In explaining our own behavior or the behavior of those we know well, we often resort to:

Vocabulary-

Social Psychology: the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

Attribution Theory: the theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting it to either the situation to the person’s disposition

Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Attitude: feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events

Peripheral Route Persuasion: attitude change path in which people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness

Central Route Persuasion: attitude change path in which interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts

Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon: the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

Role: a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thought are inconsistent

Conformity: adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Normative Social Influence: influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence: influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

Social Facilitation: stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others

Social Loafing: the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Deindividuation: the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

Group Polarization: the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group

Groupthink: the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives

Prejudice / Overt Prejudice: an unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members; usually involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

Stereotype: a generalized belief about a group of people

Discrimination: unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members

In-group: “us”-people with whom we share a common identity

Out-group: “them”-those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup

In-group Bias: the tendency to favor our own group

Scapegoat Theory: the theory that prejudice offers and outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

Other-Race Effect: the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races

Just-World Phenomenon: the tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get

Aggression: any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy

Implicit Attitudes: evaluations that occur without conscious awareness towards an attitude object or the self

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

Norms: an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior

Personal Space: the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies

Reciprocity Norms: an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

Social Responsibility Norm: an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion: emotion is based on two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive label

Win-Win Situations: a situation in which cooperation leads to all participants benefiting

Frustration-Aggression Principle: the principle that frustration-the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal-creates anger, which can generate aggression

Conflict: a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas

Social Trap: a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior

Mirror-Image Perceptions/The Chameleon Effect: mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

Mere Exposure Effect: the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them

Passionate Love: an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship

Companionate Love: the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those whom our lives are intertwined

Equity / Inequity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it

Self-Disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

Altruism: unselfish regard for the welfare of others

Bystander Effect: the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

Social Exchange Theory: the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs

Superordinate Goals: shared goals that override difference among people and require their cooperation

GRIT: (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction) a strategy designed to decrease international tensions

Best odds of helping someone:

• The person appears to need and deserve help
• The person is in some way similar to us
• We have just observed someone else being helpful
• We are not in a hurry
• We are in a small town or rural area
• We are feeling guilty
• We are focused on others and not preoccupied
• We are in a good mood

Factors that promote groupthink:

• Isolation of the group
• High group cohesiveness
• Directive leadership
• Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures
• Homogeneity of members’ social background
• High stress from external threats 

Four sources of attraction:

a. Proximity: the idea is that people will work harder to make friends with those to whom they are closest (physically)
b. Similarity: people usually find it more rewarding to have a relationship with someone who shares the same attitudes, interests, values, and experiences as they do
c. Self-disclosure: it takes time to develop the trust necessary to share intimate details about oneself (generally want to spend time around those who know us best)
d. Physical attractiveness: people are generally attracted to those who are more physically attractive (sometimes average=attractive, and beautiful=unapproachable)

5 causes of discrimination:

a. Dissimilarity and social distance: the perceive difference between 2 people-usually culturally based
b. Economic competition: when one group wins economic benefits at the expense of another group
c. Scapegoating: blaming an innocent person for one’s own troubles
d. Conformity to social norms: an “unthinking tendency” to keep things the way they are, even if they may be wrong
e. Media stereotypes: images, words, or ideas used to project groups in a certain, over-generalized way

Questions-

1. Describe the 3 main focuses of social psychology.

-Social psychology focuses on how people think about one another, influence one another, and relate to one another.

2. Contrast dispositional and situational attributions, and explain the fundamental attribution error.

-We usually rely on situational attributions, stressing the influence of external events, to explain our own behavior (and often the behavior of those we know well and see in many different contexts). But in explaining the actions of people we do not know well, we often resort to dispositional attributions, assuming they behave as they do because of their personal traits. This fundamental attribution error (overestimating the influence of personal factors and underestimating the effect of context) can introduce inaccuracies into judgments we make about others.

3. Explain how foot-in-the-door phenomenon and cognitive dissonance illustrate the influence of actions on attitudes.

-The foot-in-the-door phenomenon describes people’s willingness to agree to a large request after having agreed to a related small request. In role-playing studies, such as Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment, people who behaved in certain ways in scripted scenarios have adopted attitudes in keeping with those roles. Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory proposes that we feel uncomfortable when we act in ways that conflict with our feelings and beliefs, and we reduce this discomfort by revising our attitudes to align them more closely with our behavior. In all three instances, attitudes adapt to behavior, rather than drive it.

4. Describe the chameleon effect and give an example.

-The chameleon effect is our tendency to unconsciously mimic those around us, as when we yawn when others yawn, or pick up the mood of a happy or sad person. Automatic mimicry is an ingredient in the ability to empathize with others.

5. Distinguish between normative and informational social influence.

-Solomon Asch found that people will conform to a group’s judgment even when it is clearly incorrect. Conformity increases when we feel incompetent or insecure, admire the group’s status and attractiveness, have made no prior commitment to a response, are being observed by members of the group, come from a culture that strongly encourages respect for group standards, and are in a group with at least three members, all unanimous in their decision. We may conform either to gain social approval (normative social influence) or because we welcome the information that others provide (informational social influence). We are most open to informational social influence if we are unsure of what is right and being right matters.

