PSYA02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Social Loafing, Cognitive Dissonance

• School: UTSC
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYA02H3
• Professor: Fornier

Document Summary

Social psychology: how the thoughts, feelings, behaviour of individuals is influenced by the presence of others. Social cognition: how individuals perceive, respond and interpret to the social world. The way in which we define a person based on their traits is known as impression formation. Schema is a mental framework that organizes information pertaining to a person, place or thing. A schema assists in interpreting the world: central traits organize and influence our understanding of other traits a person possesses and dominates over other traits. For example, words like warm" and cold" form different impressions and classify as central traits. Whereas, words like blunt" and polite" do not generate different impressions. Primacy effect: formulating an impression based on initial information provided where the emphasis lies on information presented earlier. This effect is more pronounced in mentally fatigued individuals. Self concept is defined as the way in which a person describes him/herself. It is not static since it changes with experiences.