Chapter 12 overview Flashcards
(20 cards)
Define social psychology
How thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by: the presence of other people, social context, physical environment
Social cognition
The mental processes people used to make sense of their social environments
Social influence
Focuses on how our behavior is affected by other people and by situational factors
Person perception
Mental process used to form judgments about other people
– An active process
– Subjectively determined
– First impressions formed automatically
Explicit cognition
Deliberate, conscious mental processes involved in perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning
Implicit cognition
Mental processes associated with automatic, non-conscious, social evaluations
Social categorization
Mental processes of categorizing people based on shared characteristics
Implicit personality theory
Cognitive schemas about traits and behaviors associated with different types of people
Attribution
Cognitive process of inferring the causes of peoples behavior
– An attempt to answer the question why did that person do that?
Includes your behavior
Fundamental attribution error
Internal attributions (A attributing behavior to characteristics of the person themselves) for behavior of others
External attributions (attributing behavior to the situation or circumstance) for the behavior of self
Example: I did it because I was in a bad mood, but she did it because she’s a bad person
Hindsight bias
Tennessee to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of a event
Self-serving bias
Internal attributions for your own successes and external attributions for your own failures
Attitude
A learned tendency to evaluate some object, person, or issue an a particular way
Can be positive, negative, ambivalent
Attitude components:
Cognitive: thoughts and conclusions about given topic or situation
Effective: feelings or emotions about topic
Behavior: your actions regarding the issue, person, or object
Cognitive dissonance
An unpleasant state of psychological tension that occurs when there is an inconsistency between two thoughts or perceptions
People automatically seek to decrease this discomfort
– Rationalizing behavior to feel OK about it
– Changing your attitude, so that fits with your behavior
Stereotype
A cluster of characteristics associated with all members of a specific social group or category
In – group
The Social group to which one belongs
Out-group
The Social group to which one does not belong
In-group bias
Tenancy to make favorable attributions to members of your own group
Out-group homogeneity effect
Ingroup perceived of having lots of variety
Out group perceived as being similar to one another
Implicit attitudes
Positive or negative evaluation that are automatic, unintentional, and difficult to control
– Austin outside of consciousness
– Often conflict with explicit beliefs, and attitudes
– Still influence, choices, and behavior
