PSYC 101 FINAL EXAM STUDY NOTES
Chapter 12
Vocab:
- Social Psychology: the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals’ thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.
- Person Perception: the process of forming impressions of others
- Stereotypes: widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their
membership in a particular group
- Ingroup: a group that one belongs to and identifies with
- Outgroup: a group that one does not belong to or identify with
- Attributions: are inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others’ behavior, and
their own behavior
- Internal attributions: ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and
feelings
- External attributions: ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental
constraints
- Fundamental attribution error: refers to observers’ bias in favor of internal attributions in
explaining others’ behavior
- Self-serving bias: is the tendency to attribute one’s success to personal factors and one’s failures
to situational factors
- Individualsim: involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals, and defining one’s identity in
terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships
- Collectivism: involves putting group goals ahead of personal goals, and defining one’s identity in
terms of the groups one belongs to
- Interpersonal attraction: refers to positive feelings toward another person
- Matching hypothesis: proposes that males and females of approximately equal physical
attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners
- Reciprocity: involves liking those who show that they like us
- Passionate love: is a complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the
agony and ecstasy of intense emotion
- Companionate love: is warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply
intertwined with one’s own
- Attitudes: are positive or negative evaluations of objects of thought
- Explicit attitudes: are attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe
- Implicit attitudes: are covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses over
which one has little conscious control
- Factors in Persuasion:
- The source is the person who sends a communication, and the receiver is the person to
whom the message is sent.
- The message is the information transmitted by the source, and the channel is the
medium through which the message is sent
- Mere exposure effect: is the finding that repeated exposures to a stimulus promotes greater liking
of the stimulus
- Cognitive dissonance: exists when related attitudes or beliefs are inconsistent; that is, when they
contradict each other
- Conformity: occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure
- Normative influence: operates when people conform to social norms for fear of negative social
consequences
, - Informational influence: operates when people look to others for guidance about how to behave in
ambiguous situations
- Obedience: is a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually
from someone in a position of authority
- Group: consists of two or more individuals who interact and are interdependent
- Bystander effect: people are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups than
when they are alone
- Social loafing: is a reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups, as compared with
when they work by themselves
- Group polarization: occurs when group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view
and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction
- Groupthink: occurs when members of a cohesive group emplasize concurrence at the expense of
critical thinking in arriving at a decision
- Group cohesiveness: refers tot he strength of the liking relationships linking group members to
each other and to the group itself
- Prejudice: is a negative attitude held toward members of a group
- Discrimination: which involves behaving differntly, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group
- Foot-in-the-door: involves getting people to agree to a small request to increase the chances they
will agree to a larger request
- Reciprocity norm: the rule that we should pay back in kind what we receive from others
- Lowball technique: involves getting someone to commit to a seemingly attractive proposition
before its hidden costs are revealed
Study Guide:
- What is a cognitive schema?
- a schema describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of
information and the relationships among them.
- Personal Perception
- Judgements of others can be distorted by their physical appearance, as we tend to
ascribe desirable personality characteristics and competence to those who are good
looking
- Perceptions of faces are especially influential and shape perceptions of competence,
which can even affect voters’ reactions to candidates
- Evolutionary theorists attribute the tendency to categorize people into ingroups and
outgroups to our ancestors’ need to quickly separate friend from foe
- Attribution
- Basic processes
- Attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of events and
behaviors
- Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to personal traits, abilities,
and feelings, whereas external attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to
situational demands and environmental factors
- According to Weiner, attributions for success and failure can be analyzed along
the stable-unstable and internal-external dimensions
- Biases
- The fundamental attribution error refers to observers’ bias in facor of internal
attributions in explaining others’ behavior
- Actors favor external attributions in explaining their own behavior, whereas
observers favor interal attribution
Chapter 12
Vocab:
- Social Psychology: the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals’ thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.
- Person Perception: the process of forming impressions of others
- Stereotypes: widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their
membership in a particular group
- Ingroup: a group that one belongs to and identifies with
- Outgroup: a group that one does not belong to or identify with
- Attributions: are inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others’ behavior, and
their own behavior
- Internal attributions: ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and
feelings
- External attributions: ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental
constraints
- Fundamental attribution error: refers to observers’ bias in favor of internal attributions in
explaining others’ behavior
- Self-serving bias: is the tendency to attribute one’s success to personal factors and one’s failures
to situational factors
- Individualsim: involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals, and defining one’s identity in
terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships
- Collectivism: involves putting group goals ahead of personal goals, and defining one’s identity in
terms of the groups one belongs to
- Interpersonal attraction: refers to positive feelings toward another person
- Matching hypothesis: proposes that males and females of approximately equal physical
attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners
- Reciprocity: involves liking those who show that they like us
- Passionate love: is a complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the
agony and ecstasy of intense emotion
- Companionate love: is warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply
intertwined with one’s own
- Attitudes: are positive or negative evaluations of objects of thought
- Explicit attitudes: are attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe
- Implicit attitudes: are covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses over
which one has little conscious control
- Factors in Persuasion:
- The source is the person who sends a communication, and the receiver is the person to
whom the message is sent.
- The message is the information transmitted by the source, and the channel is the
medium through which the message is sent
- Mere exposure effect: is the finding that repeated exposures to a stimulus promotes greater liking
of the stimulus
- Cognitive dissonance: exists when related attitudes or beliefs are inconsistent; that is, when they
contradict each other
- Conformity: occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure
- Normative influence: operates when people conform to social norms for fear of negative social
consequences
, - Informational influence: operates when people look to others for guidance about how to behave in
ambiguous situations
- Obedience: is a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually
from someone in a position of authority
- Group: consists of two or more individuals who interact and are interdependent
- Bystander effect: people are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups than
when they are alone
- Social loafing: is a reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups, as compared with
when they work by themselves
- Group polarization: occurs when group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view
and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction
- Groupthink: occurs when members of a cohesive group emplasize concurrence at the expense of
critical thinking in arriving at a decision
- Group cohesiveness: refers tot he strength of the liking relationships linking group members to
each other and to the group itself
- Prejudice: is a negative attitude held toward members of a group
- Discrimination: which involves behaving differntly, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group
- Foot-in-the-door: involves getting people to agree to a small request to increase the chances they
will agree to a larger request
- Reciprocity norm: the rule that we should pay back in kind what we receive from others
- Lowball technique: involves getting someone to commit to a seemingly attractive proposition
before its hidden costs are revealed
Study Guide:
- What is a cognitive schema?
- a schema describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of
information and the relationships among them.
- Personal Perception
- Judgements of others can be distorted by their physical appearance, as we tend to
ascribe desirable personality characteristics and competence to those who are good
looking
- Perceptions of faces are especially influential and shape perceptions of competence,
which can even affect voters’ reactions to candidates
- Evolutionary theorists attribute the tendency to categorize people into ingroups and
outgroups to our ancestors’ need to quickly separate friend from foe
- Attribution
- Basic processes
- Attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of events and
behaviors
- Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to personal traits, abilities,
and feelings, whereas external attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to
situational demands and environmental factors
- According to Weiner, attributions for success and failure can be analyzed along
the stable-unstable and internal-external dimensions
- Biases
- The fundamental attribution error refers to observers’ bias in facor of internal
attributions in explaining others’ behavior
- Actors favor external attributions in explaining their own behavior, whereas
observers favor interal attribution
