Social Psychology Lecture Review: Attitudes, Persuasion, and Intergroup Behaviour

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the structured models of attitudes, persuasion mechanics, social influence paradigms, group dynamics, prejudice theories, and intergroup conflict resolution strategies found in the Psychology 324 Social Psychology lecture notes.

Attitude (Allport's Definition)

A relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events, or symbols; and a general feeling or evaluation – positive or negative – about some person, object, or issue.

One-Component Attitude Model

An attitude model consisting of affect towards or evaluation of the object, defined by Louis Thurstone as the affect for or against a psychological object.

Two-Component Attitude Model

An attitude model comprising both an affective dimension and mental readiness, described as a mental and neural state of readiness that exerts a directive or dynamic influence upon responses.

Three-Component Attitude Model

Consists of cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings), and behavioural (action) dimensions of attitudes; these components are relatively permanent and generalisable.

Attitude Functions (Katz, 1960)

Attitudes serve purposes such as knowledge, instrumentality, ego-defence (protecting self-esteem), and value-expressiveness (displaying identifying values).

Cognitive Consistency Theories

A group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order, and agreement among their various cognitions.

Balance Theory (Heider)

A theory using a $P-O-X$ unit (Person, Other, object) suggesting people prefer attitudes that are consistent; balanced triads have an odd number of positive relationships.

Information Integration Theory (Anderson)

The idea that a person's attitude can be estimated by averaging across the positive and negative ratings of an object using cognitive algebra.

LaPiere (1934) Study

A study revealing inconsistency between attitudes and behaviour where $92 \%$ of establishments said they would not accept Chinese guests despite only refusing service once in person.

Theory of Reasoned Action

A model by Fishbein and Ajzen suggesting that a specific attitude with normative support predicts an intention to act, which then predicts actual behaviour.

Theory of Planned Behaviour

An extension of reasoned action by Ajzen adding perceived behavioural control – a person's belief that performing a behaviour is easy or difficult.

Protection Motivation Theory

Adopting healthy behaviour requires cognitive balancing between the perceived threat of illness and one's capacity to cope with the health regimen.

Attitude Accessibility

Attitudes represented in memory that can be recalled easily; Fazio's model suggests likelihood of automatic activation depends on the strength of the object-evaluation association.

Mere Exposure Effect (Zajonc)

Repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that object, although the effect diminishes with continued repetition.

Evaluative Conditioning

A specific case of classical conditioning where a stimulus becomes more or less liked when consistently paired with stimuli that are already positive or negative.

Self-Perception Theory (Bem)

The idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions, inferring our own attitudes from our own behaviour.

Values

A higher-order concept that provides a structure for organising attitudes, rated for their importance as guiding principles in life.

Ideology

A systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is explanation, defining thinking and framing specific values and attitudes.

Social Representations (Moscovici)

Collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena that transform them into a familiar and simple form.

Likert Scale

A scale evaluating how strongly people agree or disagree with statements about an attitude object; it uses item analysis to retain correlating items.

Osgood's Semantic Differential

A type of rating scale measuring the connotative meaning of concepts using bipolar adjectives such as good/bad or pleasant/unpleasant.

Bogus Pipeline Technique

A measurement technique leading people to believe that a 'lie detector' monitors their responses, encouraging them to disclose socially unacceptable attitudes.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A computer-based reaction-time test designed to measure unpopular or concealed attitudes by pairing categories with pleasant or unpleasant words.

Sleeper Effect

The impact of a persuasive message increasing over time when a discounting cue, such as an invalid source, is no longer recalled.

Third-Person Effect

The phenomenon where most people believe they are less influenced than others by advertisements.

Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM)

A dual-process model of attitude change where people use a central route (careful thinking) or a peripheral route (superficial cues) to process messages.

Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM)

A model distinguishing between systematic processing (scanning arguments) and heuristic processing (using cognitive short-cuts like 'statistics don't lie').

Ingratiation

A strategic attempt to get someone to like you to obtain compliance with a request, involving tactics like agreement or paying compliments.

Foot-in-the-Door Tactic

A multiple-request technique where a focal request is preceded by a smaller request that is bound to be accepted.

Door-in-the-Face Tactic

A technique where a person is asked a large favour first (likely refused) and a small request second, which then seems more reasonable.

Low-Ball Tactic

A technique where an influencer changes the rules halfway; the person who agrees to a request still feels committed after finding hidden costs.

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger)

A state of psychological tension produced by having two opposing cognitions; people are motivated to reduce tension by changing or rejecting one cognition.

Inoculation

A way of making people resistant to persuasion by providing them with a diluted counterargument to build up effective refutations for later, stronger arguments.

Social Influence

The process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people.

