Social Psychology Exam Review: Persuasion, Attitudes, and Social Influence

Vocabulary flashcards covering core social psychology topics including attitudes, persuasion theories, compliance tactics, and conformity experiments from the exam study guide.

Classical Conditioning

A learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus, eventually eliciting a conditioned response on its own.

Operant Conditioning

A form of learning in which behaviors are strengthened through reinforcement or weakened through punishment based on their consequences.

Observational Learning

A learning process that occurs by watching, retaining, and imitating the actions, behaviors, and consequences of others.

Attitude Accessibility

The speed and ease with which an evaluation or attitude is retrieved from memory and brought to conscious awareness.

Theory of Planned Behavior

A psychological theory stating that behavior is driven by intentions, which are determined by an individual's attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

Persuasion

A change in a private attitude, belief, or behavior resulting from exposure to a received communication or message.

Cognitive Response Model of Persuasion

A model stating that persuasion is determined primarily by the amount and nature of internal thoughts (cognitive responses) a recipient generates in response to a persuasive communication.

Inoculation Procedure (McGuire, 1964)

A technique to increase resistance to persuasion by exposing individuals to a weak counterargument against their beliefs, prompting them to generate defenses and counterarguments.

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

A dual-process theory of persuasion proposing two distinct cognitive routes to attitude change: the central route and the peripheral route.

Need for Cognition

A personality trait reflecting a person's tendency and intrinsic desire to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive processing and analysis.

Central Route of Persuasion

The persuasion process occurring when individuals possess both motivation and ability to carefully analyze and evaluate the merits of argument-relevant information, producing long-lasting attitude change.

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

The persuasion process occurring when individuals focus on superficial cues, emotional associations, or heuristics rather than the substance of the argument, producing temporary attitude change.

Shortcut Evidence

Readily available heuristic cues (such as speaker authority, social proof, or physical appearance) used by individuals to quickly judge the validity of a message without extensive scrutiny.

Fear Appeals

Persuasive communications designed to motivate behavior change by evoking fear, which are most effective when accompanied by specific, actionable recommendations for reducing the threat.

Consistency Principle

The psychological motivation for individuals to maintain harmony, coherence, and alignment across their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The theory that holding contradictory cognitions or acting inconsistently with one's attitudes creates an uncomfortable psychological state of tension, motivating individuals to reduce the tension by altering attitudes or behaviors.

Social Influence

The process whereby an individual's attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are altered or shaped by the real or imagined presence and actions of other people.

Conformity

The act of altering one's behavior, attitudes, or beliefs to match the perceived standards or behaviors of a group without an explicit request.

Compliance

A change in behavior in response to a direct, external request from another person.

Obedience

A change in behavior in direct compliance with an explicit order or command from a perceived authority figure.

Self-Monitoring

A personality trait reflecting the extent to which people regulate their self-presentation and behavior to fit social contexts (high self-monitors) versus expressing their true internal states and beliefs (low self-monitors).

Strong Attitude

An attitude that is stable, durable over time, highly resistant to persuasion attempts, easily accessible from memory, and highly predictive of behavior.

Weak Attitude

An attitude that is unstable, low in accessibility, susceptible to counterarguments and persuasion, and poor at predicting behavior.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

A compliance tactic in which an influencer secures agreement to a small initial request, thereby increasing the likelihood that the target will agree to a larger subsequent request.

Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon

A compliance tactic where an influencer begins with an extreme initial request that is rejected, followed by a smaller, concessionary target request that is more likely to be accepted.

Low-Ball Technique

A social influence tactic where an influencer secures an agreement on an attractive deal, and then raises the cost or removes the advantage after commitment is established.

Bait-and-Switch Technique

A social influence tactic where an individual is lured into an agreement by an attractive initial offer that becomes unavailable, leading them to accept an alternative, less desirable deal.

Principle of Commitment

The psychological rule stating that once people make a public or effortful stance, they experience strong internal and social pressure to behave consistently with that stance.

Principle of Scarcity

The heuristic principle stating that people place a higher value on opportunities, items, or information when they perceive their availability to be limited or diminishing.

Social Validation

An interpersonal influence principle where individuals decide the correctness of a behavior by observing and imitating what other people are doing.

Norm of Reciprocity

A universal social norm obligating individuals to return favors, concessions, or benefits provided to them by others.

Descriptive Norms

Social norms that communicate what behaviors are typically and commonly performed by people in a specific setting.

Injunctive Norms

Social norms that define what behaviors are socially approved or disapproved of, specifying what people ought to do.

Milgram's Experiment

A classic series of obedience experiments showing that a high proportion of ordinary participants would administer severe electrical shocks to a learner when commanded by an authority figure.

Solomon Asch Line Experiment

A foundational study on group conformity demonstrating that participants frequently conformed to an obviously erroneous majority judgment regarding line lengths.