Chapter 11 Study Guide Person perception refers to the process by which we use social stimuli to form impressions of others One important social cue is the face Stereotype a generalization about a group s characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another Prejudice an unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual s membership in a group People who are different in one way from a prejudiced person Discrimination an unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group Beautiful is Good stereotype positive expectations for physically attractive individuals Self fulfilling prophecy in a self fulfilling prophecy expectations cause individuals to act in ways that serve to make to make the expectations come true Internal vs External attributions o Attribution theory the view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior Internal external internal causes inside and specific to the person such as his or her traits and abilities External include causes outside of the person such as social pressure aspects of the social situation and the weather Fundamental attribution error observes overestimation of the importance of internal traits and underestimation of the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of another person s behavior False consensus effect observer s overestimation of the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way they do Positive illusions favorable views of the self that are not necessarily rooted in reality Self serving biases the tendency to take credit for one s own successes and deny responsibility for one s own failures Stereotype threat an individual s fast acting self fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about his or her group Social comparison the process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts feelings behaviors and abilities in relation to others Cognitive dissonance an individual s psychological discomfort dissonance caused by two inconsistent thoughts According to the theory we feel uneasy when we notice inconsistency between what we believe and what we do Self perception theory Bem s theory on how behaviors influence attitudes stating that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perieving their behavior Elaboration likelihood model theory identifying two ways to persuade a central route and a peripheral route The central route works by engaging someone thoughtfully with a sound logical argument The peripheral route involves non message factors such as the source s credibility and attractiveness or emotional appeals Foot in the door sale strategy which involves making a smaller request at the beginning and saving the biggest demand for last Door in the face involves making the biggest pitch at the beginning which the customer will probably reject and then making a smaller concessionary demand Relies on the fact that the customer feels a sense of reciprocity and obligation Reciprocity principle that encourages us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us Altruism unselfish interest in helping another person o Egoism giving to another person to ensure reciprocity to gain self esteem to present one self as powerful competent or caring or to avoid social and self censure for failing to live up to society s expectations Bystander effect the tendency for an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone Diffusion of responsibility effect of deindividuation the reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group Frontal lobes most involved in executive functions such as planning and self control Has also been implicated in aggression Serotonin lower levels have been associated with aggressive behavior Testosterone hormone that is typically associated with aggressive behavior Observational learning along with reinforcement plays a role in the learning of aggression Types of aggression o Overt aggression physical or verbal behavior that directly harms another person Males tend to be higher n this than females o Relational aggression behavior that is meant to harm the social standing of another person through activities such as gossiping and spreading rumors Requires that the aggressor have a considerable level of social and cognitive skill Asch s line study conducted a study on conformity finding that volunteer participants would conform to the obviously incorrect response 35 of the time when confederates would all agree on the same wrong answer Informational vs normative social influence Two main factors attributing to conformity o Informative the influence other people have on us because o Normative the influence other people have on us because we want to be right we want them to be like us Milgram s obedience study shock obedience study in which volunteers had to administer an electric shock to a confederate even when it appeared the confederate was under great distress Concluded that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure even to the extent of killing an innocent human being Deindividuation the reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group Stanford prison study a study conducted on obedience where a stimulated prison was created in the basement of Stanford University Some volunteers were prisoners others were guards Many of the guards treated the prisoners horribly knowing they weren t actual prisoners Concluded that situational factors powerfully affect human behavior Social contagion imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior emotions and ideas Can be observed in such things as social fads the popularity of dog breeds and unhealthy things like drinking among minors and symptoms of eating disorders among young women Social facilitation improvement in an individual s performance because of reduced accountability for individual effort Example performing better in front of others than by yourself Social loafing each person s tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort Risky shift the tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by the individual group members Group
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