Social psyc exam 3

Social Influence

Any change in an individual's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors caused by real or imagined other people.

The Influence Hierarchy

The ranking of social influence from least direct to most direct: conformity (peer/group pressure), compliance (direct peer request), and obedience (authority command).

Conformity

Changing behavior or beliefs to match others due to real or imagined group pressure, occurring without direct requests.

Compliance

Changing behavior in response to an explicit, direct request from someone who lacks formal authority.

Obedience

Changing behavior or following direct orders issued by an authority figure higher in power.

Explicit Influence

Social influence transmitted through direct, overt verbal requests or stated rules.

Implicit Influence

Social influence transmitted through subtle, unspoken social norms, situational cues, or expectations.

Informational Social Influence Core Motivation

The fundamental human drive to be accurate, correct, and know what is right.

Informational Social Influence Psychological Outcome

Private acceptance, where an individual develops a genuine, lasting internal belief that the group is correct.

Informational Social Influence Situational Triggers

Occurs primarily when the situation is ambiguous, when there is an immediate emergency crisis, when others are perceived as experts, or when the need for accuracy is high.

Private Acceptance

Conforming outwardly and genuinely believing internally that what others are saying or doing is correct.

Normative Social Influence Core Motivation

The human desire to be liked, accepted, fit in, and avoid social rejection, ridicule, or disapproval.

Normative Social Influence Psychological Outcome

Public compliance, where an individual conforms outwardly to group expectations while privately disagreeing.

Normative Social Influence Situational Triggers

Occurs when groups are highly cohesive, when members are important to the individual, under direct public surveillance, or in immediate physical proximity.

Public Compliance

Conforming outwardly to other people's behavior without privately believing in what one is doing or saying.

Social Impact Theory (Latané, 1981)

Theory stating that conforming to normative pressure depends on three variables: Strength, Immediacy, and Number.

Social Impact Theory: Strength

How important, prestigious, or meaningful the influencing group is to the individual.

Social Impact Theory: Immediacy

How close the group is to the individual in physical space and time.

Social Impact Theory: Number & Group Size Effect

The size of the group

Effect of a Lone Dissenter on Conformity

The presence of just one person who disagrees with the unanimous group breaks the normative pressure and gives others the courage to resist conforming.

Norm of Reciprocity

The universal societal expectation that when someone does something for you, you are psychologically obligated to return the favor.

Reciprocity and Avoidance of Indebtedness

People often decline unprompted favors or gifts because the resulting psychological debt makes them feel uncomfortable and pressured to reciprocate.

Door-in-the-Face Technique Procedure

Starting with an extreme initial request that is guaranteed to be rejected, then immediately following up with a smaller target request.

Door-in-the-Face Psychological Mechanism

Saying no triggers feelings of guilt, and viewing the smaller second request as a concession creates pressure to reciprocate by agreeing.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique Procedure

Starting with a small initial request that is agreed to, then following up with a larger target request.

Foot-in-the-Door Psychological Mechanism

Agreeing to the first request alters self-perception. When you agree to a small request (such as signing a petition or answering a quick question), you begin to view yourself as a helpful, cooperative person. When a larger request follows, you say yes to protect that newly formed self-image.

That’s-Not-All Technique Procedure

Presenting an initial offer, but sweetening the deal with extra bonuses or discounts before the customer can make a decision.

That’s-Not-All Psychological Mechanism

The unprompted bonus or markdown is viewed as a personal concession, triggering reciprocal obligation to complete the transaction.

Obedience to Authority: Situational Power

The finding that powerful situational environments and structural roles can override individual ethics, moral upbringing, and personal character.

Obedience: Victim Proximity

Greater physical closeness to the victim increases empathy and visibility, significantly reducing levels of destructive obedience.

Obedience: Authority Proximity and Legitimacy

Remoteness of the authority figure (e.g., giving orders over the phone) or lower institutional prestige dramatically reduces obedience.

Obedience: Peer Dissent

The presence of other peers who openly refuse to obey breaks the perceived legitimacy of the commands and drastically lowers obedience rates.

Obedience: The Agentic State

A psychological shift where an individual stops viewing themselves as an autonomous moral agent and instead sees themselves merely as an instrument executing an authority's orders.

