Social Psychology Study Guide Terms

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts in social psychology including attributions, social influence, group dynamics, and prejudices.

Social psychology

The study of how a person perceives, feel and think about others compared to when alone.

Internal Attributions

Explaining someone's behaviour loased on their personality, triats, or effort.

Schemas

mental categories that organize knowledge and helps interpretate infomation (type Person Schema, event, role).

Self-serving Bias

The Tendancy to take credit for success but blame external factors for failure.

Attitudes

Evaluation of something made from three components cognitive, affective and behavioural.

Conformity

changing behaviour or belief to match a group.

Obedience

following orders from someone in higher authority.

Milgram Experiment

Study on obedience, showing how people will obey authority even when conflicted with their morals.

Door-in-the-face technique

asking for a big request, likely refused request then followed up with a smaller request that's more likely to accept and reasonable.

Altruism

helping others without any personal gain in return.

Informational Influence Theory

Conforming because you believe other's have the correct infomation in an uncertain situation.

Social Facilitation

Changing how you behave when others are around/ watching.

Groupthink

a group making poor choices because everyone agrees to avoid conflict.

Explicit Social Norms

staded (law, etc) expectations.

Implicit Social Norms

unspoken expectations.

Stereotypes

oversimplified beliefs about a group of people.

Discrimination

Treating a group of ppl unfairly based on their group membership.

Hindsight bias

Believing you knew it all along after it happens.

Reasons for Stereotypes & Prejudices

Social learning, learning from parents or blaming a group for your problems.

Attributions

Explation why people behave the way they do.

External Attributions

Explaining behaviour by situational factors outside the situation.

Fundamental Attribution Error

overestimating personality and underestaniating situation when judging others.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

mental discomfort when belief and actions dont match.

Asch Experiment

Studying showing ppl conform to group opinion even when they are clearly wrong.

Compliance

changing behaviour because someone asks, not because of authority.

Deindividuation

losing self-awareness in group situations, often leading to impulsive behaviour.

Foot-in-the-door technique

Agree to a small request making you more likely to agree to a bigger one.

Prosocial Behaviour

Actions intended to help others.

Bystander Effect

people are less likely to help when others are present.

Diffuse of Responsibility

people feel less responsible to act when others are present because they assume some else will help.

Social Loafing

Putting in little to no effort when working a group vs working alone.

Group Polarization

Group discussion make opinions more extreme in the direction the group already leans.

Ingroup favoritism

preferring and treating your group better than others.

Prejudice

A negative attitude or feeling toward a group without real knowledge or experience.

Scapegoat theory

Blaming a group or person for problems when the real cause is hard to face.

Ingroup

the group you belong and identify with.

Outgroup

Any group you dont belong to.