Chapter 8 Psych 121

Front 1

Norms

Back 1

Rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit cultural conventions

Front 2

Role

Back 2

A given social position that is governed by a set of norms for proper behavior

Front 3

Culture

Back 3

a program of shared rules that govern the behaviour of people in a community or society, and a set of values, beliefs, and customs shared by most members of that community

Front 4

Attribution

Back 4

general approach to describing the ways the social perceiver uses info to generate casual explanations
- Dispositional: problem lies with the person
- Situational: problem in the situation

Front 5

Fundamental attribution error

Back 5

people tend to overestimate dispositional factors, underestimate situational errors when looking at others
- Opposite when observing ourselves

Front 6

Self-serving Bias

Back 6

people take credit for success (dispositional) and deny failures (situational)

Front 7

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Back 7

predictions made alter behaviour – will tend to produce what is expected

Front 8

Attitudes

Back 8

: positive/negative evaluation of people, objects and ideas
- Attitudes predict behaviour – strength of association between an attitude object and a person’s evaluation of that object

Front 9

Persuasion

Back 9

deliberate attempts to change your attitudes

Front 10

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Back 10

defines how likely it is that people will focus their cognitive processes to elaborate upon a persuasive message
- Central – depends on facts and objective qualities
- Peripheral – people do not focus critically – focus on superficial cues – rely on qualities like image – little effort

Front 11

Cognitive Dissonance

Back 11

When a person’s beliefs is incongruent with his own behaviour

Front 12

Familiarity effect

Back 12

tendency of people to feel more positive towards a person, item... the more familiar they are with it

Front 13

Validity effect

Back 13

tendency of people to believe that a statement is true because it has been repeated many times

Front 14

Self-perception theory

Back 14

– we infer what our internal states are or should be by perceiving how we act and recalling how we should have acted in the past in a given situation
Attitudes are combination of learning, experience, and genetics
- Religious affiliation is not heritable – depth of religious feeling has a genetic component
- Political affiliation is not heritable – political conservatism is very heritable

Front 15

Compliance

Back 15

– a change in behaviour based on a request from someone

Front 16

Reciprocity

Back 16

favors will be returned (i.e. people asking for money)

Front 17

Commitment

Back 17

start with a small request - you start helping and when they change it to a large request you feel obligated to keep helping

Front 18

Scarcity

Back 18

people dislike feeling like they cannot have something – feel the need to take advantage of an opportunity

Front 19

Brainwashing / Coercive persuasion

Back 19

designed to suppress an individual’s ability to reason, think critically, make choices in his/her best interests
Occurs when:
- Person is subjected to entrapment
- Persons problems reduced to one simple attribution – repeatedly emphasized
- Person is offered a new identity and is being promised salvation
- Person’s access to disconfirming (dissonant) information is severely controlled

Front 20

Prejudice

Back 20

a learned attitude towards a target object, involving negative feelings, negative beliefs that justify the attitude, and a behavioral intention to avoid, control, dominate, or eliminate those in the target group – attitudes filter perceptions and subsequent behaviour towards others

Front 21

In-groups

Back 21

ones we identify ourselves with – view our group as better than others

Front 22

Out-groups

Back 22

groups we do not identify with

Front 23

racism

Back 23

discrimination based on skin color, ethnic heritage

Front 24

sexism

Back 24

discrimination based on sex

Front 25

Stereotypes

Back 25

generalizations on a group of people where same characteristics are assigned to all members

Front 26

behavioral conformation

Back 26

where someone’s expectations influence that person to behave in ways confirming the original hypothesis

Front 27

Contact hypothesis

Back 27

program combating prejudice must foster personal interaction in the pursuit of shared goals (to get rid of prejudice)

Front 28

Jigsaw technique

Back 28

everyone has a piece that they can contribute to the entire project, everyone is valuable

Front 29

Close proximity

Back 29

increase contact, more exposure = more like

Front 30

Physical attractiveness

Back 30

tendency to associate positive qualities with attractiveness

Front 31

Reciprocity

Back 31

we like those who like us

Front 32

Passionate love

Back 32

often initial stages of romantic relationship, great intensity and absorbtion

Front 33

Companionate love

Back 33

less intensity, greater intimacy, natural progression in many relationships, linked to greater satisfaction

Front 34

Social role

Back 34

socially defined pattern of behaviour that is expected of a person when functioning in a given setting or group

Front 35

Rules

Back 35

behavioral guidelines for settings, explicit and implicit in nature

Front 36

Stanford prison experiment

Back 36

students acting as guards/prisoners
- People exhibited horrendous behaviours under situational forces
- Power of situation can alter our reality

Front 37

Social norms

Back 37

specific expectations for socially appropriate attitudes and behaviours in a group
- People know how to act in situations based on norms

Front 38

Conformity

Back 38

tendency for people to adopt the behaviour and opinions presented by other group members
- Minorities usually don’t have much normative influence, can have informational influence

Front 39

Informational influence

Back 39

wanting to be and act correct

Front 40

Normative influence

Back 40

wanting to be liked and accepted by others

Front 41

Group polarizations

Back 41

groups tend to act more radically than individuals on their own

Front 42

groupthink

Back 42

tendency of a decision-making group to filter out undesirable input towards consensus
- Groups are more vulnerable to groupthink when a group embodies a collective desire to maintain a shared positive view of the group and views dissent as problematic rather than valuable

Front 43

Stanley Milgram's shock experiment

Back 43

fake shocks administered by civilians - surprising results
- No one quit below 300V
- 65% went to max 450 V

Front 44

Aggression

Back 44

person's behaviours that cause psychological or physical harm to another individual - necessary to ensure mates - we failed to evolve an inhibitory mechanism

Front 45

Biological Aggression

Back 45

genetic components - gene variations in amygdala structures - potential role of levels of serotonin and cortisol

Front 46

personality

Back 46

impulsive (emotion-driven) vs. instrumental (goal driven)

Front 47

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Back 47

frustration occurs when people are withheld from obtaining their goals - rise in frustration usually leads to more aggression

Front 48

Genocide

Back 48

systematic destruction of another race or cultural group - justification for violence

Front 49

Prosocial behavior motives

Back 49

types of behaviour that benefits others

Front 50

Altruism

Back 50

acting without thinking of one's own safety - do what is necessary

Front 51

Egoism

Back 51

makes us feel good for helping others

Front 52

Collectivism

Back 52

benefit the group/family/party etc

Front 53

Bystander effect

Back 53

likelihood of intervention depends on number of bystanders present - more = less help

Front 54

Diffusion of responsibility

Back 54

more than one person can help in an emergency - people often assume someone else will