Friday, February 14, 2014

Self-deprecation

Self-deprecation is defined as:

The disparagement of one’s own abilities; [1]

communication that expresses something negative about its originator; making negative statements regarding one’s own appearance or abilities, such as saying “I’m so fat” or “I’m such an idiot”; [2]

self-efficacy

According to psychologist Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is our belief in our ability to succeed in certain situations. The concept plays a major role in Bandura's social learning theory, which focuses on how personality is shaped by social experience and observational learning.

Your sense of self-efficacy has a major influence on how you approach challenges and goals. When confronted with a challenge, do you believe that you can succeed or are you convinced that you will fail? People with strong self-efficacy are those who believe that they are capable of performing well. These people are more likely to view challenges as something to be mastered rather than avoided.

Social cognition

Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, of information in the brain, which relates to conspecifics (members of the same species). At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the methods of cognitive psychology and information processing theory. However, the term has come to be more widely used across psychology and cognitive neuroscience. For example, it is used to refer to various social abilities disrupted in autism[1] and other disorders.[2] In cognitive neuroscience the biological basis of social cognition is investigated.[3][4][5]Developmental psychologists study the development of social cognition abilities.[6]

social identity

social identity      The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships.

Social perception

Social perception is that part of perception that allows people to understand the other people in their social world. This sort of perception is defined as a social cognition which is the ability of the brain to store and process information.[1] Social perception allows individuals to make judgments and impressions about other people. It is primarily based on observation, although pre-existing knowledge influences how we perceive an observation.

Social Psychology

According to psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline that uses scientific methods "to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings" (1985).

Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behavior, social perception, leadership, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression and prejudice. It is important to note that social psychology is not just about looking at social influences. Social perception and social interaction are also vital to understanding social behavior.

How Is Social Psychology Different From Other Disciplines?

It is important to understand how social psychology differs from other disciplines. Social psychology is often confused with folk wisdom, personality psychology and sociology. What makes social psychology different? Unlike folk wisdom, which relies on anecdotal observations and subjective interpretation, social psychology employs scientific methods and the empirical study of social phenomena.

While personality psychology focuses on individual traits, characteristics and thoughts, social psychology is focused on situations. Social psychologists are interested in the impact that the social environment and group interactions have on attitudes and behaviors.

Finally, it is important to distinguish between social psychology and sociology. While there are many similarities between the two, sociology tends to looks at social behavior and influences at a very broad-based level. Sociologists are interested in the institutions and cultures that influence how people behave. Psychologists instead focus on situational variables that affect social behavior. While psychology and sociology both study similar topics, they are looking at these topics from different perspectives.

Staring

Staring is a prolonged gaze or fixed look. In staring, one object or person is the continual focus of visual interest, for an amount of time. Staring can be interpreted as being either hostile, or the result of intense concentration or affection. Staring behaviour can be considered a form of aggression, or an invasion of an individual's privacy. If eye contact is reciprocated, mutual staring can take the form of a battle of wills, or even a game where the loser is the person who blinks or looks away first – a staring contest.

To some extent, the meaning of a person’s staring behaviour depends upon the attributions made by the observer. Staring often occurs accidentally, when someone appears to be staring into space they may well be lost in thought, or stupefied, or simply unable to see.

Staring conceptually also implies confronting the inevitable – ‘staring death in the face’, or ‘staring into the abyss’. Group staring evokes and emphasises paranoia; such as the archetypal stranger walking into a saloon in a Western to be greeted by the stares of all the regulars. The fear of being stared at is called Scopophobia.

Stigma consciousness

stigma consciousness      A person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination.

Terror Management Theory

What is Terror Management Theory?
The terror refered to in terror management theory (TMT) is that which is brought on by the awareness of the inevitible death of the self. According to TMT, the anxiety caused by mortality is a major motivator behind many human behaviors and cognitions, including self-esteem, ethno/religio-centrism, and even love.

Types of Nonverbal Communication 8 Major Nonverbal Beahviors

According to experts, a substantial portion of our communication is nonverbal. Every day, we respond to thousands on nonverbal cues and behaviors including postures, facial expression, eye gaze, gestures, and tone of voice. From our handshakes to our hairstyles, nonverbal details reveal who we are and impact how we relate to other people.

In many cases, we communicate information in nonverbal ways using groups of behaviors. For example, we might combine a frown with crossed arms and unblinking eye gaze to indicate disapproval.

1. Facial Expression

Facial expressions are responsible for a huge proportion of nonverbal communication. Consider how much information can be conveyed with a smile or a frown. While nonverbal communication and behavior can vary dramatically between cultures, the facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger and fear are similar throughout the world.

2. Gestures

Deliberate movements and signals are an important way to communicate meaning without words. Common gestures include waving, pointing, and using fingers to indicate numeric amounts. Other gestures are arbitrary and related to culture.

3. Paralinguistics

Paralinguistics refers to vocal communication that is separate from actual language. This includes factors such as tone of voice, loudness, inflection and pitch. Consider the powerful effect that tone of voice can have on the meaning of a sentence. When said in a strong tone of voice, listeners might interpret approval and enthusiasm. The same words said in a hesitant tone of voice might convey disapproval and a lack of interest.

4. Body Language and Posture

Posture and movement can also convey a great deal on information. Research on body language has grown significantly since the 1970's, but popular media have focused on the over-interpretation of defensive postures, arm-crossing, and leg-crossing, especially after the publication of Julius Fast's book Body Language. While these nonverbal behaviors can indicate feelings and attitudes, research suggests that body language is far more subtle and less definitive that previously believed.

5. Proxemics

People often refer to their need for "personal space," which is also an important type of nonverbal communication. The amount of distance we need and the amount of space we perceive as belonging to us is influenced by a number of factors including social norms, situational factors, personality characteristics and level of familiarity. For example, the amount of personal space needed when having a casual conversation with another person usually varies between 18 inches to four feet. On the other hand, the personal distance needed when speaking to a crowd of people is around 10 to 12 feet.

