Attitudes
Beliefs and feelings about objects, people, and events that lead people to behave in certain ways
Cognitive anchors
Persistent beliefs that shape the ways in which people see the world and interpret events; beliefs that tend to keep attitudes from changing
Cognitive dissonance
An uncomfortable feeling of tension caused by a contradiction between behaviors and attitudes
Persuasion
A direct attempt to influence other people's attitudes
Central route
A way to persuade people by using evidence and logical arguments
Peripheral route
A way to persuade by arousing feelings such as loyalty or fear
Sales resistance
The quality that some people have that makes them less easily persuaded than others
Prejudice
A negative attitude or belief toward a group of people
Discrimination
The unfair treatment of individuals because they are members of a particular group; an action, not just a belief
Scapegoat
An individual or group that is blamed for the problems of others
Social perception
The ways in which people perceive one another
Primacy effect
The tendency for people to form opinions of others on the basis of first impressions
Recency effect
The changing of one's opinion of others on the basis of recent interactions rather than on first impressions
Actor-observer bias
The tendency to explain the behavior of others in terms of dispositional factors and one's own behavior in terms of situational factors
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to overestimate the effect of dispositional causes for another person's behavior and to underestimate the effect of situational causes
Self-serving bias
The tendency to attribute one's own successes to personality factors and one's failures to situational factors
Gazing
A type of eye contact that involves looking at someone steadily and is generally interpreted as a sign of friendliness
Staring
A type of eye contact that involves looking fixedly with wide-open eyes and is generally interpreted as a sign of anger
Attraction
An attitude of liking that often leads to friendship or love
Matching hypothesis
The tendency to choose as friends and partners those who are similar to oneself
Reciprocity
The situation in which feelings of attraction and affection toward another person are returned
Intimacy
A characteristic of a love relationship involving closeness and caring
Passion
A characteristic of a love relationship involving feelings of romantic and sexual attraction
Commitment
A characteristic of a love relationship involving recognition of being "in love" and a desire to be together
Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes
Experiment conducted by a 3rd grade teacher to illustrate the impact of prejudice
Stanford Prison study
Experiment that showed the power of roles in people's behaviors. When one takes on a role, they will often change their behavior in order to fit the perceived set of expectations for that role
Obedience study
Experiment on whether people 'investigate' the role of punishment on memory and how people respond to authority
Conformity study
Experiment on whether people would go along with a group's opinion rather than their own.