4 Social Psychology and Personality

Explain how attribution theory applies to behavior and mental processes.

• Attributions are how people explain behavior and mental processes of themselves and others. Dispositional attributions relate to internal qualities of others (such as intelligence or personality) while situational attributions relate to external circumstances that are experienced.
• People demonstrate a predictable pattern of attributions called explanatory style. Explanatory style is how people explain good and bad events in their lives and in the lives of others. Explanatory style can be optimistic or pessimistic.
• People are subject to biases in their attributions. Those biases include actor/ observer bias, fundamental attribution error, and self-serving bias, all of which can affect behavior and mental processes.

Explain how locus of control (internal and external) applies to behavior and mental processes.

Explain how person perception applies to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 4 Social Psychology and Personality

• People’s perception of how much they like something can be influenced by the mere exposure effect. The mere exposure effect occurs when people are exposed to a stimulus repeatedly over time, which causes them to like the stimulus more.
• People can behave in ways that elicit behaviors from others that confirm their beliefs or perceptions about themselves or others (selffulfilling prophecy).
• Social comparison is a type of person perception that occurs when people evaluate themselves based on comparisons to other members of society or social circles. Social comparison can be upward or downward. People often judge their own sense of deprivation relative to others (relative deprivation).

Explain how stereotypes and implicit attitudes contribute to the behaviors and mental processes of prejudice and discrimination.

• A stereotype is a generalized concept about a group. Stereotypes can help reduce cognitive load when making decisions or judgments. Stereotypes can be the cause and/or result of biased perceptions and experiences and are frequently the basis of prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviors.
• Implicit attitudes are those that individuals hold but may be unaware of or may not acknowledge. Research has focused on how implicit attitudes reflect negative evaluations of others, as demonstrated by the just-world phenomenon, out-group homogeneity bias, ingroup bias, or ethnocentrism.

Explain how belief perseverance and cognitive dissonance apply to attitude formation and change.

• Belief perseverance occurs when a belief persists even if evidence suggests it is not accurate. People experiencing belief perseverance may engage in confirmation bias, thereby clinging to an attitude or belief regardless of the evidence for or against it.
• Cognitive dissonance refers to the mental discomfort that occurs when actions or attitudes are in conflict. People are motivated to reduce the discomfort by changing either actions or attitudes to be more in line with each other.

Explain how the social situation affects behavior and mental processes.

• Social norms define expectations and roles a society may have for its members in individual and social situations.
• Social influence theory proposes that social pressure to behave or think in certain ways can be normative or informational.
• Persuasion refers to the techniques applied to convince the self or others of particular ideas, actions, or beliefs.
  • i. Persuasion can depend on the route to persuasion. The elaboration likelihood model outlines two main routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. The halo effect is an example of a peripheral route to persuasion.
  • ii. Persuasion can depend on how information is presented, as demonstrated by the foot-in-the-door and the door-in-the-face techniques.
• Research on conformity clarifies the conditions that strengthen the likelihood of people adhering to unspoken rules, norms, or expectations.
• Research on obedience clarifies the conditions that strengthen the likelihood of people complying with the directives of an authority figure.

Explain how being in a group can affect an individual’s behavior and mental processes.

• Cultural phenomena such as individualism, collectivism, and multiculturalism can influence how one perceives and behaves towards oneself and others.
• Being a member of a group can influence how one behaves or experiences mental processes via group polarization, groupthink, diffusion of responsibility, social loafing, and deindividuation.
• Performing a mental or physical behavior in front of a group can lead to social facilitation.
• People often overestimate the levels to which others agree with them, known as the false consensus effect.
• Superordinate goals serve to unite disparate groups under a common goal and help reduce negative affect and stereotyping among groups. Social traps occur when individuals do not unite and act in their own self-interest to the detriment of the group.
• Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychologists study how people perform in the workplace. I/O psychologists study best practices in management of work, relationships among people working together or for a common company or program, and how people feel about work (burnout).

Explain how prosocial behavior affects behavior and mental processes.

• Altruism refers to selfless behavior, but some researchers suggest that people act in prosocial ways due to incurring social debt. The social reciprocity norm and the social responsibility norm explain this type of behavior.
• The bystander effect demonstrates that situational and attentional variables predict whether someone is likely to help another person.

Explain how the psychodynamic theory of personality defines and assesses personality.

