo. Theory suggests that persuassion depends upon the likelihood that receivers will engage in elaboration of information related to teh persuasive issue.
- Central Route
- Operates when we are motivated and focusing our attention on the message
- Peripheral Route
- Operates when we are either unmotivated to process the message or are unable to do so
- High Elaborators
- A person highly engaged in issue related thinking, attends closely to message, analyze arguements, and reflect on teh message
- Low Elaborators
- DOn't engage in critical thought about a persuasive message
- Cognitive Dissonance
- The tension produced when people act in a way that is inconsistent with their attitudes.
- Latitude of Acceptance
- Range of statements that falls within an area that we generally find acceptable. Perceive a statement as being much closer to our own opinion than it truly is.
- Latitude of Rejection
- Range of statements that fall within an area that we generally find unacceptable. Perceive a statement as being much further from our beliefs than it really is
- Post Decisional Spreading
- Once we have made a decision, we tend to reinforce that decision by seeking out only positive support for it. We will ignore and avoid information that brings our decision into question.
- Social Loafing
- People work less and put forth less effort when they are in a group than when they are working alone.
- Self Perception Theory
- The idea that people use observations of their own behavior as a basis for inferring their internal beliefs
- Groupthink
- The lack of critical thinking about solutions caused by cohesiveness, or togetherness, in the group.