Social Psychology Exam 1

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Princton-Dartmouth football game

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we construct our own reality; there is objective reality out there but people see it through the lens of their own beliefs and values; Each team saw more penalties for the other team than they did their own

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Are intuitions about the self accurate?

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No, we trust our memories more than we should; we misread our own minds

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What do we know about intuitions?

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they are huge but also perilous; our intuitions and unconscious information processing are routinely powerful

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How does our culture define our situation?

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We respond to our immediate contexts. Sometimes the power of a social situation leads us to act contrary to our expressed attitudes

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What kinds of questions do social neurosciences ask?

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How do brain, mind, and behavior function together as one? What does the timing of the brain events reveal about how we process information?

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Social representations

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A society's widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world

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Culture

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The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

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Maslow's "self-actualized"

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people who, with their needs for survival, safety, belonging, and self-esteem satisfied, go on to fulfill their human potential

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How do social psychologist's personal values influence their views of the field?

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they give their personal opinion which is based on their personal values

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how are value judgments hidden within our social psychological language?

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through labeling

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hindsight bias

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the tendency to exaggerate, after learning on outcome, one's ability to have foreseen something turn out

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Theory

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integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events

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Hypothesis

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a testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events; they allow us to test a theory; give a direction to research, and can make theories practical

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Correlational vs field vs experimental

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correlational: asking whether two or more factors are naturally associated

field: everyday situations in everyday environment

experimental: manipulating some factor to see its effect on another

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correlational advantages and disadvantage

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advantage: involving important variables in natural settings

disadvantage: ambiguous interpretation of cause and effect

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random sample

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one in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion

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representative sample

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how closely the sample represents the population under the study; the better the sample, the easier to put the findings into everyday society

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what is the importance ofhow questions are framed?

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Framing questions can influence people's decisions and opinions

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random assignment

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the process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have an equal opportunity to be given the same situation

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mundane realism

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degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

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experimental realism

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degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants; more important than mundane

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demand characteristics

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cues that seem to "demand" a certain behavior

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spotlight effect

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the belief that others are paying more attention to ones appearance and behavior than we really are

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illusion of transparency

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the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others

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self-concept

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what we know and believe about ourselves

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self-schemas

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beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information

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social comparisons

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evaluating ones abilities and opinions by comparing oneself to others; it diminishes our satisfaction

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individualism

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the concept of giving priority over one's own goals over the groups goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes

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collectivism

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giving priority to the goals of one's group and adjusting one's identity accordingly; people are more self-critical and focus less on positive self-views

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planning fallacy

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the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task

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What aspects of ourfuture emotions are we less likely to predict well?

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the intensity and duration of the emotions

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impact bias

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overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

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· How accurate are self-reports?

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they are not very accurate

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what clearly illustratesthat we have a dual attitude system?

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our automatic implicit, unconscious attitudes regarding someone or something often differ from our consciously controlled, explicit attitudes

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self-esteem is similar to a fuel gauge

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relationships enable surviving and thriving, so the self-esteem gauge alerts us to threatened social rejection motivating us to act with greater sensitivity to other's expectations

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How is self-esteem explained from a terror managementperspective?t

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terror management theory argues that humans must find ways to manage their overwhelming fear of death--the reality of their own death motivates them to gain recognition from our work and values

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people with low self-esteem

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are more vulnerable to anxiety, loneliness, and eating disorders--when feeling bad or threatened, those low in self-esteem often take a negative view of everything

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What are the benefits of high self-esteem?

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it fosters initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings as well as savoring and sustaining the good feelings

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self-esteem vs self-efficancy

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self-esteem: a person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth

self- efficiency: a sense that one is competent and effective

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why is self-efficacy important?

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those with strong feelings of self-efficacy are more persistent, less anxious, and less depressed; they are also healthier and more academically successful

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self-serving bias

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a tendency to perceive oneself favorably

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self-serving attributions

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attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else

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How pervasive is to seeourselves better than the average person?

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on subjective, socially desirable, and common dimensions

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unrealistic optimism

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aiming too high above the realistic standards

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illusory optimism

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increases vulnerability; believing ourselves immune to misfortune

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false consensus effect

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the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions undesirable and unsuccessful behaviors; "false uniqueness effect" = underestimate

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When do people perceive themselves in self-enhancing ways?

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When errors in how we process and remember information about ourselves occur

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self-handicapping

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protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for failures later

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self-presentation

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our wanting to present a desired image both to an external audience and to an internal audience; behaving in ways to create a favorable impression

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self-monitoring

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being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting ones performance to create desired impression

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what happens when people exert self-control?

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they quit faster when given unsolvable puzzles

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priming

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activating certain associations in memory

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embodied cognition

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the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgements

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controlled vs. automatic

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controlled: reflective, deliberate, conscious, system 2

automatic: impulsive, effortless, without our awareness, system 1

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when and why people display overconfidence

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when the moment of truth is off in the future

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how does incompetence feed overconfidence?

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it takes competence to recognize competence

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confirmation bias

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a tendency to search for information that confirms ones preconceptions

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strategies to reduce overconfidence bias

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prompt feedback, think about why an idea might be true, and think of a good reason why their judgement may be wrong

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representative heuristics

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the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling a typical member

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availability heuristic

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a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory

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counterfactual thinking

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imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened but didn't; occurs when we can easily picture an alternative outcome

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illusory correlation

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perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists

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regression toward the average

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the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average

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belief perserverance

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persistence of one's initial conceptions such as when the basis for one's belief is discredited by an explanation of why the belief might be true survives

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misinformation effect

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incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it; affects our recall of social as well as physical events

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misattribution

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mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source; likely when men are in positions of power

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attribution theory

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the theory of how people explain others behaviors; dispositional: disposition or traits...situational: environment

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spontaneous trait interference

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an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior

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fundamental attribution error

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the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon other's behavior; we often ignore powerful situational determinants

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self-fulfilling prophecy

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a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

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teachers and self-fulfilling prophecies

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their high expectations seem to boost low achievers

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behavioral confirmation

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a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations

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ABCs of attitudes

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affect, behavior, cognition

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Does changing people’s attitudes affectpeople’s behavior?

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our attitudes do predict our behavior; when the attitude is specific to the behavior, and when the attitude is potent

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Implicit association test (IAT)

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test used to measure attitude

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"moral hypocrisy"

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disjuncture between attitudes and actions

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principle of aggregation

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the effects of an attitude become more apparent when we look at a person's aggregate or average behavior

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When are attitudes more likely to predict behavior?

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when forged by experience

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how can we better predictbehavior?

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by knowing people's intended behaviors and their perceived self-efficacy and control

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how does saying become believing?

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when people feel bad about deceit; when there is no compelling external explanation for one's words

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How do moral actions feedmoral attitudes?

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Actions and attitudes feed each other, sometimes to the point of moral numbness. The more one harms another and adjusts one's attitudes, the easier it becomes to do harm. Conscience is corroded.

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What does the self-presentation theory assume with respect toimpression management and the attitudes we express?

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we express attitudes that make us appear consistent

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cognitive dissonance

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tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions

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selective exposure

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the tendency to seek information and media that agree with one's views and to avoid dissonant information

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insufficient justification

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reduction or dissonance by internally justifying ones behavior when external justification is "insufficient"

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choices-influence-preferences effect

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our preferences influence our decisions, which then sharpen our preferences

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overjustification effect

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the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing

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self-perception theory

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when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us--by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs