Social Psychology Terms PDF

Social psychology terms Schemas- set of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes allow us to make sense of a person, situation, event or place based on limited information. Top-down processing – Theory driven, starting to a whole theory and to specific bits that make the general theory Bottom-up processing-...

Social psychology terms Schemas- set of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes allow us to make sense of a person, situation, event or place based on limited information. Top-down processing – Theory driven, starting to a whole theory and to specific bits that make the general theory Bottom-up processing- data driven processing, starting from small specific bits of the data and sticking together to create a general theory Types of schemas Person schemas – knowledge structures about role occupants. Scripts-schemas- about the event (festival- fireworks) (ABELSON) Self-schemas- schemas about ourselves; complex and varied Content-free schemas- rules about how to process information Categories- general family resemblance fuzzy sets of related attributes called protypes (ROSCH) Family resemblance- defining property of category membership Prototype- cognitive representation of the typical/ ideal defining features of a category, often represents the average, but may not always be the case.(CHAPLIN,JOHN,GOLDBERG) Exemplars- specific instances of a member of a category, specific concreteness (SMITH,ZARATE) Prototypes are nebulous and fuzzy whereas schemas are much more organized. (WYWE,GORDON) Stereotypes- schemas of social of social group, applied to outgroups/ often associated with prejudice, discrimination and conflict between groups - Simplified images of a member of a group - Applied t outgroups based on visible differences between groups mostly in terms of physical appearances. (ZEBROWITZ) - Adaptive cognitive shortcut that allows one to form quick impressions of people - May change but slow, due to social, political or economic changes - Crystallized later in childhood, after the age of 10 (RUTLAND) Ethnocentric- evaluated preference for all aspects of our own group relative to other group. Stereotyping- distortion for distinctive features - We judge a stimulus and draw on any and all other information we believe may help us make the judgement (HENRI TAJFEL) Cognitive Perceptual bias- relying on categories to clarify perception is a very basic human activity. Accentuate (prominent/distinctive) Accentuation principle (HENRI TAJFEL) - Similarities among instances within the same category - Differences between instances from different categories - Differences between different categories as a whole We tend to make more errors within categories than between categories Stereotype created by one group to characterize another group and that they are closely connected to the nature of the relations between the groups Involved (OAKES,HASLAM,TUNER) Basic-level categories – middle range categories that have cognitive priority because they are most useful (ROSCH) Optimal distinctiveness theory- basic level categories and subtypes balance people’s need to see people as similar to others but also different form others. Balance between conflicting motives for inclusiveness and separateness, expressed in groups as a balance between intragroup differentiation and intragroup homogenization Categorizing people according to: (BREWER) - Distinctive cues - Standing out from the group - Subjectively important schemas - Schemas that are easily retrieved from memory through recency and constant utility Circumscribed accuracy- schemas we use automatically are usually accurate enough for day-to-day interaction- top down-bottom up (SWANN)  - Attempts to buffer or circumvent the automatic processes described above are typically not very successful (ELLIS,OSLON,ZANNA) Acquiring schemas - We acquire/modify schemas through encounters with instances that fit the category - More instances, schema becomes general and abstract (PARK) - Schemas can become richer, more complex and tightly organized into a single compact material activated in an all or nothing manner - More resilient, able to incorporate expectations (FISKE,NEUBERG) Changing schemas - Schemas do not change very easily - We think a lot of our schemas, marshaling all sorts of supportive evidence (SCHUL,BURNSTEIN) - Schemas can and do change if they are really inaccurate 3 ways schemas can change (ROTHBART) - Bookkeeping – changes slowly in face of accumulating evidence - Conversion – change suddenly once a critical mass of disconfirming evidence has an accumulated - Subtyping- form subcategory to accommodate disconfirming evidence (Most common) Social encoding – process of representing external social stimuli in our minds./ depends heavily on what captures our attention, attention is influenced by salience and accessibility 4 key stages (BARGH) - Pre-attentive analysis- automatic, non-conscious scanning of the environment - Focal attention- noticed, stimuli are consciously identified and categorized - Comprehension- stimuli is given meaning - Elaborative reasoning- stimuli is linked to other knowledge to allow complex inferences. Salience- standing out to other stimuli in a particular context - Novel (original/unique - Standout from the background  - Important to a person in a particular context Salient people are considered to: - Attract attention and more influential in a group - More personally responsible for their behavior - Less influenced by the situation Accessibility of schemas or categories that we already have in our heads (HIGGINS) Priming- involves activation of accessible categories or schemas in memory that influences how we process new information Person memory- remember about people, how it organized influences our behaviors (FISKE,TAYLOR) We tend to not rely on memory but instead form impressions of people on- line The more we focus the more deeply we process and store information about a person (SRULL,WYER) Associative network- specific ideas or items of memory, called nodes are linked to other nodes. (ANDERSON) - Being activated by cognitive rehearsals - Number of strong links to it 2 levels of memory - Long term memory- vast store of information that can be brought to mind - Short term memory- working memory, smaller amount of information, have in consciousness and is focus of your attention at a specific time This basic model applies to person memory Person memory - Concrete appearance to abstract appearance - Valence positive desirable to negative- undesirable - Based on directly observable concrete information and is stored like picture in the mind - Accurate at remembering faces  - Less accurate in remembering outgroup faces - But at remembering appearance at natural context. -we store trait memories as propositions that can be quite abstract, based on causal inferences drawn from behavior and situations (PARK) -social desirability- warm, pleasant, friendly - competence-intelligent industrious, efficient (SCHNEIDER,HASTORF,ELLSWORTH) -how we remember an act is influence by our inferences about its purpose or goal (HOFFMAN,MISCHEL,MAZZE) Organizing Person’s memory 2 distinct ways - Organizing