Psychology Chapter 11

Branch of psychology that studies how a person's thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment

An individual's unique sense of identity that has been influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences; your sense of who you are in relation to other people

The mental processes people use to make sense out of their social environment

The effects of situational factors and other people on an individual's behavior

The mental processes we use to form judgements and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of other people

The "rules" or expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular social situation

The mental process of categorizing people into groups on the basis of their shared characteristics

Deliberate, conscious mental processes involved in perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning

Automatic, nonconscious mental processes that influence perceptions, judgments, decisions and reasoning

A network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors

• The mental process of inferring the causes of people's behavior, including one's own
• Also refers to the explanation made for a behavior

The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics, while ignoring or underestimating the effects of external, situational factors; an attributional bias that is common in individualistic cultures

The tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for having somehow caused the problem or for not having taken steps to avoid or prevent it

The tendency to overestimate one's ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event

The assumption that the world is fair and that therefore people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

The tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one's own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes

A learned tendency to evaluate some object, person, or issue in a particular way; such evaluations may be positive, negative, or ambivalent

An unpleasant state of psychological tension or arousal that occurs when two thoughts or perceptions are inconsistent; typically results from an awareness that attitudes and behaviors are in conflict

A negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific social group

A cluster of characteristics that are associated with all members of a specific social group, often including qualities that are unrelated to the objective criteria that define a group

A social group to which one belongs

A social group to which one does not belong

The tendency to see members of out-groups as very similar to one another

The tendency to judge the behavior of in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably

Adjusting your opinions, judgments, or behavior so that it matches the opinions, judgments, or behavior of other people, or the norms of a social group or situation

Behavior that is motivated by the desire to gain social acceptance and approval

Behavior that is motivated by the desire to be correct

The performance of a behavior in response to a direct command

Helping another person with no expectation of personal reward or benefit

Any behavior that helps another, whether the underlying motive is self-serving or selfless

A phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely each individual is to help someone in distress

A phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress because the obligation to intervene is shared among all the onlookers

The deliberate attempt to influence the attitudes or behavior of another person in a situation in which that person has some freedom of choice