Social Psychology - AP Psychology

Dispositional attribution is when we attribute a person's actions to their internal dispositions, such as personality, talents, emotional state, etc. We see the behavior as being caused by something internal to that person as opposed to attributing it to their environment.

Although the concept of "self-fulfilling prophecy" has existed for centuries and was a popular one in Ancient Greece, it was officially coined by the famous sociologist Robert K. Merton in the 20th century.

Stereotype threat is the fear of confirming negative stereotypes about one's social group, often making people act as the stereotype suggests. Jane, being a woman, performs more poorly on the first test because she is reminded of the gender stereotype by the gender-identifying survey.

Example: A student fails a test, acknowledges that s/he didn't study enough and didn't understand some of the test's key questions, and subsequently meets with the teacher to request advice on ways to improve next time. This student would be said to have an internal locus of control.

We all encounter some little areas of insecurity where we feel as if we do not quite measure up. Self-immunization is a strategy that we employ to defend ourselves against feeling like we are inadequate or that we are failures. By trivializing our mistakes we say to ourselves things like, "Oh, that test really wasn't that important. It doesn't matter." Or, "I don't think anyone saw me trip in the hallway, so it isn't a big deal." We immunize ourselves from thinking ourselves worse than we are by accepting our failures, but in a more diminutive form.

Because joining a cult often requires a dramatic shift in one's behavior and philosophies, people who are reluctant to disrupt their own status quo are less likely to join a cult, no matter how enticing their recruiters' promises may be.

Each factor listed introduces the possibility of harm to a potential actor, be it a minor inconvenience or a greater physical threat, making them more reluctant to aid someone else.

Instrumental aggression is an act of aggression that is designed to meet a particular goal. This act could be made at the individual or societal level. A good example would be particular wars in which countries fought over food, water, or other resources needed or wanted to maintain their society. This is different from hostile aggression, which could be random with no specific cause or end goal.

Asch told participants that they would be participating in a study on visual perception. Little did the participants know, two of their peers were not fellow participants but confederates. The group was asked to determine which line on a card best matched the line on another card. On the first question, the confederates stated the correct answer, but on the second, they both stated an answer that was clearly incorrect. In this experiment, more than two-thirds of participants conformed to the wrong answer stated by the confederates. Social loafing refers to the tendency for people to put in less effort when working together with a group. Stereotypes are negative, positive, or neutral judgments about others based on their membership to a certain social group.

The term "self-concept" refers to the sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves. The self-concept is made up of cognitive molecules or units called self-schemas: beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self-relevant information.

Milgram led people to believe that they were shocking a person in another room in response to incorrect answers on a memory test. The levels of shock administered by some got to be deadly and the person being "shocked" (they were an actor) repeatedly cried out in pain. Many people in the study obeyed the researcher, especially if the researcher was from a presitigious university. The effect was also stronger in unfamiliar environments.

In Adolescence by John Santrock, male behaviors are said to have been taught as masculine, although they lack social approval. As a result, doing things like engaging in premarital sex, drinking alcohol and taking drugs, and participating in delinquent activities, make adolescent males feel like they are being manly and masculine.

Contrary to "opposites attract," more generally speaking we are attracted to people who are very similar to us physically, emotionally, morally, and interest-wise. More than this, the more we see a person, the more we will like them. If they return positive feelings, than we will like them even more!

Social loafing is a social phenomenon whereby an individual makes less effort towards a goal when they are working towards it with others. The most relatable example is when students are put together for projects at school. In these circumstances, there is considerably less effort put into the project than if everyone was working separately.

Durability bias is present when people overestimate the strength and duration of their emotional reactions. When people participate in affective forecasting—the process of predicting how they would feel in response to future emotional events—durability biases are usually evident.

A stereotype is a widely held belief about a group of people, place, or thing that is a simplified generalization. In this instance, the group of people is "blondes" and the generalization is that they "have more fun." The belief could be based on the images in the media or real life experiences, but the quality that results in stereotype is the generalization to the demographic as a whole. Of course, stereotypes are not always true and can be very misleading. This applies to how we think about many other groups in society and can contribute to prejudice and animosity towards them.

A false self is a self that a person may present to others while realizing that it does not represent what he or she is actually thinking and feeling in order to impress them. It is like a front that adolescents put up. Adolescents are more likely to exhibit their false selves when around romantic interests most likely because they are trying to impress them. They are likely to exhibit their true selves around close friends, and usually parents.

The term that best fits the definition is the "possible self."

Our interpersonal self is composed of the rules of behavior, or "norms," that guide us to act in certain ways in particular social situations. For instance, the norms for how we behave will guide us to act one way as a student in school and another as a friend to someone. These norms constantly change but no matter what it is expected to adapt in order to get along in society. People who defy norms are referred to as "deviant," though this is not at all a negative term. Some social norms can be harmful, such as racist attitudes, and acted deviant towards them can drive social change.

Those with authoritarian personalities have a strong tendency towards sticking to tradition and cultural norms. They believe in their own authority over others and display an oppressive attitude toward their subordinates. Moreover, they are defined by a lack of oppenness and fluidity in the face of newer ideas and innovations in society, choosing to instead stick with their own practices and beliefs.