person memory by person- produce rich and accurate person memories that are easily recalled, familiar, real people with whom we expect to interact across many specific situations (SEDIKIDES,OSTORM) - Organizing person memory by group- first encounters with strangers; pigeon-holed, described and stored in terms of stereotypical attributes of a salient social category Social inference- social cognition, refers to the way we process social information to form impressions of people and make judgements about them 2 categories (BREWER) - Uses categories and is relatively automatic - Person’s attributes and is more deliberate -Differences between schemas and those based on data (FISKE,NEUBERG) 2 different processing routes whenever our attitude comes into play (EAGLY,CHAIKEN) 1. Heuristic/peripheral route- rapid top-of-the-head decisions, based on schemas, stereotypes and other cognitive shortcuts 2. Systematic/central route- we need to thing carefully and deliberately Illusory Correlation- cognitive exaggeration of degree of co-occurrence of two stimuli or events where connection does not exist 2 bases of illusory correlation (CHAPMEN) Associative meaning- items are seen as belonging together because they ought to Paired distinctiveness- items are thought to go together because they share some unusual features In real life negative events are distinctive because they are perceived to be more rare than positive events (PARDUCCI) For example, illusory correlation based on distinctiveness will occur and produce negative stereotyping of minority groups Cognitive Heuristics Heuristics- reduce complex problem solving to simpler judgmental operations Representative heuristics- happens we asses how similar we think an instance. Availability heuristics- events or associations that come readily to mind are considered to be more common and prevalent than they really are Anchoring and adjustment- impressions are tied to earlier perceptions that are a starting point, much like the primacy effect. People are anchored in beliefs about ourselves. People as naïve psychologist (HEIDER) - Intuitive psychologists who construct causal theories of human behavior and because such theories have the same form as systematic scientific social psychological theories. Internal (dispositional) attributions- assigning the cause of our own or others behaviors to internal or dispositional factors External (situational) attributions- cause of our own or others behaviors to external or environmental factors People as everyday scientist Covariation model-causal attributions- people assign the cause of behavior to the factor that covaries most closely with the behavior (KELLEY’S) 3 performance dimensions (WEINER) 1. Locus- caused by the actor/ internal? /external? 2. Stability- internal cause stable or unstable 3. Controllability -what extent is future task performance under the actor’s control Self-perception theory- we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self attributions (BEM) - We make attributions for our own behavior in the same way as we make attributions for others’ behaviors - Through internal attribution of our own behavior that we gain knowledge about ourselves, our self-concept and identity Defining emotions 2 distinct components 1. Psychological arousal 2. Cognitions Attribution bias- inferring about something based on their action. Attributing our emotions based on the influence of other people’s action towards us Attributional style- individual personality predisposition to make certain type of causal attribution for behavior Internals- internal attributions we have great deal of personal control over our destiny External- external attributions, believing that we have little control over what happens to us- chance, luck or actions of powerful external agents (ROTTER) Attributional conflict- partners in a relationship disagree over attributions (HILTON) Correspondent inference- explain that people infer that a person’s behavior corresponds to an underlying disposition or personality trait (JONES,DAVIS,JONES,MCGILLIS) Correspondence bias- fundamental attribution error- tendency for people to attribute behavior internally to stable underlying personality dispositions. (GILBERT,MALONE) - Arises primarily because people tend to automatically to focus on the person against the background of the situation. The other focus of their attention And is therefore or salient in information processing (RHOLES,PRYOR) Essentialism- correspondence bias extreme form (NICK HASLAM) Actor -observer effect- attribute our own behaviors and others’ behavior internally (JONES,NISBETT,WATSON) Focus of attention- other people focus we judge them against the background of the situation. We consider our own actions we focus outwards the situation rather than inward Asymmetry of information- we know more about ourselves and therefore know that our behavior is influenced by situational factors because we have differently in different situations False consensus- people tend to overestimate how typical their own behavior is. (ROSS,GREENE,HOUSE) - We usually seek out familiar others and so should not be surprised to find that other people are similar to us - Our own opinions are so salient to us that they eclipse the possibility of alternate opinions - We are motivated to ground our opinions and actions in perceived consensus in order to validate them and build a stable world for ourselves (MARKS,MILLER) Self-serving bias- attribution is influenced by our desire for favorable image of ourselves Self-enhancing bias- we take credit for our positive behaviors as reflecting who we are and our intention and effort to do positive things Self-protecting bias-we explain away our negative behaviors as being due to coercion normative strains and other external situational factors that do not reflect who you really are self-handicapping-publicly making advanced external attribution for our anticipated failure or poor performance in forthcoming event (JONES,BERGLAS) illusion of control (LANGER) (FURNHAM) intergroup attribution-groups develop causal explanations for themselves as group members and others as either in Group or out group members(HEWSTONE) ultimate attribution error-tendency to internally attribute bad outgroup and good in Group behavior and too externally attribute good outgroup and bad in Group behavior (PETTIGREW) intergroup attribution- process of assigning costs of ones or others behavior to group members Social representations - common sense explanations of the world we live in, through everyday informal communication among people to transform the unfamiliar and complex into the familiar and straightforward, defied or often ritualized distortions of the real nature of world(CIOLDI,CLEMENCE,MOSCOVICI) Rumors-unverified accounts between individual who try to make sense of events that are uncertain or confusing (ALLPORT,POSTMAN) Conspiracy theory-convoluted causal theories they attribute widespread natural and social calamities to the intentional and organized activities of certain social groups depicted as conspiratorial but this what to do when and then dominate the rest of humanity conspiracy theories waxs and wane in popularity (BILIG)