Reference Group

A group that is psychologically significant for our behaviour and attitudes, which we seek to behave in accordance with or in opposition to.

Agentic State (Milgram)

A frame of mind thought to characterise unquestioning obedience, in which people transfer personal responsibility to the person giving orders.

Milgram (1974) Findings

Experiments showed that $65 \%$ of participants 'shocked to the limit' of $450 \, V$ when the victim was unseen/unheard; obedience dropped with increased proximity/immediacy.

Autokinesis (Sherif)

An optical illusion where a pinpoint of light in darkness appears to move; used to study how people converge on group norms to resolve ambiguity.

Asch Paradigm

A visual discrimination task where participants conformed to an erroneous majority $33 \%$ of the time on average, despite the task being unambiguous.

Informational Influence

An influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality, typically occurring when people are uncertain or stimuli are ambiguous.

Normative Influence

An influence to conform to the positive expectations of others to gain social approval or avoid social disapproval.

Referent Informational Influence

A pressure to conform to a group norm that defines oneself as a group member based on social identity theory.

Conversion Theory (Moscovici)

The idea that minority influence produces latent, private change due to a validation process, while majority influence produces public compliance.

Convergent-Divergent Theory (Nemeth)

The theory that majority influence produces stressful convergent thinking, while minority influence allows for divergent thinking and innovation.

Entitativity

The property of a group that makes it seem like a coherent, distinct, and unitary entity with clear boundaries.

Social Facilitation

An improvement in the performance of well-learned tasks and a deterioration in difficult tasks in the mere presence of others.

Evaluation Apprehension Model

The proposal that social presence causes drive because people have learned to be apprehensive about being evaluated by others.

Distraction-Conflict Theory

The idea that the presence of others is distracting and produces conflict between attending to the task and attending to the audience.

Process Loss

Deterioration in group performance compared to individual performance due to coordination or motivation interferences.

Social Loafing

A reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task compared with working alone or coactively.

Group Socialisation (Moreland & Levine)

A dynamic relationship between the group and its members involving evaluation, commitment, and role transition stages.

Tuckman's Stages of Group Development

A five-stage sequence: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning.

Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel)

A method involving the deliberate violation of hidden background norms to reveal their presence and power.

Status (Expectation States Theory)

Status derives from specific characteristics (task-related ability) and diffuse characteristics (socially valued attributes like wealth or white-collar occupation).

Schism

The division of a group into subgroups that differ in their attitudes, values, or ideology, often leading to schismatic splits.

Subjective Group Dynamics

The process where anti-norm deviants (deviating towards an outgroup) are more harshly treated than pro-norm deviants.

Uncertainty-Identity Theory

People identify with groups to reduce feelings of uncertainty about who they are and how they should behave.

Dehumanisation

Stripping people of their dignity and humanity, often by denying them 'human uniqueness' (civility/morality) or 'human nature' (warmth/agency).

Stereotype Threat (Steele & Aronson)

The feeling that one will be judged in terms of negative group stereotypes, leading to anxiety that might inadvertently confirm the stereotype.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Expectations and assumptions about a person that influence interactions and eventually change their behaviour to match those expectations.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The theory that all frustration leads to aggression and all aggression comes from frustration, often involving displacement onto a scapegoat.

Authoritarian Personality (Adorno)

A personality syndrome originating in childhood punitive practices that predisposes individuals to be ethnocentric and prejudiced.

Social Dominance Theory

The theory that prejudice is attributed to an individual's acceptance of an ideology that legitimises ingroup-serving hierarchy and domination.

Relative Deprivation

A sense of having less than we feel entitled to, often measured as 'egoistic' (individual comparison) or 'fraternalistic' (group comparison).

Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif)

The theory that intergroup conflict and ethnocentrism arise from mutually exclusive goals and competition over scarce resources.

Superordinate Goals

Goals that both groups desire but that can be achieved only by both groups cooperating, used to reduce intergroup conflict.

Minimal Group Paradigm

An experimental methodology showing that social categorisation alone is sufficient to produce ingroup favouritism and outgroup discrimination.

Social Identity Theory

The theory that group membership provides a part of the self-concept (social identity), driving individuals to seek positive distinctiveness for their ingroup.

Accentuation Effect

The overestimation of similarities among people within a category and dissimilarities between people from different categories.

Deindividuation

A process where people lose their sense of socialised individual identity in a crowd, leading to impulsivity and sometimes antisocial behaviour.

Emergent Norm Theory

The theory that collective behaviour is regulated by norms that arise from distinctive behaviour within an initially normless crowd.

GRIT (Osgood)

Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-reduction; a strategy for conciliation involving an announcement of intent followed by verifiable concessions.