Social Psychology: The Self, Persuasion, Social Influence, Group Processes, and Aggression

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key concepts, theories, and empirical phenomena in social psychology, including self-knowledge, attitudes and persuasion, social influence and conformity, group dynamics, and aggression.

Self-Concept

The overall set of beliefs that people hold about their personal attributes.

Self-Awareness

The act of thinking about ourselves and evaluating our own actions and internal states.

Self-Schema

Cognitive structures and beliefs about the self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

Self-Reference Effect

The tendency to process efficiently and recall information more easily when it is related to oneself.

Affective Forecasting

The process of predicting the intensity and duration of future emotional states.

Impact Bias

The tendency to overestimate the enduring emotional impact and duration of future negative or positive events.

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because it is naturally enjoyable, interesting, or inherently satisfying.

Extrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards, pressures, or outcomes.

Overjustification Effect

The tendency for people to view their behavior as driven by external rewards, leading them to underestimate the extent to which intrinsic interest originally motivated it.

Downward Social Comparison

Comparing oneself with individuals who are perceived as worse on a particular trait or ability, typically used to protect or enhance self-esteem.

Upward Social Comparison

Comparing oneself with individuals who perform better or possess superior traits, often used as a benchmark for self-improvement.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people share one's opinions and undesirable behaviors.

False Uniqueness Effect

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's positive attributes, desirable traits, and abilities.

Self-Verification Theory

The perspective that people have a psychological need to seek confirmation and consistency for their existing self-concept, whether that self-view is positive or negative.

Self-Handicapping

Creating obstacles or convenient excuses for oneself prior to performance so that potential failure can be attributed to external impediments rather than a lack of ability.

Self-Monitoring

The tendency to observe, regulate, and adjust one's expressive behavior and self-presentation to match situational demands.

Central Route to Persuasion

A route to persuasion in the Elaboration Likelihood Model taken when audiences possess high motivation and ability, characterized by deep processing of argument quality resulting in enduring attitude change.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

A route to persuasion in the Elaboration Likelihood Model taken when motivation or ability is low, characterized by superficial evaluation of surface cues and heuristics, leading to temporary attitude change.

Mere Exposure Effect

The psychological phenomenon where repeated contact with a neutral stimulus increases an individual's preference or positive attitude toward it.

Cognitive Dissonance

The state of psychological discomfort or tension experienced when holding two or more contradictory cognitions, or when an individual's behavior contradicts their personal beliefs.

Effort Justification

The tendency of individuals to increase their liking or evaluation of an outcome because they expended significant effort or endured hardship to achieve it.

Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy

The process of publicly stating an opinion or attitude that contradicts one's private beliefs, which typically induces dissonance and attitude shift when external justification is low.

Post-Decision Dissonance

The cognitive dissonance aroused after making an important choice between two mutually exclusive, equally attractive alternatives, typically resolved by enhancing the chosen alternative and devaluing the rejected one.

Sleeper Effect

A delayed increase in the persuasive power of a message from a non-credible source, occurring because the message content remains in memory while the discounting cue of the non-credible source fades over time.

Social Norms

Implicit or explicit rules that a group constructs regarding acceptable and expected behaviors, values, and beliefs for its members.

Social Impact Theory

The theory proposing that the likelihood of social influence depends on three variables: the strength of the source, the immediacy of the influence in space and time, and the number of people exerting pressure.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

A compliance strategy where the requester begins by securing agreement to a minor, easily accepted request before presenting the much larger target request.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

A compliance strategy that begins with an extreme, unreasonable request designed to be rejected, followed immediately by a smaller, more moderate request that represents the true objective.

Low-Ball Technique

A compliance strategy where a person induces agreement to a proposition under low-cost terms, and then reveals hidden costs or increases the price after commitment is established.

That's-Not-All Technique

A compliance strategy where an initial offer is presented at a specified price, followed immediately by discounts or additional bonus items before the prospective buyer can formulate a response.

Social Facilitation

The tendency for people to perform better on simple or well-learned tasks and worse on complex tasks in the presence of others due to heightened physiological arousal strengthening dominant responses.

Evaluation Apprehension

Concern over being observed and judged by others, which produces heightened physiological arousal during task performance.

Social Loafing

The tendency for individuals to exert less effort on simple tasks when pooling their efforts in a group where individual performance cannot be evaluated.

Deindividuation

A psychological state characterized by reduced self-awareness and weakened social constraint, occurring in crowds or anonymous settings and often leading to anti-normative actions.

Group Polarization

The tendency for group discussions to produce decisions and attitudes that are more extreme in the direction of the members' pre-existing inclinations.

Groupthink

A mode of thinking in which the desire for harmony, unanimity, and cohesion in a decision-making group overrides realistic and critical appraisals of alternative courses of action.

Minority Influence

The process by which an individual or small minority faction persuades and shifts the majority through unwavering consistency and confidence.

Hostile Aggression

Aggressive behavior stemming from feelings of anger and performed with the primary goal of inflicting physical or emotional injury.

Instrumental Aggression

Aggressive behavior carried out as an intentional means to secure an external goal or reward other than causing pain itself.

Frustration-Aggression Theory

The theory stating that frustration—resulting from the thwarting or blocking of goal-directed behavior—triggers an aggressive drive that increases the likelihood of an aggressive response.

Relative Deprivation

The perception that one is worse off or has less than what one feels entitled to or expects relative to a comparison group, which can elicit frustration and hostility.

Weapons Effect

The phenomenon where the mere physical presence of an aggressive cue, such as a gun, increases the probability and intensity of aggressive behavior by priming aggressive thoughts.