6. Eye Gaze

Looking, staring and blinking can also be important nonverbal behaviors. When people encounter people or things that they like, the rate of blinking increases and pupils dilate. Looking at another person can indicate a range of emotions, including hostility, interest and attraction.

7. Haptics

Communicating through touch is another important nonverbal behavior. There has been a substantial amount of research on the importance of touch in infancy and early childhood. Harry Harlow's classic monkey study demonstrated how the deprivation of touch and contact impedes development. Baby monkeys raised by wire mothers experienced permanent deficits in behavior and social interaction. Touch can be used to communicate affection, familiarity, sympathy and other emotions.

8. Appearance

Our choice of color, clothing, hairstyles and other factors affecting appearance are also considered a means of nonverbal communication. Research on color psychology has demonstrated that different colors can evoke different moods. Appearance can also alter physiological reactions, judgments and interpretations. Just think of all the subtle judgements you quickly make about someone based on his or her appearance. These first impressions are important, which is why experts suggest that job seekers dress appropriately for interviews with potential employers.

intragroup

Group dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intragroup dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behavior, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies.[1] Group dynamics are at the core of understanding racism, sexism, and other forms of social prejudice and discrimination. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, business, and communication studies.

Introspection

Introspection: The process of "looking inward" and examining one's self and one's own actions in order to gain insight. This was a central component to the early days of psychology during the Structuralist period. Wundt and other psychologists had people introspect and then report on their feelings, thoughts, etc. Of course, the problem with introspection is, if you are having some feeling and then you have to stop to think about and report on the feeling, you've just changed the experience and therefore, the feeling itself.

Kelley theory attribution

Kelley says we use three types of information. (NOTE: The Kelley theory is not just limited to the persuasiveness of spoken communication - it applies to attributions for any behavior.)

1. Consensus - Do all or only a few people respond to the stimulus in the same way as the target person. Consensus asks about generalization across actors.

2. Distinctiveness - does the target person respond in the same way to other stimuli as well? This asks about generalization across situations.

3. Consistency - does the target person always respond in the same way to this stimulus? This asks about generalization across time.

Magical thinking

Magical thinking is thinking that one's thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it.[1] It is a type of causal reasoning or causal fallacy that looks for meaningful relationships of grouped phenomena between acts and events. In religion, folk religion, and superstition, the correlation posited is between religious ritual, such as prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or recompense. In clinical psychology, magical thinking is a condition that causes the patient to experience irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because they assume a correlation with their acts and threatening calamities.

Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication is the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people.

Messages can be communicated through gestures and touch, body language or posture, physical distance, facial expression and eye contact, which are all types of nonverbal communication. Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress. Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on face-to-face interaction, where it can be classified into three principal areas: environmental conditions where communication takes place, physical characteristics of the communicators, and behaviors of communicators during interaction.

Importance:

Nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all communication.[1] Nonverbal communication can portray a message both verbally and with the correct body signals. Body signals comprise physical features, conscious and unconscious gestures and signals, and the mediation of personal space.[1] The wrong message can be established if the body language conveyed does not match a verbal message. Nonverbal communication strengthens a first impression in common situations like attracting a partner or in a business interview: impressions are on average formed within the first four seconds of contact.[1] First encounters or interactions with another person strongly affect a person's perception.[2] When the other person or group is absorbing the message they are focused on the entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, 2% touch and 1% taste.[3]

Physical attractiveness

Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical traits are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from the two; for example, adults may regard children as attractive for various reasons. There are many factors which influence one person's attraction to another, with physical aspects being one of them. Physical attraction itself includes universal perceptions common to all human cultures, as well as aspects that are culturally and socially dependent, along with individual subjective preferences.

Physical attractiveness is a characteristic that suggests fertility and health. These factors contribute to the probability of survival and reproduction for continuing life on Earth.[11] Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who are shorter than they are, have a youthful appearance, and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face,[12] full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio.[13] Women, on average, tend to be attracted to men who are taller than they are, display a high-degree of facial symmetry, masculine facial dimorphism, and who have broad shoulders, a relatively narrow waist, and a V-shaped torso.[14][15]

priming

What is Priming?
Priming is a nonconscious form of human memory, which is concerned with perceptual identification of words and objects. It refers to activating particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task. For example, a person who sees the word 'yellow' will be slightly faster to recognize the word 'banana.' This happens because the words yellow and banana are closely associated in memory. Priming can also refer to a technique in psychology used to train a person’s memory in both positive and negative ways.

Unpriming:
Unpriming is a decrease in the influence of primed knowledge following a behavior expressing that knowledge. The authors investigated strategies for unpriming the knowledge of an answer that is activated when people are asked to consider a simple question. Experiment 1 found that prior correct answering eliminated the bias people normally show toward correct responding when asked to answer yes-no questions randomly. Experiment 2 revealed that prior answering intended to be random did not unprime knowledge on subsequent attempts to answer randomly. Experiment 3 found that exposure to the correct answer did not influence the knowledge bias but that exposure to the incorrect answer increased bias. Experiment 4 revealed that merely expressing the answer for oneself was sufficient to unprime knowledge. Experiment 5 found that each item of activated knowledge needs to be unprimed specifically, in that correctly answering 1 question does not reduce the knowledge bias in randomly answering another.

Schemas

Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions and abstract (i.e. theoretical) concepts.
When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e. a state of cognitive (i.e. mental) balance.

Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development, and described how they were developed or acquired. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed.

