Chapter 12: Social Psychology — Group Membership and Social Influence (Vocabulary)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture notes on group membership, social influence, conformity, obedience, and related neural/social brain ideas.

Ingroup

A group to which one belongs; members are perceived as similar and share identity.

Outgroup

A group to which one does not belong; members are perceived as different.

Ingroup favoritism

Tendency to evaluate and privilege members of one's own group over the outgroup.

Minimal group paradigm

An experimental method showing that even arbitrary group distinctions can produce ingroup bias.

Social identity theory

The idea that a person’s self-concept comes partly from group membership, leading to pride in the group and ingroup favoritism.

Social norms

The expected standards of conduct within a group or society that guide behavior.

Outgroup homogeneity effect

The tendency to view members of an outgroup as more similar to each other than members of the ingroup.

Reciprocity

Mutual exchange of benefits or favors; if A helps B, B will help A back.

Transitivity

People tend to adopt their friends’ opinions of others; if A likes C and B is A’s friend, B may also like C.

Conformity

Altering one’s behavior or opinions to match those of others or group expectations.

Normative influence

Conformity to fit in with the group or be accepted.

Informational influence

Conformity because others’ behavior suggests the correct way to respond.

Social facilitation

The presence of others generally enhances performance, depending on task difficulty.

Zajonc’s model

A theory where presence of others arouses us, enhancing the dominant response (improving easy tasks, impairing hard tasks).

Dominant response

The most likely response to a given task; is improved with social facilitation for easy tasks and impaired for difficult tasks.

Deindividuation

A state of reduced self-awareness and personal restraint that can occur in groups, leading to less self-regulation.

Self-awareness

Awareness of one’s own values and standards; reduced self-awareness can lead to fewer restraints.

Group polarization

The phenomenon where group discussion strengthens the initial attitudes of members, making them more extreme.

Risky-shift effect

Groups tend to make riskier decisions than individuals when opinions sway toward risk.

Groupthink

A poor group decision-making process driven by cohesion and pressure to agree, with dissent discouraged.

Prevention of groupthink

Strategies to avoid groupthink, such as avoiding early advocacy of solutions, encouraging devil’s advocacy, and weighing alternatives.

Social loafing

The tendency for people to exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone.

Milgram obedience studies

Research showing that ordinary people may follow authority to harm others; obedience can be high when authority is perceived as legitimate, distance from the victim matters, and other factors influence compliance.

Obedience

Following the orders of an authority figure.

Authority distance

Obedience tends to decrease as the distance between the person and the authority increases.

Brain size and the social brain hypothesis

The idea that living in dynamic, complex social groups selected for larger brains, especially in areas like the prefrontal cortex.

Prefrontal cortex

Part of the brain important for social cognition, planning, and regulating behavior in social contexts.

Cerebral cortex and neuron count (species differences)

Variation in cortex size and neuron numbers across species relates to differences in social cognition and behavior.