Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts,feelings,and behaviors are influenced by the actual,imagined,or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations,studying the social conditions under which thoughts,feelings,and behaviors occur,and how these variables influence social interactions.
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that the prediction would come true. In the phenomena,people tend to act the way they have been expected to in order to make the expectations come true. Self-fulfilling prophecies are an example of the more general phenomenon of positive feedback loops. A self-fulfilling prophecy can have either negative or positive outcomes. Merely applying a label to someone or something can affect the perception of the person/thing and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Interpersonal communication plays a significant role in establishing these phenomena as well as impacting the labeling process.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area and low expectations lead to worse performance. It is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion,the sculptor who fell so much in love with the perfectly beautiful statue he created that the statue came to life. The psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson present a view,that has been called into question as a result of later research findings,in their book Pygmalion in the Classroom; borrowing something of the myth by advancing the idea that teachers' expectations of their students affect the students' performance. Rosenthal and Jacobson held that high expectations lead to better performance and low expectations lead to worse,both effects leading to self-fulfilling prophecy.
The blood type personality theory is a pseudoscientific belief prevalent in Japan which states that a person's blood group system is predictive of a person's personality,temperament,and compatibility with others. The theory is generally considered a superstition by the scientific community.
A label is an abstract concept in sociology used to group people together based on perceived or held identity. Labels are a mode of identifying social groups. Labels can create a sense of community within groups,but they can also cause harm when used to separate individuals and groups from mainstream society. Individuals may choose a label,or they may be assigned one by others. The act of labeling may affect an individual's behavior and their reactions to the social world.
Behavioral confirmation is a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations. The phenomenon of belief creating reality is known by several names in literature:self-fulfilling prophecy,expectancy confirmation,and behavioral confirmation,which was first coined by social psychologist Mark Snyder in 1984. Snyder preferred this term because it emphasizes that it is the target's actual behavior that confirms the perceiver's beliefs.
In social psychology,a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary;it can be,for example,an expectation about the group's personality,preferences,appearance or ability. Stereotypes are often overgeneralized,inaccurate,and resistant to new information. A stereotype does not necessarily need to be a negative assumption. They may be positive,neutral,or negative.
Steven L. Neuberg is an American experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception,impression formation,stereotyping,prejudice,self-fulfilling prophecies,stereotype threat,and prosocial behavior. His research can be broadly characterized as exploring the ways motives and goals shape social thought processes;extending this approach,his later work employs the adaptationist logic of evolutionary psychology to inform the study of social cognition and social behavior. Neuberg has published over sixty scholarly articles and chapters,and has co-authored a multi-edition social psychology textbook with his colleagues Douglas Kenrick and Robert Cialdini.
Accentuation effect occurs when something is placed into a category. The differences between the categories are then exaggerated,and differences within the categories themselves are minimised. Memory of anything that can be categorized is subject to an accentuation effect in which the memory is distorted toward typical examples.
Academic bias is the bias or perceived bias of scholars allowing their beliefs to shape their research and the scientific community. It can refer to several types of scholastic prejudice,e.g.,logocentrism,phonocentrism,ethnocentrism or the belief that some sciences and disciplines rank higher than others.
Jacquelynne Sue Eccles is an American educational psychologist. She is the Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of California,Irvine and formerly the McKeachie/Pintrich Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan.
Everett Lowell Kelly was an American clinical psychologist,professor of psychology at the University of Michigan,president of the American Psychological Association (1954–55),and chairman of the Executive Committee for the Boulder Conference on Graduate Training in Clinical Psychology (1948–49).
Kay Deaux is an American social psychologist known for her pioneering research on immigration and feminist identity. Deaux is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Department of Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). According to Brenda Major,Deaux's work centers on the question of how social categories affect one's psychological makeup,social behavior,and life outcomes,while emphasizing the subjectivity of people's identities and experiences and the larger social context.
In social psychology,a positive stereotype refers to a subjectively favourable belief held about a social group. Common examples of positive stereotypes are Asians with better math ability,African Americans with greater athletic ability,and women with being warmer and more communal. As opposed to negative stereotypes,positive stereotypes represent a "positive" evaluation of a group that typically signals an advantage over another group. As such,positive stereotypes may be considered a form of compliment or praise. However,positive stereotypes can have a positive or negative effect on targets of positive stereotypes. The positive or negative influence of positive stereotypes on targets depends on three factors:(1) how the positive stereotype is stated,(2) who is stating the positive stereotype,(3) in what culture the positive stereotype is presented.
Monica R. Biernat is a social psychologist known for her research on social judgment,stereotyping,prejudice,and discrimination. She is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas.
Puritanical bias refers to the tendency to attribute cause of an undesirable outcome or wrongdoing by an individual to a moral deficiency or lack of self control rather than taking into account the impact of broader societal determinants. An example might be,"These people sit around all day in their apartments on welfare watching TV,but won't take the time to get out and find a job!" In this case,a selection of persons might have existed for some time under dire economic and/or socially oppressive circumstances,but individuals from that selection have been cognitively dis-empowered by these circumstances to decide or act on decisions to obtain a given goal.
Stephanie Johnson Rowley is a developmental psychologist and academic administrator known for her work on racial identity and parental socialization of race and ethnicity. She is the dean of University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development.
The psychology of social class is a branch of social psychology dedicated to understanding how social class affects individual's thoughts,feelings,and behaviors. While social class has long been a subject of analysis in fields such as sociology,political science,anthropology,medicine and epidemiology,its emergence within the field of psychology is much more recent.
Geoffrey L. Cohen is the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business,professor of psychology and,by courtesy,at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. His research focuses on how brief interventions can create long-lasting psychological and behavioral change. His focus has been on the psychology of self and belonging. He and his colleagues have shown how brief values-affirmations can benefit school performance,close political divides,and open people up to threatening information.
Laura Smalarz is a psychologist researching psychology as it is related to the law. Smalarz focuses her work on forensic evidence,eyewitness identification,and the wrongfully convicted. She is an Associate Professor of psychology and director of the psychology and law lab at Arizona State University.