For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill. This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script'.

self esteem

self-esteem      A person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.

self presentation

self-presentation      The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals

self verification

self-verification      Seeking, eliciting, and recalling feedback that confirms one's beliefs about himself or herself

Self-control

Self-control is the ability to control one's emotions, behavior, and desires in order to obtain some reward, or avoid some punishment. Presumably, some (smaller) reward or punishment is operating in the short term which precludes, or reduces, the later reward or punishment. In psychology it is sometimes called self-regulation.

asynchronous communication

From a technical standpoint, asynchronous communication involves a physical layer transmission technique in which the sender's clock and recipient's clock are independent of one another. From a user perspective, it means that a conversation takes place intermittently over time. A telephone conversation is a synchronous form of communication -- both parties are active at the same time. E-mail is asynchronous: You can send a message to a recipient who may not know about the message until hours or days later and may wait even longer to respond. Instant messaging is synchronous but online social network status updates are asynchronous.

attachmemt styles

Adults have four attachment styles: secure, anxious–preoccupied, dismissive–avoidant, and fearful–avoidant. The secure attachment style in adults corresponds to the secure attachment style in children. The anxious–preoccupied attachment style in adults corresponds to the anxious–ambivalent attachment style in children. However, the dismissive–avoidant attachment style and the fearful–avoidant attachment style, which are distinct in adults, correspond to a single avoidant attachment style in children. The descriptions of adult attachment styles offered below are based on the relationship questionnaire devised by Bartholomew and Horowitz[6] and on a review of studies by Pietromonaco and Barrett.[7]

There are several attachment-based treatment approaches that can be used with adults.[8] In addition, there is an approach to treating couples based on attachment theory.[9]

Secure attachment

Securely attached people tend to agree with the following statements: "It is relatively easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don't worry about being alone or having others not accept me." This style of attachment usually results from a history of warm and responsive interactions with relationship partners. Securely attached people tend to have positive views of themselves and their partners. They also tend to have positive views of their relationships. Often they report greater satisfaction and adjustment in their relationships than people with other attachment styles. Securely attached people feel comfortable both with intimacy and with independence. Many seek to balance intimacy and independence in their relationship.

Secure attachment and adaptive functioning are promoted by a caregiver who is emotionally available and appropriately responsive to her child’s attachment behavior, as well as capable of regulating both his or her positive and negative emotions. [10]

Insecure attachment

Anxious–preoccupied attachment

People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to agree with the following statements: "I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don't value me as much as I value them." People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their partners. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on their partners—a condition colloquially termed clinginess. Compared to securely attached people, people who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to have less positive views about themselves. They often doubt their worth as a partner and blame themselves for their partners' lack of responsiveness. People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry, and impulsiveness in their relationships.

Dismissive–avoidant attachment

People with a dismissive style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with these statements: "I am comfortable without close emotional relationships.", "It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient", and "I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me." People with this attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others. They often deny needing close relationships. Some may even view close relationships as relatively unimportant. Not surprisingly, they seek less intimacy with relationship partners, whom they often view less positively than they view themselves. Investigators commonly note the defensive character of this attachment style. People with a dismissive–avoidant attachment style tend to suppress and hide their feelings, and they tend to deal with rejection by distancing themselves from the sources of rejection (i.e., their relationship partners).

Fearful–avoidant attachment

People with losses or sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence often develop this type of attachment[11] and tend to agree with the following statements: "I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others." People with this attachment style have mixed feelings about close relationships. On the one hand, they desire to have emotionally close relationships. On the other hand, they tend to feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness. These mixed feelings are combined with, sometimes unconscious, negative views about themselves and their partners. They commonly view themselves as unworthy of responsiveness from their partners, and they don't trust the intentions of their partners. Similarly to the dismissive–avoidant attachment style, people with a fearful–avoidant attachment style seek less intimacy from partners and frequently suppress and deny their feelings. Instead, they are much less comfortable initially expressing affection.

attribution

I. Definitions. Attribution is the process through which we link behavior to its causes - to the intentions, dispositions and events that explain why people act the way they do.

II. Dispositional vs. situational attributions (or internal vs. external).

A. Must decide whether behavior should be attributed to characteristics of the person who performed it (dispositional) or to the surrounding situation. Put another way, are the causes of an action internal to the actor or external?

EX: Suppose neighbor is unemployed. You might judge that he is lazy, irresponsible or unable (dispositional attribution). Alternatively, you might attribute unemployment to racial discrimination, evils of capitalism, poor state of the economy (situational).

Automatic Processing

Automatic Processing: Automatic Processing is sort of like muscle memory. When you start to do something that you have done many times, and you can complete it successfully without giving it any thought, that's automatic processing. It can actually be disruptive to begin to think about the process once it has started automatically. If you have ever played the piano, or knitted a scarf, you know how your hands seem to move on their own while your mind goes somewhere else. When you look back at your music or yarn, you might lose your place and stumble over the next steps, interrupting the automatic process.

Body language

Body language is a form of mental and physical ability of human non-verbal communication, consisting of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously. (Body language, in this sense, should be distinguished from sign language.)

definations's Psychology

Glossary
(See related pages)





acceptance      Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.



actor-observer difference      We observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves; in some experiments this has led to differing explanations for behavior.



adaptation-level phenomenon      The tendency to adapt to a given level of stimulation and thus to notice and react to changes from that level.



aggression      Physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm. In laboratory experiments, this might mean delivering electric shocks or saying something likely to hurt another's feelings.



altruism      A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests; see also helping norms.



androgynous      From andro (man) + gyn (woman)—thus mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics.



arbitration      Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies both sides and imposes a settlement.



attitude      A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often rooted in one's beliefs, and exhibited in one's feelings and intended behavior); see also prejudice.



attitude inoculation      Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that they will have refutations available when stronger attacks come.



attractiveness      Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference credibility in persuasion.



attribution theory      The theory of how people explain others' behavior; for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations.



authoritarian personality      A personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status.



autokinetic phenomenon      Self (auto) motion (kinetic). The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.



automatic processing      "Implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponding to "intuition."



availability heuristic      A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace.



bargaining      Seeking an agreement to a conflict through direct negotiation between parties.



behavioral confirmation      A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.



