Unit 8: Social Psychology

Attribution Theory

The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition.

- someone else's attributes -situation or biological

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing other's behaviors, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

- under or overestimation -situation and disposition inaccuracy

Peripheral Route Persuasion

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

- no thinking fast judgement -persuaded by something through the senses

Foot-in-the-door Technique

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a large request.

- slowly scoot our foot in door

- small request to big

- slow and steady wins the race

Central Route Persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

- taking in the argument and thinking about it- more likely to influence behavior

Cognitive Dissonance

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognition) are inconsistent.

- actions and attitudes clash - i need to do my work but i dont wanna

Social Facilitation

Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

- others improve our performance -our performance facilitates with a crowd

Social Loafing

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

- freeloading - people feel like their contributions are useless

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

- people lose themselves when they are anonymous but in groups - terrorists

Group Polarization

The enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussions within the group.

- boys vs girls interests differences - liberals vs conservatives beliefs talking in groups

Groupthink

The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

- following a president's choice - we do not wanna mess up anything

Norms/Societal Norms

An understood rule for accepted and expected behaviors, norms prescribes proper behaviors.

- different from culture to culture -implied rules

Mere Exposure Effect

Repeated exposure to new stimuli increases our liking for them.

- increasing of liking -seeing someone everyday

Other-Race Effect

The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of people from another race.

- we know more about our own race - faces

Scapegoat Theory

Prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

- someone to blame - justification due to prejudice

Mirror-Image Perception

When each side of a conflict views the other as evil.

- factions - each hates the other

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

- genuine concern - we will help others from our heart

Bystander Effect

The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

- "someone else will do it" -bullying

Social Reciprocity Norm

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

- people will naturally help those who helped them -kindness

Social-Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those needing their help.

- everyone helps another - common courtesy

Social Trap/Prisoner's Dilemma

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

- both sides start becoming evil -self-interest

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

- someone else can believe that I will do something, and I will do it and justify with their expectation - hostile

Superordinate Goals

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

- time of war - natural disasters -covid

Outward Homogeneity Bias

"They're all like that." The belief that everyone in a group different from you is the same allows for all types of bias and discrimination; it relates to when we unconsciously use the representative heuristic to simplify our processing as we think of the prototype of a person to compare them against.

- all girls are the same - racism

Just-World Phenomenon

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

- karma - world provides justice

Ingroup Bias

The tendency to favor our own group.

- races stick with races - people with sickness stick with one another

Actor-observer bias

The tendency for individuals acting in a situation to attribute the causes of their behavior to external or situational factors, such as social pressure, but for observers to attribute the same behavior to internal or dispositional factors, such as personality.

- others behaviors are due to disposition, ours is due to external factors - im on my phone because i have to do something, others are just rude

Asch Conformity Study

an experimental paradigm used to study conformity to group opinion. Participants make judgments as part of a group of confederates who make errors deliberately on certain trials. The extent to which participants publicly agree with the erroneous group judgment or resist the pressure to do so and remain independent provides a measure of conformity.

- different lengths of lines - if one disagrees more would - we easily conform, then after even try to justify

Base-Rate Fallacy

a decision-making error in which information about the rate of occurrence of some trait in a population (the base-rate information) is ignored or not given appropriate weight.

- people overestimate likelihood of an event based on irrelevant detail, while downplaying actual overall information

- focus on specifics - overestimation

Diffusion of Responsibility

the diminished sense of responsibility often experienced by individuals in groups and social collectives.

-in social group we lose our sense of responsibility - we believe responsibility is split

Door-in-the-face Technique

a two-step procedure for enhancing compliance in which an extreme initial request is presented immediately before a more moderate target request.

- opposite of foot in the door -something big so that smaller looks more appealing

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

a theory of persuasion postulating that attitude change occurs on a continuum of elaboration and thus, under certain conditions, may be a result of relatively extensive or relatively little scrutiny of attitude-relevant information.

- dual process theory of persuasion -can be persuaded thru central or peripheral; based on motivation and thought process

Ethnocentrism

the practice of regarding one's own ethnic, racial, or social group as the center of all things. Just as egocentrism is a sense of self-superiority, so ethnocentrism is the parallel tendency to judge one's group as superior to other groups.

or

the tendency, often unintentional, to base perceptions and understandings of other groups or cultures on one's own.

- comparing off of our own -superiority - european imperialism

False Consensus effect

the tendency to assume that one's own opinions, beliefs, attributes, or behaviors are more widely shared than is actually the case.

- we think everyone agrees with us -untrue agreement

Self-Serving Bias

the tendency to interpret events in a way that assigns credit for success to oneself but denies one's responsibility for failure, which is blamed on external factors.

- we credit ourselves if successful, blame everything else if otherwise - making ourselves look better

Social influence theory

any change in an individual's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors caused by other people, who may be actually present or whose presence is imagined, expected, or only implied.

- we may change thoughts based on our surroundings

- environment influences us

Latane and Darley decision tree

5 step process: notice that something is happening, interpret situation as an emergency, take responsibility for providing help, decide how to help, provide help.

- step by step on how we help -a tree of decisions during emergency

Milgram's obedience study

An experiment in which Stanley Milgram found that people will usually obey an authority, even if they might think what they are doing is wrong.

- how much would we obey authority figures -we would harm others b/c authority figure

Zimbardo Stanford prison experiment

A study that explored how students conform to social roles and how situational factors can influence behavior.

- college students as guards or prisoners; students got into their roles - a little unethical