Psychology: Key Concepts in Attribution, Attitudes, Social Influence, and Group Behavior

Attribution

A student sees a classmate leave an exam early and assumes she did poorly. The student is making an attribution about the classmate's behavior.

Internal Attribution

You see someone arrive late to class and conclude, 'She's always irresponsible.' → You are explaining the behavior using a personality factor.

External Attribution

You see someone arrive late to class and think, 'There must have been traffic.' → You are explaining the behavior using a situational factor.

Fundamental Attribution Error

A student sees a classmate snap at a professor and thinks, 'She's a rude person,' without considering that she may be having a terrible day. → Overestimating personality factors and underestimating situational factors.

Actor-Observer Difference

You are late to class and blame traffic, but when your friend is late you assume she is irresponsible. → You explain your own behavior more situationally and others' behavior more dispositionally.

Self-Serving Bias

You get an A and say it was because you are smart, but when you get a C, you blame the difficult professor.

Just-World Phenomenon

Someone believes that a person who was treated unfairly must have somehow deserved it.

False Consensus Effect

You strongly dislike a particular food and assume most people probably dislike it too.

Confirmation Bias

You believe your friend is mad at you, so you notice every short text she sends but ignore all the friendly messages.

Belief Perseverance

You learn that a rumor about someone was completely false, but you continue believing the person is probably guilty.

Attitude

A student believes that exercising is beneficial and therefore has a positive attitude toward exercise.

Explicit Attitude

A student is directly asked whether she supports recycling and says, 'Yes, I strongly support it.'

Implicit Attitude

A student claims she has no preference between two groups but automatically associates one group more positively on an implicit test.

Attitude-Behavior Relationship

A student believes cheating is wrong and refuses to cheat even when her friends encourage her.

Cognitive Dissonance

A student believes smoking is unhealthy but continues smoking. The conflict between her behavior and belief creates psychological discomfort.

Cognitive Dissonance Reduction

After feeling uncomfortable about buying an expensive item she didn't need, a student convinces herself it was a great investment.

Insufficient Justification

A student voluntarily spends hours helping a club even though she receives no reward. Later, she develops a more positive attitude toward the club because she has to justify why she did it.

Effort Justification

A student has to work extremely hard to join a difficult organization and later values membership more because of all the effort she invested.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

A charity first asks you to wear a small sticker supporting its cause. After you agree, it asks you to donate $20, and you are more likely to agree.

Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon

A charity first asks you to donate $500. After you refuse, it asks for only $20, which you are more likely to accept.

Role

A student becomes more serious and responsible when working as a supervisor because the position comes with certain expectations.

Role Playing

A student acts as a prison guard in a psychology experiment and begins behaving differently because of the role she has been assigned.

Social Norms

Everyone in a classroom falls silent when the professor begins speaking, even though nobody explicitly told them to.

Socialization

A child learns to say 'please' and 'thank you' because parents and other people teach and reinforce those behaviors.

Culture

A student considers independence after high school extremely important, while another student's culture places greater emphasis on family interdependence.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A teacher expects a student to be intelligent, gives her more attention and encouragement, and the student eventually performs better.

Behavioral Confirmation

A professor expects a student to be difficult, behaves coldly toward her, and the student becomes defensive. The professor's expectation helped produce behavior that confirmed it.

Social Influence

You start watching a show because everyone in your friend group talks about it.

Persuasion

A student changes her opinion about a political issue after hearing a convincing argument.

Central Route to Persuasion

You choose a college after carefully comparing graduation rates, tuition, programs, and other evidence.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

You buy a product because your favorite celebrity promotes it even though you know little about the product itself.

Credibility

A student is more persuaded by a presentation because the speaker is an expert on the topic.

Sleeper Effect

You initially ignore an argument because you do not trust its source, but weeks later you remember the argument and forget why you distrusted the source.

Need for Cognition

A person enjoys analyzing arguments and thinking deeply about complicated issues rather than accepting simple answers.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A persuasive message changes someone's attitude either because they carefully analyze the arguments or because they respond to superficial cues such as attractiveness or popularity.

Emotion and Persuasion

A scary advertisement makes people more likely to pay attention to a safety message.

Fear Appeals

A public-health advertisement shows the possible consequences of texting while driving to encourage safer behavior.

Priming

After watching several commercials about luxury cars, you become more likely to notice expensive cars on the road.

Mere Exposure Effect

You initially dislike a song, but after hearing it repeatedly you begin to like it.

Conformity

You privately disagree with your friends about where to eat but choose their restaurant because everyone else agrees.

Normative Social Influence

You laugh at a joke you do not find funny because everyone around you is laughing and you want to fit in.

Informational Social Influence

You enter a dark theater and notice everyone sitting down, so you sit down too because you assume they know what they are doing.

Asch Conformity Study

A person gives an obviously incorrect answer to a simple line-length question because everyone else in the group gave that answer.

Obedience

A student follows a professor's instruction to complete a task even though she personally does not want to.

Milgram Experiment

Participants continued administering what they believed were increasingly painful shocks because an experimenter instructed them to continue.

Stanley Milgram

A psychology researcher known for experiments demonstrating how ordinary people may obey authority figures even when uncomfortable with the actions.

Social Facilitation

You perform a familiar task better when other people are watching you.

Social Inhibition

You perform a difficult, unfamiliar task worse when people are watching you.

Social Loafing

Several students work on a group project, and one student puts in much less effort because she knows everyone shares the responsibility.

Deindividuation

A person behaves more impulsively at a huge anonymous concert than she normally would because she feels less personally identifiable.

Group Polarization

After discussing an issue with a group of people who already agree with her, a student's opinion becomes even more extreme.

Groupthink

A group of friends quickly agrees to a bad plan because nobody wants to challenge the group's decision.

Minority Influence

One person consistently argues against the majority's opinion, eventually causing some group members to reconsider their views.

Social Contagion

One person starts laughing, and soon several other people begin laughing even though they do not know why.

Diffusion of Responsibility

A student falls in the hallway, but several people nearby assume someone else will help, so nobody immediately does.

Bystander Effect

People are less likely to help someone in an emergency when other people are also present.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Everyone at a party thinks an emergency is probably not serious because nobody else appears concerned, even though everyone privately feels uncertain.

Helping Behavior

You notice someone struggling to carry several books and offer to help them.

Altruism

You help someone even though you receive no obvious reward and expect nothing in return.

Social Exchange Theory

You decide whether to help someone by unconsciously weighing the possible costs and benefits of helping.

Reciprocity Norm

Your friend helped you study for an exam, so you feel that you should help her study for her exam.

Social Responsibility Norm

You help an elderly person carry groceries because you believe people should help those who need assistance.

Kin Selection

A person is especially willing to help a close relative because doing so can help relatives who share many of her genes.

Bystander Intervention

You see someone being bullied and decide to step in or get an adult rather than assuming somebody else will handle it.