Social Psychology
Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in presence of others
What is social facilitation?
A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports
What is a trait?
A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior
What is motivation?
A response of the whole organism, involving
Physiological arousal
Expressive behaviors
Conscious experience
What is an emotion?
The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent
What is Cognitive dissonance theory?
Giving priority one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications
What is individualism?
A tendency to maintain a balance or constant internal state. The regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level
What is homeostasis?
A machine used in attempts to detect lies that measures several of the physiological responses (such as perspiration, heart rate, and breathing changes) accompanying emotions
What is a polygraph?
In the fundamental attribution error, the tendency for those acting a situation to attribute their behavior to external causes, but for observers to attribute others’ behavior to internal causes.
What is actor-observer bias?
The most widely used projective test. A set of 10 inkblots, designed to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
What is the Rorschach inkblot test?
The point at which your “weight thermostat” may be set. When your body falls below this weight, increased hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may combine to restore lost weight
What is the set point?
The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness
What is the facial feedback effect?
The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives
What is groupthink?
The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. This operates on the reality principle.
What is the ego?
Identified by Abraham Maslow as the need for achievement, competence, and independence.
What are esteem needs?
This theory that to experience emotion one must
Be physically aroused(excited)
Cognitively label the arousal(excitement)
What is the two-factor theory?
An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them
What is the reciprocity norm?
The transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives.
What is sublimation?
The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases
What is the Yerkes-Dodson Law?
This psychologist argued that our emotions, specifically our simple likes, dislikes, and fears, take a “low road." A fear-provoking stimulus travels from the eye/ear to the amygdala
Who is Joseph LeDoux?