Social Psychology - Midterm #2

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Prime

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To mentally activate a concept and hence make it accessible (Also used as a noun—a stimulus presented to activate a concept)

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Balance Theory

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The theory that people try to maintain balance among their beliefs, cognitions, and sentiments

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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The theory that inconsistencies between a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions create an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency

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Effort Justification

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The tendency to reduce dissonance by finding reasons for why we have devoted time, effort, or money to something that has turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing

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Induced (forced) compliance

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Subtly compelling individuals to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes, or values, which typically leads to dissonance and to a change in their original attitudes or values in order to reduce their dissonance

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Self-affirmation

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Bolstering our identity and self-esteem by taking note of important elements of our identity, such as our important values

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Self-perception theory

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A theory that people come to know their own attitudes by looking at their behavior and the context in which it occurred and inferring what their attitudes must be

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Interpersonal simulation

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Experiments in which an “observer-participant” is given a detailed description of one condition of a dissonance experiment, is told how a participant behaved in that situation, and is asked to predict the attitude of that participant

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System Justification Theory

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The theory that people are motivated to see the existing political and social status quo as desirable, fair, and legitimate

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Terror Management Theory (TMT)

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The theory that people deal with the potentially paralyzing anxiety that comes with the knowledge of the inevitability of death by striving for symbolic immortality through the preservation of a valued worldview and the conviction that one has lived up to its values and prescriptions

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Attitude

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An evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion that includes the three elements of affect, cognitions, and behavior

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Likert scale

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A numerical scale used to assess people’s attitudes that includes a set of possible answers and that has anchors on each extreme

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Response latency

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The time it takes an individual to respond to a stimulus such as an attitude question

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Utilitarian function

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An attitudinal function that serves to alert us to rewarding objects and situations we should approach and costly or punishing objects or situations we should avoid

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Ego-defensive function

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An attitudinal function that enables us to maintain cherished beliefs about ourselves by protecting us from awareness of our negative attributes and impulses or from facts that contradict our cherished beliefs or desires

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Terror management theory

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A theory that to ward off the anxiety we feel when contemplating our own demise, we cling to cultural worldviews and strongly held values out of a belief that by doing so part of us will survive death

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Value-expressive function

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An attitudinal function whereby attitudes help us express our most cherished values—usually in groups in which they can be supported and reinforced

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Reference groups

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Groups whose opinions matter to us and that affect our opinions and beliefs

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Knowledge function

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An attitudinal function whereby attitudes help organize our understanding of the world, guiding how we attend to, store, and retrieve information

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Heuristic-systematic model

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A model of persuasion that maintains that there are two different routes of persuasion: the systematic route and the heuristic route

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Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)

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A model of persuasion that maintains that there are two different routes of persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route

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Central (systematic) route

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A persuasive route wherein people think carefully and deliberately about the content of a message, attending to its logic, cogency, and arguments, as well as to related evidence and principles

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Peripheral (heuristic) route

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A persuasive route wherein people attend to relatively simple, superficial cues related to the message, such as the length of the message or the expertise or attractiveness of the communicator

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Source Characteristics

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Characteristics of the person who delivers the message, including the person’s attractiveness, credibility, and expertise

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Sleeper effect

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An effect that occurs when messages from unreliable sources initially exert little influence but later cause individuals’ attitudes to shift

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Message characteristics

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Aspects of the message itself, including the quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions

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Identifiable victim effect

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The tendency to be more moved by the plight of a single, vivid individual than by a more abstract aggregate of individuals

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Receiver Characteristics

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Characteristics of the person who receives the message, including age, mood, personality, and motivation to attend to the message

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Third-person effect

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The assumption by most people that being influence by persuasive messages (such as those in media campaigns) than they themselves are

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Agenda control

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Efforts of the media to select certain events and topics to emphasize, thereby shaping which issues and events we think are important

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Thought polarization hypothesis

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The hypothesis that more extended thought about a particular issue tends to produce more extreme, entrenched attitudes

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Attitude Inoculation

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Small attacks on our beliefs that engage our attitudes, prior commitments, and knowledge structures, enabling us to counteract a subsequent larger attack and be resistant to persuasion

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Social influence

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The myriad ways that people impact one another, including changes in attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and behavior, that result form the comments, actions, or even the mere presence of others

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Conformity

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Changing one’s behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit pressure (whether real or imagined) from others

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Compliance

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Responding favorably to an explicit request by another person

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Obedience

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In an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands of the more powerful person

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Ideometer action

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The phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behavior makes its actual performance more likely

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Autokinetic illusion

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The apparent motion of a stationary point of light in a completely darkened environment

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Informational social influence

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The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective

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Normative social influence

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The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval, harsh judgments, and other social sanctions (for example, barbs, ostracism)

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Internalization (private acceptance)

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Private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology

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Public compliance

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Agreeing with someone or advancing a position in public, even if we continue to believe something else in private

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Norm of reciprocity

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A norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who benefit them

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Door-in-the-face technique (reciprocal concessions technique)