behavioral medicine      An interdisciplinary field that integrates and applies behavioral and medical knowledge about health and disease.



belief perseverance      Persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.



benevolent sexism      A seemingly favorable attitude that puts women on a pedestal but sometimes conveys an assumption that women need men's protection.



bio-psycho-social      The interplay of biological, psychological, and social influences.



blindsight      The visual detection and response to the environment but, because of brain damage, without any conscious perception.



brainwashing      Coercive persuasion that aims to change beliefs; see also compliance.



bystander effect      The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders.



catharsis      Emotional release. The catharsis view of aggression is that aggressive drive is reduced when one "releases" aggressive energy, either by acting aggressively or by fantasizing aggression.



central route to persuasion      Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.



channel of communication      The way the message is delivered-whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way.



clinical psychology      The study, assessment, and treatment of people with psychological difficulties.



co-actors      Co-participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity. code-switching. coercion and conformity.



cognitive dissonance      Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. For example, dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favoring one alternative despite reasons favoring another.



cohesiveness      A "we feeling"; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction for one another factor in groupthink.



collectivism      Giving priority to the goals of one's groups (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.



companionate love      The affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined.



complementarity      The popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two people, for each to complete what is missing in the other.



compliance      Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing; see also brainwashing; foot-in-the-door phenomenon.



confederate      An accomplice of the experimenter.



confidence      see overconfidence confiding, benefit to health.



confirmation bias      A tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.



conflict      A perceived incompatibility of actions or goals beliefs and judgments.



conformity      A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.



consensus      In attribution theory, the extent to which others act similarly to the person whose behavior is being explained attribution theory.



consistency      In attribution theory, the extent to which someone acts similarly on different occasions.



control condition      The condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.



controlled processing      "Explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.



correlational research      The study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables.



counterfactual thinking      Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened but didn't.



credibility      Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy in cult indoctrination.



credible source      A source that is hard to discount.



cross-race bias      A phenomenon in which eyewitnesses tend to be more accurate when identifying members of their own race than members of other races.



cult (also called new religious movement)      A group typically characterized by (1) distinctive ritual and beliefs related to its devotion to a god or a person, (2) isolation from the surrounding "evil" culture, and (3) a charismatic leader. (A sect, by contrast, is a spinoff from a major religion).



culture      The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.



debriefing      In social psychology, the postexperimental explanation of a study to its participants. Debriefing usually discloses any deception and often queries participants regarding their understandings and feelings.



deception      In research, an effect by which participants are misinformed or misled about the study's methods and purposes.



defensive pessimism      The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action.



deindividuation      Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.



demand characteristics      Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected.



dependent variable      The variable being measured, so called because it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.



depressive realism      The tendency of mildly depressed people to make accurate rather than self-serving judgments, attributions, and predictions.



disclosure reciprocity      The tendency for one person's intimacy of self-disclosure to match that of a conversational partner.



discrimination      Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members.



dismissive attachment      An avoidant relationship style marked by distrust of others.



displacement      The redirection of aggression to a target other than the source of the frustration. Generally, the new target is a safer or more socially acceptable target.



dispositional attribution      Attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits.



distinctiveness      In attribution theory, the specificity of the person's behavior to a particular situation.



door-in-the-face technique      A strategy for gaining a concession in which, after someone first turns down a large request (the door-in-the-face), the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request.



dual attitudes      Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.



egoism      A motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase one's own welfare. The opposite of altruism, which aims to increase another's welfare effects of.



elevation      A feeling of warmth and expansion that may provoke chills, tears, and throat clenching. Such elevation often inspires people to become more self-giving.



empathy      The vicarious experience of another's feelings; putting oneself in another's shoes enabling relationship.



equal-status contact      Contact on an equal basis. Just as a relationship between people of unequal status breeds attitudes consistent with their relationship, so do relationships between those of equal status. Thus, to reduce prejudice, interracial contact should be between persons equal in status.



equity      A condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it. Note: Equitable outcomes needn't always be equal outcomes.



eros      Passionate love.



ethnocentric      Believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups.



evaluation apprehension      Concern for how others are evaluating us.



evolutionary psychology      The study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection behavior.



experimental realism      The degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants.



experimental research      Studies that seek clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant).



experimenter bias      The tendency of research participants to live up to what they believe experimenters expect of them.



explanatory style      One's habitual way of explaining life events. A negative, pessimistic, depressive explanatory style attributes failure to stable, global, and internal causes.



explanatory style therapy      A cognitive therapy that helps people reverse their negative beliefs about themselves and their futures.



explicit attitudes      Consciously controlled attitudes.



external locus of control      The belief that chance or outside forces determine one's fate.



false consensus effect      The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.



false uniqueness effect      The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.



fearful attachment      An avoidant relationship style marked by fear of rejection.



field research      Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.



flow      An involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills.



foot-in-the-door phenomenon      The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request cult indoctrination.



framing      The way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence people's decisions and expressed opinions.



free riders      People who benefit from the group but give little in return.



frustration-aggression theory      The theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress.



frustration      The blocking of goal-directed behavior.



fundamental attribution error      The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (Also called correspondence bias, because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition).



gender      In psychology, the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female.



gender role      A set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females adaptation.