• According to the psychodynamic theory of personality, unconscious processes drive personality.
  • Exclusion: The stage theory of psychosexual development is out of scope for the AP Psychology Exam.
• Ego defense mechanisms (denial, displacement, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, and sublimation) serve to protect the ego unconsciously from threats.
• Psychodynamic personality psychologists assess personality using projective tests that are designed to probe the preconscious and unconscious mind.

Explain how the humanistic theory of personality defines and assesses personality.

• According to humanistic psychology, personality focuses on unconditional regard and the self-actualizing tendency as primary motivating factors.
  • Exclusion: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.

Explain how the socialcognitive theory of personality defines and assesses personality.

• According to social-cognitive theory, reciprocal determinism shapes personality. Reciprocal determinism explores self-concept (how one views themselves and in relation to others) and how self-efficacy and self-esteem both contribute to self-concept.

Explain how trait theories of personality define and assess personality.

• T rait theories of personality conclude that personality involves a set of enduring characteristics that lead to typical responses to stimuli.
• The Big Five theory of personality proposes that traits of agreeableness, openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness, and emotional stability make up one’s personality. These traits are measured by specialized personality inventories that use factor analysis to organize item responses.

Explain how theories about motivation apply to behavior and mental processes.

• Some theories about motivation focus on behavior and mental processes that seek to address physical needs and desires such as drive-reduction theory and arousal theory. Drive-reduction theory addresses how certain behaviors help maintain homeostasis while arousal theory addresses how people seek an optimal level of arousal when they behave (as demonstrated by the Yerkes-Dodson Law).
• Self-determination theory proposes that people are motivated by intrinsic (internal) or extrinsic (external) motivations. Incentive theory explores the role of rewards (an extrinsic motivation) in motivating behavior.
• Many non-human animals are motivated by instincts (innate, typically fixed patterns of behavior in animals in response to certain stimuli). Humans do not seem to demonstrate instinctual behavior or mental processes.
• Lewin’s motivational conflicts theory proposes that choices create conflicts one must resolve as the basis of motivation. The type of conflicts faced include approach-approach, approachavoidance, and avoidance-avoidance.
• Sensation-seeking theory proposes that one’s level of need for varied or novel experiences is the basis of motivation. The types of sensation seeking are experience seeking, thrill or adventure seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility.

Explain how eating and belongingness motivate behavior and mental processes. EExplain hoxplain how eating and w eating and belongingness motivbelongingness motivatate e behabehavior and mental vior and mental prprococessesses. es.

• Eating is a complex motivated behavior that demonstrates how physical and mental processes interact.
  • i. Hormones, such as ghrelin and leptin (regulated by the hypothalamus via the pituitary gland), regulate feelings of hunger and satiety.
  • ii. External factors like the presence of food, time of day, or social gatherings around meals also influence the behavior of eating.

Explain how theories of emotion apply to behavior and mental processes.

• Emotion, or affect, is a complex psychological process that is distinguished from reasoning or knowledge. Emotions reflect internal and external factors affecting an individual. Early 20th century psychological theories of emotion parsed the distinction between the physiological and cognitive experiences of emotion. Some theories proposed that the physiological and cognitive experiences occurred in succession while others proposed that they occurred simultaneously. Other theories emphasize that the cognitive label is required to experience an emotion. The facial-feedback hypothesis suggests that the experience of emotion is influenced by facial expressions, which supports theories that propose the physiological experience of emotion precedes the cognitive appraisal, and research testing this hypothesis has produced mixed results.
  • Exclusion: Specific names of theories of emotion are outside the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.
• The broaden-and-build theory of emotion proposes that positive emotional experiences tend to broaden awareness and encourage new actions and thoughts. Negative emotions tend to reduce awareness and narrow thinking and action.

Explain how social norms and experiences influence the expression of emotions.

• Research has explored whether the expression of emotions is universally common. Some emotions that may be commonly experienced across cultures include anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, surprise, and fear. Research on the universality of emotions shows mixed results.
• Display rules and elicitors for emotional expression can differ among cultures. Display rules and elicitors may regulate how people from different genders, ages, or socioeconomic classes within a culture can display and interpret emotions. 106 AP PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 5 | Mental and Physical Health 15–25% AP EXAM WEIGHTING ~17–23 CLASS PERIODS 107 Remember to go to AP Classroom to assign students the online Progress Check for this unit. Whether assigned as homework or completed in class, the Progress Check provides each student with immediate feedback related to this unit’s topics and skills. Progress Check 5 Multiple-choice: ~30 questions Free-response: 1 question