Download Chapter 13 (III) – Social Psychology

Andrew Rosen
Person Perception:
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Schematic Knowledge – Knowledge about the world in general
Implicit Theories of Personality – Beliefs about what kinds of behaviors are associated with particular traits and which
traits usually go together
o Used to develop expectations about people’s behavior
Individualistic cultures think of the human self as static while collectivist cultures think of it as dynamic and malleable
Stereotypes – Schemas that are often negative and are used to categorize complex groups of people
Prejudice – A negative attitude toward another person based on that person’s group membership
o Consists of affective component (emotional) (prejudice), behavior component (discrimination), and cognitive
component (stereotype)
Out-Group Homogeneity Effect – The tendency for a member of a group (the in-group) to view members of another group
(the out-group) as “all alike” or less varied than members of his or her own group
Implicit Association Test (IAT) – Test for stereotypes with implicit assumptions
o Primes white with good and black with bad
 Explicit assumptions can differ greatly from implicit assumptions
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies – Beliefs about how a person will behave that actually make the expected behavior more likely
Rosenthal and Jacobson Experiment – Students who were randomly chosen as “bloomers” did better in class because the
teacher had higher expectations
Helping and Altruism:
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Prosocial Behaviors – Behaviors that help others
Kitty Genovese Case – Genovese was murdered, people heard/saw incident but did not act because they felt the situation
was vague
Pluralistic Ignorance – A type of misunderstanding that occurs when members of a group don’t realize that the other
members share their perception. As a result, each member wrongly interprets the others’ inaction as reflecting their
better understanding of the situation
Diffusion of Responsibility – The feeling that someone else will take responsibility
Bystander Effect – One reason people fail to help strangers in distress because the larger the group a person is in, the less
likely he is to help, partly because no one in the group thinks it is up to him to act
o Only occurs when others in the group are strangers
 If they are familiar people, it can encourage action
Costs of providing help are sometimes weighted against the benefits of helping
Sexual attraction can increase the likelihood of helping
Individualistic cultures will think twice about helping while collectivist cultures will provide aid more readily
Altruism – Helping behavior that does not benefit the helper
Attraction:
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Halo Effect – The tendency to assume that people who have one good traits also have other good traits
Familiarity plays a major role in attraction
People tend to like others who are similar to themselves
Homogamy – The tendency of like to mate with like
Andrew Rosen
Love:
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Three main components of love
o 1) Intimacy – Feelings of being close
o 2) Passion – Sexual attraction
o 3) Commitment – A decision to stay with one’s partner
Men fall in love more easily and women fall out of love more easily
People are more likely to fall in love if there are feelings of excitement or some fear going on simultaneously
o One idea is through the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion with misattribution to arousal and bodily responses
Romeo-and-Juliet Effect – The intensification or romantic love that can occur when the couple’s parents oppose
relationship
Companionate Love – An emotional state characterized by affection for those whose lives are deeply intertwined with
one’s own
Conceptions of love are a cultural product
Individualistic cultures focus more on romantic love while collectivist cultures focus more on companionate love
Lecture:
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In an experiment, those given $1 to describe a mundane task convinced themselves that the low pay and lying to
someone must mean they enjoyed it while those with $20 for it did not describe it as exciting since they could justify their
lie with more money
Superordinate goals – Common goals