GRIT      Acronym for "graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction"—a strategy designed to de-escalate international tensions.



group      Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as "us".



group polarization      Group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group.



group-serving bias      Explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group).



groupthink      "The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action." Irving Janis (1971), .



health psychology      The study of the psychological roots of health and illness. Provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine.



heuristic      A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.



hindsight bias      The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.



hostile aggression      Aggression driven by anger and performed as an end in itself. (also called affective aggression).



hostile sexism      Antagonistic attitudes towardwomen,.



hypothesis      A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events.



illusion of control      Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are.



illusion of invulnerability      An excessive optimism that blinds people to warnings of danger.



illusion of transparency      The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others.



illusion of unanimity      During groupthink, the overestimating of group members' consensus.



illusory correlation      Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.



immune neglect      The human tendency to neglect the speed and the strength of the "psychological immune system." which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.



impact bias      Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.



implicit association test (IAT)      An instrument that uses reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts, indicating their implicit attitudes.



implicit attitudes      Automatic, unconscious attitudes.



implicit egotism      The tendency to like what we associate with ourselves, such as the letters in our name.



independent self      Defining the self apart from others.



independent variable      The experimental factor that a researcher manipulates.



individualism      The concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.



informational influence      Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.



informed consent      An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.



ingratiation      The use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain another's favor.



ingroup      "Us"—a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity.



ingroup bias      The tendency to favor one's own group cause of conflict.



instinctive behavior      An innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members of a species.



instrumental aggression      Aggression that is a means to some other end.



insufficient justification      Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient."–139.



integrative agreements      Win-win agreements that reconcile both parties' interests to their mutual benefit.



interaction      A relationship in which the effect of one factor (such as biology) depends on another factor (such as environment) of biology and culture.



interdependent self      Defining the self in terms of relationships with others.



internal locus of control      The belief that one controls one's own destiny.



just-world phenomenon      The tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.



kin selection      The idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes.



leadership      The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group.



learned helplessness      The hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or an animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.



linguistic intergroup bias      The tendency to communicate positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviors in general, trait terms (and to describe negative ingroup and positive outgroup behaviors in more limited, specific terms).



locus of control      The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts and actions or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.



low-ball technique      A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.



ludus      Uncommitted game-playing love.



matching phenomenon      The tendency for men and women to choose as partners those who are a "good match" in attractiveness and other traits.



materialism      In its economic meaning, refers to prioritizing the accumulation of money and material possessions, often involving conspicuous consumption.



mediation      An attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a conflict by facilitating communication and offering suggestions.



mere exposure effect      The tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them.



mindguarding      A phenomenon that feeds groupthink when some members protect the group from information that would call into question the effectiveness or morality of its decisions.



minority slowness effect      A tendency for people with minority views to express them less quickly than do people in the majority.



mirror-image perceptions      Reciprocal views of each other often held by parties in conflict; for example, each may view itself as moral and peace-loving and the other as evil and aggressive.



misattribution      Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.



misinformation effect      Incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event after receiving misleading information about it.



moral exclusion      The perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within which one applies moral values and rules of fairness. Moral inclusion is regarding others as within one's circle of moral concern.



mug-shot-induced bias      An effect by which exposure to mug shots of a suspect increases the likelihood that the witness will later choose that suspect in a lineup.



mundane realism      Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations.



natural selection      The evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations.



need for cognition      The motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as "The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me" and disagreement with items such as "I only think as hard as I have to."



need to belong      A motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive interactions.



non-zero sum games      Games in which outcomes need not sum to zero. With cooperation, both can win; with competition, both can lose. (Also called mixed-motive situations).



normative influence      Conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance.



norms      Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do— what is normal).



obedience      Acting in accord with a direct order or command.



ostracism      Acts of excluding or ignoring someone.



outgroup      "Them"-a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their ingroup.



outgroup homogeneity effect      Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. Thus, "they are alike; we are diverse."



overconfidence phenomenon      The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs.



overjustification effect      The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.



own-race bias      The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race.



passionate love      A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate lovers are absorbed in each other, feel ecstatic at attaining their partner's love, and are disconsolate on losing it.



peace      A condition marked by low levels of hostility and aggression and by mutually beneficial relationships.



peripheral route to persuasion      Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.



personal identity      A sense of one's personal.



personal space      The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our familiarity with whoever is near us.



persuasion      The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.



physical-attractiveness stereotype      The presumption that physically attractive people possess other socially desirable traits as well: What is beautiful is good.



placebo effect      Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent.



planning fallacy      Underestimating the time and expense of a project or an endeavor.



pluralistic ignorance      A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding.



possible selves      Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.



prejudice      A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members.



premenstrual dysphoric disorder      A severe form of PMS (premenstrual syndrome).



preoccupied attachment      Attachments marked by a sense of one's own unworthiness and anxiety, ambivalence, and possessiveness.



primacy effect      Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence.



priming      Activating particular associations in memory.



prosocial behavior      Positive, constructive, helpful social behavior; the opposite of antisocial behavior.



proximity      Geographical nearness. Proximity (more precisely, "functional distance").



psychological immune system      People's strategies for rationalizing, discounting, forgiving, and limiting emotional trauma.



racism      (1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race.



random assignment      The process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition. (Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and random sampling in surveys. Random assignment helps us infer cause and effect. Random sampling helps us generalize to a population).



random sample      Survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.



rationalization      A defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.



reactance      A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.



realistic group conflict theory      The theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources.



recency effect      Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects.



reciprocity norm      An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.



regression toward the average      The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average.



relative deprivation      The perception that one is less well-off than others with whom one compares oneself.



replication      The repeating of an experiment to assess the reliability of the initial findings.



representativeness heuristic      The tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member.



reward theory of attraction      The theory that we like those whose behavior is rewarding to us or whom we associate with rewarding events.



role      A set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave. self-concept. theory.



rosy retrospection      Recalling mildly pleasant events more favorably than the actual experience of them.



schema      A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.



secure attachment      Attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy.



self-affirmation theory      A theory that (a) people often experience a self-image threat, after engaging in an undesirable behavior; and that (b) they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people's self-concept in one domain and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain.



self-awareness      A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions deindividuation in groups.



self-concept      A person's answers to the question "Who am I?."



self-disclosure      Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.



self-efficacy      A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, one's sense of self-worth. A bombardier might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.



self-esteem      A person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.



self-fulfilling prophecy      A belief that leads to its own fulfillment; behavioral confirmation.



self-handicapping      Protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure.



self-monitoring      Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance to create the desired impression.



