Social Psychology Pt.1

Attitudes

evaluations of people, things, and ideas; feelings often influenced by our beliefs that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events

What do Attitudes consist of?

affect(emotion), cognition(thought) and behavior

Foot in the Door Phenomena

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

Cognitive Dissonance

The discomfort caused by performing an action that is contrary to logic or rational beliefs—> can result in changing one’s attitudes

Attribution Theory

The theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the persons disposition

Dispositional Attribution

attribute the behavior to a person’s stable and enduring traits

Situational Attribution

attribute it to the situation

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers when analyzing others’ behavior and underestimate the impact of the situation

Factors that Affect Attribution

culture, whose behavior, exceptions, attributions matter

Peripheral Route Persuasion

occurs when people are influenced by attention-getting cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness

Central Route Persuasion

occurs when interested people’s thinking is influenced by considering evidence and reasoning

Conformity

adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Private Acceptance

conforming our of a genuine belief that they are right

Public Compliance

conforming without necessarily believing they are right

Normative Social Influence

influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval of avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence

influence resulting from a person’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

Social Contagion

when a person does something like yawn, scratch, or cough, shortly after another person will do the same

Social Loafing

tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts towards a common goal than when individually accountable

Social Facilitation

In the presence of others, improved performance on a simple or well-learned task vs. worsened performance on difficult tasks

Deindividuation

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

Group Polarization

enhancements of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group

Group Think

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