6. Explain how conformity and obedience studies can help us understand our susceptibility to social influence.

-In the conformity studies, randomly chosen ordinary people conformed in spite of their own beliefs. In the obedience studies, randomly chosen ordinary people obeyed instructions to deliver punishments that, if real, would have harmed total strangers. People who resisted instructions did so early; after that, attitudes followed behavior. If we learn from these experiments the underlying processes that can shape our behavior, we may be less susceptible to powerful social influences in real-life situations in which we must choose between adhering to our own standards or being responsive to others.

7. Discuss how group interaction can facilitate group polarization and groupthink.

-Within groups, discussions among like-minded members often produce group polarization, an enhancement of the group’s prevailing opinions. This process fosters groupthink, as groups pressure members to conform, suppress dissenting information, and fail to consider alternatives. To prevent groupthink, leaders can welcome a variety of opinions, invite experts’ critiques, and assign people to identify possible problems in developing plans.

8. Identify 3 components of prejudice. Cite 3 ways that cognitive processes help create and maintain prejudice.

- Prejudice is an attitude composed of beliefs, emotions, and predispositions to action. The beliefs are frequently stereotypes (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized beliefs). The emotions are most often negative, and the action is usually discrimination (unjustifiable negative behavior). We simplify the world around us by creating categories, but when we categorize people, we often stereotype them, overgeneralizing their characteristics and underestimating their differences. We also tend to judge the frequency of events by vivid cases (violence, for example) that come to mind more readily than the long string of less vivid events involving the same group. We may justify people’s less-privileged or punished position by the just-world phenomenon, assuming that the world is just and people get what they deserve. Hindsight bias (the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we would have predicted it beforehand) may contribute to this tendency to blame the victim.

9. Explain how scapegoating illustrates the emotional component of prejudice.

-Troubled times, especially those that remind us of our own mortality, produce feelings of fear and anger. As in-group loyalty and out-group prejudice intensify, people may search for a scapegoat—someone to blame for the troubling event. Such denigrating of despised others can boost in-group members’ self-esteem.

10. Describe 3 levels of biological influence on aggression & 3 psychological triggers of aggression.

-Psychologists dismiss the idea that aggression is instinctual and confirm that it results from an interaction between biology and experience. Genes influence aggression, for example by influencing our temperament. Experiments stimulating portions of the brain (such as the amygdala and frontal lobes) demonstrate that the brain has neural systems that facilitate or inhibit aggression. Studies of the effect of hormones (such as testosterone), alcohol (which releases inhibitions), and other substances show that biochemical influences also contribute to aggression. Biological conditions set the threshold for aggressiveness, but psychological factors trigger aggressive behaviors. Aversive events (such as environmental conditions or social rejection) can create frustration, leading to feelings of anger and hostility. Reinforcement for aggressive behavior (such as gaining a treat from another student by bullying) can establish learned patterns of aggression that are difficult to change. People can also learn aggression and become desensitized to violence by observing models act aggressively in person (watching violence within the family or neighborhood, for example) or in the media (watching violence or sexual aggression on TV or in movies). Media depictions of violence can trigger aggression in another way: by providing social scripts (culturally sanctioned ways of acting in a given situation).

11. Explain how social traps and mirror-image perceptions fuel social conflict.

-Social conflicts are situations in which people perceive their actions, goals, or ideas to be incompatible. In social traps, two or more individuals engage in mutually destructive behavior by rationally pursuing their own personal interests without regard for the well-being of others. Helping people to agree on regulations, communicate better, and be more aware of responsibilities toward others can foster cooperation and avoid social traps. People in conflict tend to perceive the worst in each other, producing mirror-images of identical demons. The perceptions can become self-fulfilling prophecies, triggering reactions that confirm the images.

12. Describe the influence of proximity, physical attractiveness, and similarity on interpersonal attraction.

-Proximity—geographical nearness—promotes attraction, in part because it increases the opportunities for interaction and in part because of the mere exposure effect (repeated exposure to novel stimuli enhances liking). Physical attractiveness also increases opportunities for interaction. People prefer being with attractive people and perceive them as healthier, happier, more sensitive, more successful, and more socially skilled. Judgments of attractiveness vary by culture, and as time goes by we find those we care about to be more attractive. Similarity of attitudes and interests greatly increases liking after people make it past the first impression. The reward theory of attraction states that we tend to like people whose behavior is rewarding to us, and we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs.

13. Describe the effect of physical arousal on passionate love, and identify 2 predictors of enduring companionate love.

-Associating arousal with a desirable person is a key ingredient of passionate love, the intense absorption we cognitively label as love. Passionate love often matures into the deep affectionate attachment of companionate love. This transition is most likely in relationships characterized by equality and intimate self-disclosure.

14. Explain altruistic behavior from the perspective of social exchange theory and social norms.

-Social exchange theory proposes that our social behaviors—even altruistic, helpful acts—are based on self-interest: maximizing our benefits (which may include our own good feelings) and minimizing our costs. Social norms influence altruistic behaviors by telling us how we should behave. The reciprocity norm is the expectation that we will help those who help us, and the social-responsibility norm is the expectation that we will help those who are dependent on us.

When we explain the causes our own Behaviour or of those we know well we often use?

How does our explanation of strangers behavior differ from that of our own behavior?

What are the three main focuses of psychology?

When attitude influence feelings and behavior on an unconscious level they are called?