PSYC1101 - Chapter 13 - Social Psychology

Social psychology

The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

Social thinking

The study of how we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world

Attribution theory

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

Situational attribution

An explanation of behavior based on the circumstances

Dispositional attribution

An explanation of behavior based on someone's personality

Attribution

A conclusion about the cause of an observed behavior or event

Self-serving bias

The tendency to view one's self favorably

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Attitude

Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events

Persuasion

The act of changing attitudes

Central route persuasion

Relying on evidence and logic to change someone's attitude

Peripheral route persuasion

Appealing to fears, desires, and associations to change someone's attitude

Cognitive dissonance theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent (for example we will change our attitudes to match our actions if the two don't match)

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

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

Door-in-the-face phenomenon

The tendency for people who have rejected a large request to then agree to a smaller request

Conformity

Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Automatic mimicry

The automatic, uncontrolled tendency to imitate the behavior of others (e.g. yawning)

Informational social influence

Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality (most often when the situation is ambiguous, there is a crisis, or other people are thought to be experts)

Normative social influence

Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Solomon Asch

A Polish psychologist who is most well known for his conformity experiment in which he demonstrated the influence of group pressure on opinion (about 1/3 of the participants agreed with obvious mistruths to go along with the group)

Stanley Milgram

An American psychologist best known for his controversial experiment on obedience which was influenced by the events of the Holocaust

Philip Zombardo

An American psychologist who is most well known for his Stanford prison experiment

Stanford prison experiment

An experiment in which participants posed as either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison

Authoritarianism

A belief in leadership and the status quo

Abu Ghraib

A prison in which the US military tortured and abused Iraqi prisoners during the war in Iraq

Group polarization

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

Groupthink

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

Social facilitation

The tendency for individual performance to intensify when a person is being observed (we get better at simple or well-learned tasks and worse at complex or new ones)

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

Deindividuation

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

Social relations

The psychological components of how people relate to each other

Ingroup

The people with whom we share a common identity

Outgroup

Those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup

Ingroup bias

The tendency to favor our own group

Prejudice

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members

Stereotype

A generalized belief about a group of people

Scapegoat theory

The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

Other-race effect

The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races

Just-world fallacy

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

Mere exposure effect

The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them

Passionate love

An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship

Companionate love

The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined

Arthur Aron

An American psychologist best known for his work on intimacy in interpersonal relationships

Prosocial behavior

Any action intended to benefit another

Pure altruism

Any prosocial behavior with no external or internal reward (may not exist)

Social exchange theory

The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs

Negative-state relief model

The theory that we are motivated to help people by a desire to reduce our own uncomfortable negative emotions

Reciprocity norm

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

Social-responsibility norm

An expectation that people will help those needing their help

Magic Johnson Effect

The tendency for people to be more likely to help those with charisma

Kitty Genovese

A New York City woman who was stabbed to death outside her apartment building (none of her neighbors called the police despite many of them witnessing her rape and murder)

Diffusion of responsibility

The tendency for a person to become less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present