Bernstein et al., Psychology, 6/e Keyterms

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Psychology, Sixth Edition
Douglas A. Bernstein - University of South Florida and University of Southampton
Louis A. Penner - University of South Florida
Alison Clarke-Stewart - University of California, Irvine
Edward J. Roy - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Keyterms
Chapter 17: Social Cognition

Social psychology focuses on the effects of the social world on the behavior and mental processes of individuals (see introductory section)
Social cognition refers to the mental processes by which people perceive and react to others. (see introductory section)
Our self-concept is the set of beliefs we have about who we are and what we're like. (see Social Influences on the Self)
Example: Mimi believes she is a responsible student, a caring friend, and a somewhat shy person.
Self-esteem consists of the evaluations we make about how worthy we are as human beings. (see Social Influences on the Self)
Example: Although Juan recently failed a thermodynamics quiz, he knows that he is smart and a good person.
Temporal comparisons involve comparisons between one's own past and present states. (see Social Comparison)
Example: You take a new job and compare it to your previous job to determine if you have moved up in prestige in your new position.
The theory of social comparison states that in the absence of objective criteria, people compare themselves to others for the purpose of self-evaluation. (see Social Comparison)
Example: If you want to know how athletic you are, you might compare yourself to friends of the same sex.
Reference groups are the categories of people to which individuals see themselves as belonging and to which they habitually compare themselves. (see Social Comparison)
Example: Jerome is an undergraduate student at a major university. He would probably consider his reference group to be other students; therefore, he would not compare his attractiveness or wardrobe to that of models he sees in magazines.
Relative deprivation occurs when a person's relative standing on any dimension is poor compared to that person's social reference group. (see Social Comparison)
Example: Rachel has just graduated with a Ph.D. in biology and taken a new job. At the university, she was considered one of the best students in her department. At her new job, she must start over and earn the respect of her superiors and peers. She experiences relative deprivation as she begins her new job.
Social identity, a part of our self-concept, is our belief about the groups to which we belong. (see Social Identity Theory)
Example: Karl says he is a German-American Lutheran farmer.
Self-Schemas are the mental representations people form of themselves. They are based on social comparison and social identity. (see Self-schemas)
Example: Sapna, who has a differentiated self-schema, thinks of herself as a capable student but an incapable car mechanic.
Social perception refers to the processes through which people interpret information about others. Social perception influences the conclusions one makes about another person's personality style and why the person behaves in certain ways. (see Social Perception)
A self-fulfilling prophecy is the process by which an impression of a person, object, or event elicits behavior that confirms the impression. (see Self-Fulfilling Prophecies)
Example: Jayne believed that she would never succeed in college. During her first semester, she found that she had to study much harder than she did in high school and decided it was a sign that she was stupid. Jayne quit studying, thinking that it was of no use, and flunked out of college.
Attribution is the process of explaining the causes of people's behavior, including one's own. Internal or external causes can account for behavior. (see Explaining Behavior: Attribution)
Example: How would you respond to an inquiry about the causes of your grades? Would you say that you are smart and work hard (internal causes) or that you are lucky and consistently end up with easy professors (external causes)?
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal factors. (see Biases in Attribution)
Example: Latanya's brother calls and tells her that he has just flunked an algebra exam. Before he can speak another word, Latanya is telling him that he is either lazy or stupid or both. She thinks that her brother's behavior, not situational factors, caused him to flunk his algebra test.
The actor-observer bias is the tendency to attribute one's own behavior to external factors, and others' behavior to internal factors, especially when the behavior is inappropriate or involves failure. (see Biases in Attribution)
Example: When John failed to stop at a stop sign, he attributed his behavior to the sun in his eyes and poor placement of the sign (external factors). When someone else runs a stop sign, however, John thinks they did so because of carelessness or lack of attention (internal factors).
The self-serving bias is the tendency to take credit for success but to blame external causes for failure. (see Biases in Attribution)
Example: Jerry has noticed that whenever his company wins a big account with a new client, each person claims responsibility for the success. However, when a client decides to take its business elsewhere, everyone denies responsibility for the problems that precipitated the client's departure. People like to take credit for success but do not like to take the blame for failure.
An attitude is the tendency to think, feel, or act positively or negatively toward objects in our environment. Therefore, it has cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. (see Attitudes)
Example: Sima joins the marching band because she believes it challenges its members to become better musicians (cognitive component). She practices her clarinet nearly every day (behavioral component) and enjoys band practices and performances (affective component).
The elaboration likelihood model states that a message may change a person's attitude through a peripheral or central route. Taking a central route (such as critical thinking) to changing an attitude requires both the motivation and the ability to do so. (see Changing Attitudes)
Example: Matthew chose to purchase a generic medication after reading an informational pamphlet and discussing it with his doctor (central route). Jennifer chose to buy generic medicines after seeing a television commercial with a trustworthy, confident person describing their advantages (peripheral route).
The cognitive dissonance theory states that people prefer that their cognitions about themselves and the rest of the world be consistent with one another. When cognitions are inconsistent, or dissonant, people feel uneasy and are motivated to make them more consistent. (see Changing Attitudes)
Example: Jan is an advertising executive. She is working on a cigarette company's account, but she thinks that cigarettes should not be advertised to teenagers. Her attitudes and behavior are inconsistent. She will have to change her attitude about cigarette advertising or change jobs in order to reduce cognitive dissonance and the psychological tension it causes.
Self-perception theory states that we review our own behavior in order to determine what our attitudes are. (see Changing Attitudes)
Example: To be initiated into his boyhood group of friends, Gabriel was required to eat a worm, a live goldfish, and the head of a bumblebee. After eating these, Gabriel liked the group even more than he did before. He inferred that he must really like the group because he was able to overcome his loathing of worms, live fish, and bugs.
Stereotypes are impressions or schemas of entire groups of people. Stereotypes operate on the false assumption that all members of a group share the same characteristics. This can lead to prejudice. (see Prejudice and Stereotypes)
Example: Jai is interviewing candidates for a position in his company. He has decided not to hire anyone with a Ph.D. He has been told by his peers that people with Ph.D.'s are flaky, absent-minded, and socially inept.
Prejudice is holding a preconceived positive or negative attitude about an individual based on her or his membership in a group of people. These attitudes have cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. (see Prejudice and Stereotypes)
Example: Isa, an American, went to study in Russia for a year. She met a child on the street one day who asked her why Americans wanted to destroy the world with nuclear bombs. The child had never been exposed to Americans before but had prejudged them based on information from the press, her parents, and her peers.
Discrimination is the differential treatment of various groups that can be the behavioral component of prejudice. (see Prejudice and Stereotypes)
Example: Eva has brought her date, an artist, to meet her parents. She is very embarrassed because her father will not even speak to him. Later, she asks her father to explain his extremely rude behavior. He remarks that all artists are shiftless and no good and forbids her to see her friend again.
The contact hypothesis states that a person's prejudices and stereotypes about a group should be reduced with repeated friendly exposure (contact) to members of equal standing in that group. This provides an opportunity for prejudiced people to learn about members of the group as individuals. (see Reducing Prejudice)
Example: Anna grew up in the East. Her parents always told her that people who spoke with a southern accent were stupid and lazy. When Anna's company relocated her to Texas, she eventually came to enjoy interacting with other employees and found them to be competent at their jobs.
The matching hypothesis states that a person is more likely to form committed relationships with others who are similar in physical attractiveness than with those who are notably more or less attractive. (see Keys to Attraction)
Example: As you walk around your campus or neighborhood, look at the couples you see. They will often be about equal in attractiveness.





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