self-perception theory      The theory that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us, by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs.



self-presentation      The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals.



self-reference effect      The tendency to process efficiently and remember well information related to oneself.



self-schema      Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.



self-serving attributions      A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors.



self-serving bias      The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.



self-verification      Seeking, eliciting, and recalling feedback that confirms one's beliefs about himself or herself.



sexism      (1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex.



situational attribution      Attributing behavior to the environment.



sleeper effect      A delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it.



social capital      The mutual support and cooperation enabled by a social network.



social cognition      How and what we think about one another.



social comparison      Evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others attractiveness.



social dilemma      An ironic situation in which individuals' rationally pursuing their individual interests leads to collective harm.



social dominance orientation      A motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups.



social-exchange theory      The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs.



social facilitation      (1) Original meaning: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present. (2) Current meaning: the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others.



social identity      The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships.



social leadership      Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.



social learning theory      The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished.



social loafing      The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable.



social neuroscience      An integration of biological and social perspectives that.



social psychology      The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another common sense.



social representations      Socially shared beliefs—widely held ideas and values, including our assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.



social-responsibility norm      An expectation that people will help those needing help.



social scripts      Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations.



social trap      A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing its self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior. Examples include the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons.



spontaneous trait inference      An automatic tendency to associate with people the traits that they impute to others.



spotlight effect      The belief that others are paying more attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are.



stereotype      A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information consequence of prejudice.



stereotype threat      A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one's reputation into one's self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects.



stigma consciousness      A person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination.



storge      Friendship love.



subgrouping      Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group.



subliminal stimuli      Stimuli with intensity below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.



subtyping      Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule."



superordinate goal      A shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort; a goal that overrides people's differences from one another.



task leadership      Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals.



terror management      According to "terror management theory." people's self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.



theory      An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events.



Tragedy of the Commons      The "commons" is any shared resource, including air, water, energy sources, and food supplies. The tragedy occurs when individuals consume more than their share, with the cost of their doing so dispersed among all, causing the ultimate collapse—the tragedy—of the commons.



transformational leadership      Leadership that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.



two-factor theory of emotion      Arousal x its label – emotion.



two-step flow of communication      The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.



Type A personality      Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.



Type B personality      Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people.



women-are-wonderful effect      A favorable stereotype of women that includes the view that women are more understanding, kind, and helpful than men.


Heuristic

In psychology, heuristics are simple, efficient rules, learned or hard-coded by evolutionary processes, that have been proposed to explain how people make decisions, come to judgments, and solve problems typically when facing complex problems or incomplete information. These rules work well under most circumstances, but in certain cases lead to systematic errors or cognitive biases.[3]

Types of Heuristic:

The Representativeness Heuristic:

We live our lives believing that all things occur randomly and appear randomly. The representative heuristic is used quite often when making decisions. We make our decisions based on the likeliness of a sample to occur in the population. Random outcomes are more accepted than orderly outcomes as long as the outcome is due to a random process. Ex. Coin toss, rolling dice, etc.

The Availability Heuristic :

Our memory plays a major role in decision making. Specifically when making judgments about frequency and probability. We make these judgments based on how easy it is to think of examples. It should be obvious how this heuristic can lead someone to make the wrong decision.

The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic :

This heuristic is like the availability heuristic because it’s sometimes based on previous knowledge. Making an initial judgment is the anchoring, we make an approximation about something. Once it’s anchored we then make adjustments according to additional information that we may receive.

Impression formation

Impression formation
Impression formation in social psychology refers to the process by which individual pieces of information about another person are integrated to form a global impression of the individual (i.e. how one person perceives another person).[1] Underlying this entire process is the notion that an individual expects unity and coherence in the personalities of others. Consequently, an individual's impression of another should be similarly unified.[2] Two major theories have been proposed to explain how this process of integration takes place. The Gestalt approach views the formation of a general impression as the sum of several interrelated impressions. Central to this theory is the idea that as an individual seeks to form a coherent and meaningful impression of another person, previous impressions significantly influence or color his or her interpretation of subsequent information.[3] In contrast to the Gestalt approach, the cognitive algebra approach of information integration theory asserts that individual experiences are evaluated independently, and combined with previous evaluations to form a constantly changing impression of a person.[4] An important and related area to impression formation is the study of person perception, which refers to the process of observing behavior, making dispositional attributions, and then adjusting those inferences based on the information available.[5]Solomon Asch (1946) is credited with conducting the seminal research on impression formation.[6]

Methods

Impression formation has traditionally been studied using three methods pioneered by Asch: free response, free association, and a check-list form. In addition, a fourth method based on a Likert scale with anchors such as “very favorable” and “very unfavorable”, has also been used in recent research.[7] A combination of some or all of these techniques is often employed to produce the most accurate assessment of impression formation.

Free Response

Free response is an experimental method frequently used in impression formation research. The participant (or perceiver) is presented with a stimulus (usually a short vignette or a list of personality descriptors such as assured, talkative, cold, etc.) and then instructed to briefly sketch his or her impressions of the type of person described. This is a useful technique for gathering detailed and concrete evidence on the nature of the impression formed. However, the difficulty of accurately coding responses often necessitates the use of additional quantitative measures.[2]

Free Association

Free Association is another commonly used experimental method in which the perceiver creates a list of personality adjectives that immediately come to mind when asked to think about the type of person described by a particular set of descriptor adjectives.

Check-list

A check-list consisting of assorted personality descriptors is often used to supplement free response or free association data and to compare group trends.[2] After presenting character-qualities of an imagined individual, perceivers are instructed to select the character adjectives from a preset list that best describe the resulting impression. While this produces an easily quantifiable assessment of an impression, it forces participants' answers into a limited, and often extreme, response set.[2] However, when used in conjunction with the above mentioned techniques, check-list data provides useful information about the character of impressions.