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Asking someone for a very large favor that he or she will certainly refuse and then following that request with one for a more modest favor (which tends to be seen as a concession that the target will feel compelled to honor)

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That’s-Not-All Technique

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Adding something to an original offer, which is likely to create some pressure to reciprocate

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Foot-in-the-Door Technique

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A compliance technique in which one makes an initial small request to which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behavior of interest

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Negative state relief hypothesis

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The idea that people engage in certain actions, such as agreeing to a request, in order to relieve negative feelings and to feel better about themselves

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Reactance theory

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The idea that people reassert their prerogatives in response to the unpleasant state of arousal they experience when they believe their freedoms are threatened

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Propinquity

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Physical proximity

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Sociometric survey

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A survey that attempts to measure the interpersonal relationships in a group of people

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Functional distance

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An architectural layout’s tendency to encourage or inhibit certain activities, like contact between people

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Counterbalancing

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A methodological procedure used to ensure that any extraneous variable (for example, a stimulus person’s name) that might influence the dependent measure (for example, liking) is distributed equally across experimental conditions (so that, for example, specific names are used often equally in all conditions of the experiment)

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The Mere Exposure Effect

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The finding that repeated exposure to a stimulus (for example, an object or person) leads to greater liking of the stimulus)

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Fluency

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The experience of ease associated with perceiving and thinking

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Complementarity

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The tendency for people to seek out others with characteristics that are different from and that complement their own

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The Halo Effect

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The common belief—accurate or not—that attractive individuals possess a host of positive qualities beyond their physical appearance

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Self-fulfilling prophecy

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The tendency for people to act in ways that bring about the very thing they expect to happen

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Reproductive fitness

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The capacity to get one’s genes passed on to subsequent generations

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Intrasex competition

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Direct competition between two or more males or two or more females for access to members of the opposite sex

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Intersex attraction

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The interest in and attraction toward a member of the opposite sex

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Social exchange theory

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A theory based on the fact that there are costs and rewards in all relationships and that how people feel about a relationship depends on their assessments of its costs and rewards and the costs and rewards available to them in other relationships

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Equity theory

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A theory that maintains that people are motivated to pursue fairness, or equity, in their relationships, with rewards and costs shared roughly equally among individuals

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Interpersonal relationships

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Attachments in which bonds of family or friendship or love or respect or hierarchy tie together two or more individuals over an extended period of time

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Attachment theory

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A theory about how our early attachments with our parents shape our relationships for the remainder of our lives

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Working model of relationships

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A conceptual model of relationships with our current partners—including their availability, warmth, and ability to provide security—as derived from our childhood experience with how available and warm our parents were

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Strange situation

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An experimental situation designed to assess an infant’s attachment to the caregiver. An infant’s reactions are observed after her caregiver has left her alone in an unfamiliar room with a stranger and then when the caregiver returns to the room (the reunion)

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Secure attachment style

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An attachment style characterized by feelings of security in relationships. Individuals with this style are comfortable with intimacy and want to be close to others during times of threat and uncertainty

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Avoidant attachment style

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An attachment style characterized by feelings of insecurity in relationships. Individuals with this style exhibit compulsive self-reliance, prefer distance from others, and are dismissive and detached during times of threat and uncertainty

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Anxious attachment style

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An attachment style characterized by feelings of insecurity in relationships. Individuals with this style compulsively seek closeness, express continual worries about relationships, and excessively try to get closer to others during times of threat and uncertainty

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Relational self theory

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A theory that examines how prior relationships shape our current beliefs, feelings, and interactions vis-à-vis people who remind us of significant others from our past

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Relational self

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The beliefs, feelings, and expectations that we have about ourselves that derive from our relationships with significant others in our lives

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Communal relationships

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Relationships in which the individuals feel a special responsibility for one another and give and receive according to the principle of need; such relationships are often long-term

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Exchange relationships

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Relationships in which the individuals feel little responsibility toward one another and in which giving and receiving are governed by concerns about equity and reciprocity; such relationships are often short-term

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Power

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The ability to control our own outcomes and those of others; the freedom to act

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Status

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The outcome of an evaluation of attributes that produces differences in respect and prominence, which in part determines an individual’s power within a group

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Authority

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Power that derives from institutionalized roles or arrangements

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Dominance

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Behavior that has the acquisition or demonstration of power as its goal

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Approach/inhibition theory

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A theory that states that higher-power individuals are inclined to go after their goals and make quick judgments, whereas low-power individuals are more likely to constrain their behavior and attend to others carefully

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Social dominance orientation

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The desire to see one’s own group dominate other groups

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Triangular theory of love

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A theory that states that there are three major components of love—passion, intimacy, and commitment—which can be combined in different ways

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Investment model of romantic satisfaction

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A model of interpersonal relationships that maintains that three things make partners more committed to each other: rewards, few alternative partners, and investments in the relationship

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Interaction dynamics approach

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A methodological approach to the study of the behaviors and conversations of couples, with a focus on both negative behaviors (such as anger, criticism, defensiveness, contempt, sadness, and fear) and positive behaviors (such as affection, enthusiasm, interest, and humor)