part 10 new material social pyschology for psych final

Cognitive dissonance

You feel uncomfortable when your actions don’t match your beliefs, so you change your beliefs to feel better

You believe “I am an honest person.”
But then your friend says: “Tell them I’m not home,” and you lie for them.

Now you feel uncomfortable because your belief (honest person) ≠ your action (lying).

To reduce the discomfort, you might change your thinking to:
➡ “It wasn’t a real lie — I was just helping my friend.”

Normative Social Influence

You conform because you want people to like you, approve of you, or accept you.

Everyone in your group says a shirt looks good on you — even though YOU think it looks ugly.
You buy it anyway because you don’t want to look weird or different.

➡ You conform to fit in, not because you think they’re correct.

(Asch’s line study showed this.)

Informational Social Influence

You conform because you think other people know more than you.

You’re in a museum and the fire alarm goes off.
You don’t know whether it’s real, so you watch what others do.
Everyone calmly walks toward the exit, so you do too.

➡ You copy others because you believe they’re correct, not because you want acceptance

Milgram’s Obedience Study

People will obey an authority figure even when it harms another person.

A scientist in a lab coat tells participants to keep giving electric shocks to a “learner,”
even when the learner screams or stops responding.

65% went all the way to the highest shock level

Deindividuation

You lose your self-control or personal identity when you’re in a big group.

At a large concert or riot, people who are normally calm might:

• push people

• break things

• scream

• do risky behavior

Because they feel “hidden in the crowd” — no one can single them out.

➡ Being anonymous makes people act differently than they normally would.

Groupthink

A group makes a bad decision because everyone wants to agree, not argue.

Your project group wants to finish fast.
One person suggests a terrible idea.
Everyone knows it’s bad — but no one wants to “rock the boat.”
So the whole group agrees to it.

➡ They choose harmony over good decision-making.

Just-World Belief

People want to believe the world is fair — that people “get what they deserve.”

Someone hears about a person getting robbed.
Instead of saying “that’s terrible,” they say:

• “Well, they shouldn’t have been out late.”

• “They must have done something wrong.”

➡ They blame the victim just to protect the belief that the world is fair.

Social Identity Theory

We divide people into groups (us vs. them),
and we favor our own group to boost our self-esteem.

If you’re a Rutgers student, you automatically feel:

• “Rutgers is better than X school.”

• You like people in Rutgers gear more.

• You feel proud when your school wins.

➡ Favoring your own group makes you feel better about yoursel

Bystander Effect

The more people who are around, the less likely anyone is to help.

Someone collapses on a busy street.
You assume:

• “Someone else will help.”

• “Someone else already called 911.”

So you don’t act.

But everyone else is thinking the same thing.

➡ Crowds create diffusion of responsibility.