Likert-type rating scales

With Likert scales, perceivers are responding to a presentation of discrete personality characteristics. Common presentation methods include lists of adjectives, photos or videos depicting a scene, or written scenarios.[7][8][9][10] For example, a participant might be asked to answer the question "Would an honest (trait) person ever search for the owner of a lost package (behavior)?" by answering on a 5 point scale ranging from 1 "very unlikely" to 5 "very likely."[11]

Impression management

Impression management
In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction (Piwinger & Ebert 2001, pp. 1–2). It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, in which a person tries to influence the perception of their image. The notion of impression management also refers to practices in professional communication and public relations, where the term is used to describe the process of formation of a company's or organization's public image.

Self-presentation

While impression management and self-presentation or giving Face are often used interchangeably, some authors have argued that they are not the same. In particular, Schlenker (1980) believed that self-presentation should be used to describe attempts to control ‘self-relevant’ (pp. 6) images projected in “real or imagined social interactions’. This is because people may manage impressions of entities other than themselves such as businesses, cities and other individuals (Leary & Kowalski 1990).

ingratiation

ingratiation      The use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain another's favor

Interdependence theory

Interdependence theory is part of a larger scale of social exchange theories. Social exchange theories look at how people exchange rewards and costs in a relationship. Interdependence theory takes it another step further and demonstrates how these rewards and costs collaborate with peoples’ expectations of interpersonal relationship. This theory comes from the idea that closeness is the key to all relationships; that people communicate to become closer to one another. This theory states that there are rewards and costs to any relationship and that people try to maximize the rewards while minimizing the costs.

INTERPERSONAL TRUST

this is the confidence a person or group of people has in relying on another person or group. The degree which a person can depend on others to do what they say they will.

INTERPERSONAL TRUST: "Interpersonal trust is often seen between married couples."

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Types of Reinforcement


Positive reinforcement:
Providing a reward for a desired behavior (learning)

Negative reinforcement:
Removing an unpleasant consequence when the desired behavior occurs (learning)

Extinction:
Withholding reinforcement of a behavior to cause its cessation (“unlearning”)

Punishment:
Applying an undesirable condition to eliminate an undesirable behavior (“unlearning”)

Limitations of Two-Factor Theory

The two factor theory is not free from limitations:
The two-factor theory overlooks situational variables.
Herzberg assumed a correlation between satisfaction and productivity. But the research conducted by Herzberg stressed upon satisfaction and ignored productivity.
The theory’s reliability is uncertain. Analysis has to be made by the raters. The raters may spoil the findings by analyzing same response in different manner.
No comprehensive measure of satisfaction was used. An employee may find his job acceptable despite the fact that he may hate/object part of his job.
The two factor theory is not free from bias as it is based on the natural reaction of employees when they are enquired the sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction at work. They will blame dissatisfaction on the external factors such as salary structure, company policies and peer relationship. Also, the employees will give credit to themselves for the satisfaction factor at work.
The theory ignores blue-collar workers. Despite these limitations, Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory is acceptable broadly.

maslow's hierarchy of needs

Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of thousands of years. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us all.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.
Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.
Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.
Maslow's original Hierarchy of Needs model was developed between 1943-1954, and first widely published in Motivation and Personality in 1954. At this time the Hierarchy of Needs model comprised five needs. This original version remains for most people the definitive Hierarchy of Needs.

Models of Organizational Behaviour

Models of Organizational Behavior

1. Autocratic Model

Deep rooted in history, this model claims ‘power’ as its managerial orientation. The people who are in command must have the power to demand. Authority is the only tool by which the manager gets things done. The employees have to follow the order and have to depend highly on boss attitude for work climate. McGregor’s theory states that human beings are inherently distasteful to work and try to avoid responsibility. The autocratic model is based on McGregor’s theory. Better performance is ensured through fear, threats, punishment and occasional rewards. Communication is mostly one way i.e., downward (communication flowing from the superior to the subordinate) and there is little interaction between managers and employees. This model is useful for accomplishing work where the employees can be motivated through physiological needs.

2. Custodial Model

This approach depends on economic resources. If an organization does not have the wealth to provide pensions and pay other benefits, it can’t follow a custodial approach. The resulting managerial orientation is towards money to pay the cost of benefits. Since the employee’s physical needs are already satisfied, he looks to second level security needs as a motivating force. The employee’s dependence on the organization is prominent in custodial approach. Since the employees are safe for their bread, they now look for welfare measures from their employer. Their organizational dependence is augmented and personal dependence on boss gets reduced to a considerable extent. Especially in case of senior employees, they can’t quit even if the grass looks greener somewhere else. In a custodial environment, the employees are maintained, happy and contented but they are not strongly motivated. The result is that they extend only passive co-operation. The employer can’t erase the reservations of the employees over his boss attitude by the perks he gives then and there. Though satisfied and feel secure, most employees are not producing anywhere near their capacities and they are not motivated to work to greater capacity of which they are capable. The employees are happy but they do not feel fulfilled or self actualized. Thus, custodial approach though looks for economic resources of keeping the employees happy with perks; it also met with fiasco in bringing about a self-actualized work force with motivation to achieve the desired result.

3. Supportive Model

The supportive model of organizational behavior depends on managerial leadership than its dependence on power or money. The focal point of this model is on participation making process. This model is based on the assumption that workers move to the maturity level and they expect supportive measures like communication, leadership, decision-making interaction, control and influence to fulfill their higher order needs such as, esteem and self actualization. Supportive model which gives more importance to human aspects rather than economic resources of the organization crystallizes the role of managers to help employees to achieve their work rather than supervising them very closely. Institutions with sophisticated technology and employing professional people can also apply this model for getting the best out of their human resources. This model best suits for managerial levels rather than operative levels.

