Social Psychology: Attribution and Bias

• This flashcard set covers social psychology, personality, and related concepts.

Attribution

• Dispositional Attribution: Behavior is attributed to a person’s personality.
• Situational Attribution: Behavior is attributed to external factors such as luck or other people.
• Explanatory Style: Habitual way of explaining life events.
• Optimistic Explanatory Style: Explaining unfavorable events as unstable, temporary, and controllable
• Pessimistic Explanatory Style: Interpreting negative events as internally based and a constant, stable quality.
• Actor/Observer Bias: The tendency to attribute one's own actions to the situation and others' actions to their personalities.
• Fundamental Attribution Error: Underestimating the impact of the situation and overestimating the impact of personal disposition when analyzing others' behavior.
• Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.

Locus of Control

• Internal Locus of Control: The perception that you control your own fate.
• External Locus of Control: The perception that chance or outside forces determine your fate.

Social Cognition

• Mere Exposure Effect: Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: An expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true.
• Upward Social Comparison: Comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are.
• Downward Social Comparison: Comparing ourselves to people who are worse than we are.
• Relative Deprivation: The perception that one is worse off than those they compare themselves to.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

• Stereotype: A generalized belief about a group of people.
• Cognitive Load: The amount of mental resources needed to carry out a task.
• Prejudice: An unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members.
• Discrimination: Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.
• Implicit Attitudes: Attitudes that influence feelings and behavior at an unconscious level.
• Just-World Phenomenon: The belief that the world is just and people get what they deserve.
• Out-group Homogeneity Effect: The tendency to see members of out-groups as very similar to one another.
• In-Group Bias: The tendency to favor individuals within our group over those from outside our group.
• Ethnocentrism: Belief in the superiority of one's ethnic group.

Beliefs and Biases

• Belief Perseverance: Clinging to one's initial conceptions after they have been discredited.
• Confirmation Bias: Seeking information that supports preconceptions and ignoring contradictory evidence.
• Cognitive Dissonance: Unpleasant state when a person recognizes inconsistency in their actions, attitudes, or beliefs.
• Social norms: Expectations regarding what is appropriate and acceptable for members' attitudes and behaviors.

Social Influence and Persuasion

• Social Influence Theory: People do and report what is expected of them.
• Normative Social Influence: Influence from a desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.
• Informational Social Influence: Influence from taking others' comments or actions as correct, proper, or effective.
• Persuasion: The process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people's beliefs or actions.

Group Dynamics

• Groupthink: Desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives.
• Diffusion of Responsibility: Reduction in feelings of personal responsibility in the presence of others.
• Social Loafing: People exert less effort in a group when pooling efforts toward a common goal.
• Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
• Social Facilitation: Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.
• False Consensus Effect: Overestimating the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.
• Superordinate Goals: Shared goals that override differences and require cooperation.
• Group Polarization: The shift of group members to an extreme position after discussing an issue as a group.

Persuasion Models and Techniques

• Elaboration Likelihood Model: Theory of how persuasive messages lead to attitude changes.
• Central Route Persuasion: Attitude change through focus on arguments and facts.
• Peripheral Route Persuasion: Attitude change influenced by incidental cues, like a speaker's attractiveness.
• Halo Effect: Tendency to draw a general impression based on a single characteristic.
• Foot-in-the-Door Technique: Making a small request before incrementally increasing later requests.
• Door-in-the-Face Technique: Making an unreasonably large request before making a smaller, hoped-for request.

Social Issues

• Social Trap: Conflicting parties, pursuing self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Workplace Psychology

• Industrial-Organizational Psychology: Application of psychological concepts to optimize human behavior in workplaces.
• Burnout: Physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from long-term involvement in emotionally demanding situations.

Altruism and Social Norms

• Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
• Prosocial Behavior: Positive, constructive, helpful behavior.
• Social Debt: Guilt from negative social interactions.
• Social Reciprocity Norm: An expectation that people will help those who have helped them.
• Social Responsibility Norm: An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them.

Conformity and Obedience

• Conformity: Adjusting behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
• Obedience: Changing behavior at the command of an authority figure.

Cultural Psychology

• Individualism: Prioritizing one's own goals over group goals.
• Collectivism: Prioritizing the goals of one's group.
• Multiculturalism: Valuing and respecting differences in culture.

Bystander Effect and Situational Variables

• Bystander Effect: A person is less likely to provide help when others are nearby.
• Situational Variables: Environment features affecting the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures.
• Attentional variables: A factor that influences focused attention.

Psychodynamic Theory

• Psychodynamic Theory: Emphasizes internal conflicts, motives, unconscious forces and their influence on behavior.
• Unconscious Processes: Mental processes that are not available to conscious awareness.
• Ego Defense Mechanisms: Unconscious distortions of thoughts or perceptions that reduce anxiety.
• Denial: Refusing to believe or perceive painful realities.
• Displacement: Redirecting aggressive impulses onto a less dangerous target.
• Projection: Attributing one's own threatening impulses to others.
• Rationalization: Offering self-justifying explanations for one's actions.
• Reaction Formation: Behaving in a way opposite to true feelings.
• Regression: Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage.
• Repression: Forcing anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings into the unconscious.
• Sublimation: Directing unacceptable energies into socially admirable outlets.
• Projective Test: Personality test using ambiguous stimuli to trigger projection of inner dynamics.
• Preconscious Mind: Contains inactive but potentially accessible thoughts and memories.
• Unconscious Mind: Where thoughts, feelings, and memories are kept that are not easily brought into consciousness.

Humanistic Psychology

• Humanistic Psychology: Emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.
• Unconditional Regard: Total acceptance toward another person.
• Self-Actualizing Tendency: The striving to fulfill one's innate capacities and capabilities.

Social-Cognitive Theory and Self-Concept

• Social Cognitive Theory: Use of cognitive processes in relation to understanding the social world.
• Reciprocal Determinism: Interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.
• Self-Concept: All thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
• Self-Efficacy: Belief in one's capability to perform a task.
• Self-Esteem: How much you value, respect, and feel confident about yourself.

Trait Theories and Personality Dimensions

• Trait Theories: Describe characteristics that make up human personality to predict future behavior.
• Big Five Theory: Identifies five main personality characteristics:
  • Agreeableness: Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting.
  • Openness to Experience: Imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity.
  • Extraversion: Sociable, gregarious, and assertive.
  • Conscientiousness: Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.
  • Emotional Stability: Feeling secure and unworried
• Personality Inventories: Questionnaires assessing a range of feelings and behaviors to assess traits.
• Factor Analysis: Statistical technique explaining correlations in terms of underlying factors.

Motivation Theories

• Drive Reduction Theory: Motivation arises from imbalances in homeostasis.
• Homeostasis: Maintaining a balanced internal state.
• Arousal Theory: People are motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness.
• Optimal Level of Arousal: The human need for a comfortable level of stimulation.
• Yerkes-Dodson Law: Performance increases with arousal only up to a point.
• Self-Determination Theory: Concerned with the beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation.
• Intrinsic Motivation: Performing a behavior for its own sake.

This flashcard set covers attribution theory, biases, and locus of control in social psychology. It includes dispositional and situational attribution, explanatory styles, actor/observer bias, fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias. The set also focuses on the concepts of internal vs external locus of control.