Unit 4.1 Part 1 - Social Psychology

Social psychology

the scientific study of how people are influenced by others

Attribution

The process of explaining why someone behaves a certain way

Situation

outside factors that influence behavior

ex: someone is late because of traffic → traffic is the ____

Disposition

internal qualities like personality or intelligence that explain someone’s behavior

ex: someone is late because they are careless

Fundamental attribution error

We blame who they are, not what they’re going through

Self-serving bias

The tendency to credit ourselves for success and blame the situation for failure

ex: I win → “I’m talented”

I lose → “The ref was unfair”

Actor-observer bias

Tendency to blame the situation for our own behavior but blame personality for others’ behaviors

Explanatory styles

The way people typically explain event’s especially successes and failures

Optimistic

Viewing bad events as temporary, specific, and not a permanent reflection on yourself

ex: “I know I’m good, but I just don’t think I trained long enough”

Pessimistic

Viewing bad events as permanent, AFFECTING many areas, and caused by yourself

ex: a runner explaining losing a race as being personal and that they just aren’t good

Self-fulfilling prophecy

When your expectations about someone or something cause you to act in ways that make those expectations come true

ex: think you’ll pass → study a lot→ end up passing

Attitude

Feelings, thoughts, actions about something

ex: believe someone is mean → feel dislike for them → act unfriendly towards them

Persuasion

techniques applied to convince yourself or others to do particular actions, ideas, or beliefs

ex: advertisement class assignment

Mere-exposure effect

when people are exposed to like the stimulus more over time, causing them to like the stimulus more

ex: finally giving in to that one game ad

Elaboration likelihood model

suggests there are two different ways people can be persuaded of something

• depends how invested someone is in a topic

Central route persuassion

focus on changing someone’s attitude using facts, evidence, and logical arguments

Peripheral route persuasion

influencing someone by using attractive cues

The halo effect

a bias where overall impression of someone affects how we judge their specific traits

Foot-in-door phenomenon

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

ex: telling your parents a small bad thing before telling them a really bad thing

Door-in-the-face phenomenon

following an unreasonable request with a reasonable one typically leads to the acceptance of the reasonable request

ex: asking for $20 → parents say no" → then ask for just $10

Cognitive dissonance

doing something that goes against your beliefs

ex: you know smoking is bad (belief) but you smoke (behavior) → you might quit smoking or convince yourself it’s not that harmful

Implicit attitudes

Unconscious beliefs or feelings that can influence behavior without you realizing it

ex: automatically feeling uncomfortable around a group of people but don’t know why

Just world hypothesis

belief that only good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people

Ingroup

people with whom we share a common identity

Outgroup

those perceived as different or apart from our group

ex: people in different clubs or grades

Ingroup bias

tendency to favor who we perceive as part of your ingroup

ex: “Ugh these freshmen…” (As a junior)

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to judge other cultures based on your own and see your culture as superior

• Think: “ethno” → “ethnic”

Homogeneity (outgroup) bias

seeing other groups as all the same

ex: “all teenagers are lazy”

Mirror-image perceptions

each side sees their group as the more ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive despite being very similar

Stereotypes

generalized beliefs about a group of people

Prejudice

feeling about that stereotype

Discrimination

treating people unfairly because of their group

Scapegoat theory

a group blames another group for their problems and frustrations

Social norms

General rules or expectations about how people should behave in a group or society

Role

the specific behaviors expected from a person in a certain position

ex: Role (teacher) → Teach the lesson

Stanford prison experiment

Showed that people have change their behavior based on the roles that they are giver

Group influence

how other people in a group affect your thoughts, feelings, or behavior

Deindividuation

the loss of self-awareness and self- restraint occurring in group situations

ex: you don’t have a lot of school spirit, but when you’re at an assembly, suddenly you find yourself cheering with everyone else

Group polarization

When people in a group discuss an issue and their opinions become more extreme than they were before the discussion

False consensus effect

You mistakenly believe your experiences, beliefs, or behaviors are universal

Groupthink

caring more about a whole group agreement rather than being correct

Bystander effect

when people don’t help in emergencies when others are around

ex: that’s why we point at someone to call 911 during CPR

Diffusion of responsibility

the reason people don’t act when others are present. They feel someone else will handle it

Social loafing

when people put in less effort when working in a group than when working alone

ex: group projects

Social facilitation

stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others

• We do better under pressure when we have rehearsed something

ex: practicing for a big game

Social inhibition

Opposite effect when we are under prepared

Culture

the shared beliefs, value, customs, behaviors, and traditions of a group of people

Individualism

when people refocus on themselves and their own goals instead of the group

• being independent and trying to stand out

Collectivism

when people focus on the group’s goals instead of their own

Multiculturalism

valuing and respecting many different cultures in a society

Conformity

adjusting your behavior or thinking to match the group

• to not be an outlier

Chameleon effect

unconsciously copying others

Social influence theory

the idea that people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by others

Normative social influence

you do something to fit in or get approval

Informational social influence

You do something because you think others are right

Obedience

following orders or instructions from someone with authority

Altruism

helping others without expecting anything in return

Reciprocity norm

expectation that people will help those who have helped them

Social-responsibility norm

we help because it’s the right thing to do

Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychologists

study how people perform in the workplace

Social traps

situations where people act in their own self-interest, but if everyone does it, it hurts the group

ex: extra credit activity

Prisoner’s Dilemma

a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome

ex: game theory (AP Microeconomics)

Superordinate goals

shared goals that require people or groups to work together, putting differences aside

ex: experiment with 2 groups of boys didn’t like each other (Robbers Cave Experiment)

Bystander intervention

need to sense emergency and assume responsibility

Random acts of kindness

non-premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world

• Can increase happiness, decrease stress, even lower blood pressure & increase happiness chemicals