4. The Collegial Model

It is an extension of the supportive model. This concept is based on team work that relates to a body of persons having a common purpose. This model tends to be more useful with unprogrammed work and intellectual environment and considerable job freedom. The management, under this model should develop a feeling of partnership with the employees. Managers contribute rather than extending an autocratic boss attitude. Since team work is the main motto of this model it brings both the management and workers under a single roof with mutual trust. The employees produce with quality, not because of their fear of the inspector or the management’s word to do so but out of their in-built obligation to produce goods with quality. With high responsibility, employees discipline themselves for performance and feel some degree of fulfillment and self actualization which will lead to moderate enthusiasm in performance. As far as supportive model is concerned, the maintenance cost of human resource will gradually come down. Since the worker gets the optimistic feeling to work for his organization with pleasure, there is no need for any additional expenditure on keeping the morale of the workers.

organizational behavior

Definition

Organizational behavior is the analysis of human dynamics in an organization. It helps human resources professionals and business leaders understand the relationships between themselves and their employees. Additionally, it reveals a great deal about how employees on the same level interact with each other. Although organizational behavior varies from one organization to another, the nature of the behavior carries significant implications.

Challenges

Organizational behavior is founded on the company's aspirations, ethics and goals. It fuels the very nature of the organization and the direction it takes. More importantly, it is a significant predictor of the business' potential success. Ineffective or misguided organizational behavior can effectively cripple a company's competitiveness. A major challenge in organizational behavior is reform. If a business is plagued with ineffective leadership, poor work ethic or low employee morale, changing this is a significant undertaking. Another significant challenge when studying organizational behavior is determining where problems lie and how to fix them. Issues can vary in scope and severity, so the approach's success is contingent on its strategy.

Opportunities

Organizational behavior is a medium that provides significant opportunities for change. Once a company's organizational behavior is identified and analyzed, problem areas can be addressed. Additionally, there may be undiscovered opportunities to improve aspects that are already strong. For example, an organization with successful sales output can introduce new reward packages or incentives for its salespeople to further boost production. Alternately, if that same company's sales performance is poor, management can evaluate its leadership or introduce new coaching programs to address each employee's weak points, then follow through with incentives once performance increases.

role of managers

Roles performed by managers
A manager wears many hats. Not only is a manager a team leader, but he or she is also a planner, organizer, cheerleader, coach, problem solver, and decision maker — all rolled into one. And these are just a few of a manager's roles.

These roles fall into three categories:

Interpersonal: This role involves human interaction.
Informational: This role involves the sharing and analyzing of information.
Decisional: This role involves decision making.

self-efficacy theory

According to Staples et al. (1998), self-efficacy theory suggests that there are four major sources of information used by individuals when forming self-efficacy judgments. In order of strength:
Performance accomplishments: personal assessment information that is based on an individual's personal accomplishments. Previous successes raise mastery expectations, while repeated failures lower them.

Vicarious experience: gained by observing others perform activities successfully. This is often referred to as modeling, and it can generate expectations in observers that they can improve their own performance by learning from what they have observed.

Social persuasion: activities where people are led, through suggestion, into believing that they can cope successfully with specific tasks. Coaching and giving evaluative feedback on performance are common types of social persuasion

Physiological and emotional states. The individual's physiological or emotional states influence self-efficacy judgments with respect to specific tasks. Emotional reactions to such tasks (e.g., anxiety) can lead to negative judgments of one's ability to complete the tasks.

Shaping Behavior

Systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an individual closer to the desired response

skill of managers

Not everyone can be a manager. Certain skills, or abilities to translate knowledge into action that results in desired performance, are required to help other employees become more productive. These skills fall under the following categories:


Technical: This skill requires the ability to use a special proficiency or expertise to perform particular tasks. Accountants, engineers, market researchers, and computer scientist.
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Human: This skill demonstrates the ability to work well in cooperation with others. Human skills emerge in the workplace as a spirit of trust.

Conceptual: This skill calls for the ability to think analytically. Analytical skills enable managers to break down problems into smaller parts, to see the relations among the parts, and to recognize the implications of any one problem for others. As managers assume ever‐higher responsibilities in organizations.

Although all three categories contain skills essential for managers, their relative importance tends to vary by level of managerial responsibility.

Theories of Learning

Classical Conditioning:
A type of conditioning in which an individual responds to some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such a response

Operant Conditioning:
A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment

Social-Learning Theory:
People can learn through observation and direct experience

Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor (1906 - 1964) is one of the forefathers of management theory and one of the top business thinkers of all time. He was a social psychologist who became the President of Antioch College. He later became a professor of management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (he was succeeded by Warren Bennis). His book The Human Side of Enterprise (1960) had a profound influence on the management field, largely due to his Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X

With Theory X assumptions, management's role is to coerce and control employees.

People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.
People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.
People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.
People seek security above all else.

Theory Y

With Theory Y assumptions, management's role is to develop the potential in employees and help them to release that potential towards common goals.

Work is as natural as play and rest.
People will exercise self-direction if they are committed to the objectives (they are NOT lazy).
Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
People learn to accept and seek responsibility.
Creativity, ingenuity, and imagination are widely distributed among the population. People are capable of using these abilities to solve an organizational problem.
People have potential.

two factor theory

According to Herzberg, understanding what causes employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction is important for management.

The factors that motivate people can change over their lifetime, but "respect for me as a person" is one of the top motivating factors at any stage of life.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one increasing as the other diminishes, but are independent phenomena.

To ensure a satisfied and productive workforce, managers must give attention to both sets of job factors.

motivation
Willingness of action especially in behavior

hygiene
Those conditions and practices that promote and preserve health.

satisfaction
A fulfillment of a need or desire.

two-factor theory
a framework that says there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction

hygiene factors
things that that do not give positive satisfaction, though dissatisfaction results from their absence

Types of Ability

Types of Ability

What is “Ability”?

An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
Intellectual Abilities

That required to do mental activities.
Physical Abilities

That required to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics.
The Ability - Job Fit

Employee performance is enhanced when there is a high ability - job fit.

Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance).
Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.

For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition).
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