Obedience: Step-by-Step Entrapment

Escalating requests in tiny increments (e.g., 15-volt steps) makes establishing a stopping point difficult and forces self-justification for prior acts.

Obedience: Normative Influence Component

The pressure to avoid disappointing, offending, or challenging an insistent experimenter who is physically present.

Obedience: Informational Influence Component

Using the experimenter as an expert source of information to define reality in an ambiguous, high-stress, and confusing situation.

Social Group

Two or more interacting people who are interdependent, meaning their needs and goals cause them to influence one another.

Non-Social (Minimal) Group

Three or more individuals occupying the same physical space who interact minimally and are not interdependent (e.g., strangers waiting at a bus stop).

Evolutionary and Psychological Functions of Groups

Fulfilling resource survival needs, satisfying belongingness and self-esteem, resolving ambiguity, and establishing social norms.

Group Homogeneity

The tendency for group members to share similar ages, sexes, beliefs, opinions, and backgrounds, driven by initial attraction and normative pressure to conform.

Social Norms

Shared implicit or explicit rules that dictate which behaviors, values, and beliefs are acceptable or unacceptable for group members.

Social Roles

Shared expectations in a group about how specific individuals occupying distinct positions are supposed to behave relative to others.

Group Cohesiveness (Entitativity)

The qualities of a group that bind members together and foster mutual liking, unity, and solidarity.

Social Facilitation Definition

The tendency for the presence of others to improve performance on simple or well-learned tasks, but impair performance on complex or novel tasks.

Social Facilitation Evaluation Condition

Requires that individual performance can be identified and evaluated by others.

Social Facilitation Physiological Mechanism

The presence of others heightens alertness, evaluation apprehension, and distraction-conflict, which generates physiological arousal.

Social Facilitation: Dominant Response on Simple Tasks

Arousal enhances an individual's dominant, well-learned, or automatic response, leading to superior performance on easy tasks.

Social Facilitation: Dominant Response on Complex Tasks

High physiological arousal overwhelms cognitive capacity and interferes with non-dominant, novel, or complex problem-solving.

Evaluation Apprehension

Concern about being judged or evaluated by observers, which acts as a primary source of the physiological arousal in social facilitation.

Distraction-Conflict Theory

The idea that the presence of others divides attention between the audience and the task, creating cognitive conflict and physiological arousal. An explanation for why social facilitation happens

Social Loafing Definition

The tendency for people to exert less effort and perform worse on simple tasks when their efforts are pooled into a group and cannot be individually evaluated.

Social Loafing Evaluation Condition

Occurs specifically when individual contributions are pooled/ submerged into a collective output and cannot be evaluated

Social Loafing Physiological Mechanism

The inability to be evaluated removes evaluation apprehension, placing individuals into a relaxed, low-arousal psychological state.

Social Loafing on Simple Tasks

The relaxation from lack of evaluation causes a drop in motivation and effort, impairing performance on simple, routine activities.

Social Loafing on Complex Tasks

The relaxed state relieves evaluation pressure, preventing cognitive overload and actually enhancing performance on complex tasks.

Deindividuation Definition

The loosening of normal behavioral constraints when in a crowd or group, leading to an increase in impulsive, deviant, or aggressive actions.

Deindividuation Mechanism: Anonymity

Being unidentifiable in a crowd reduces perceived personal accountability and the fear of negative consequences.

Deindividuation Mechanism: Shift to Group Norms

Attention shifts away from internal moral standards toward the immediate behavioral cues and norms of the crowd.

Deindividuation Mechanism: Reduced Self-Awareness

The loss of individual self-reflection and self-monitoring, which serves as the direct psychological opposite of self-awareness.

Process Loss

Any aspect of group interaction that actively inhibits effective problem-solving and optimal decision-making.

Failure to Share Unique Information

The tendency for groups to spend their discussion time focusing only on shared facts known by all members while ignoring unshared facts known to one person.

Groupthink Definition

A flawed decision process where maintaining group harmony and consensus takes priority over critical thinking and realistic appraisal of alternative actions.

Groupthink Antecedent: Cohesion

A highly cohesive, tightly knit group that places extreme value on membership and mutual liking.

Groupthink Antecedent: Structural Isolation

Isolating the group from alternative viewpoints, outside criticism, and contrary opinions.

Groupthink Antecedent: Directive Leader

A controlling leader who makes their personal preferences known to the group before discussion begins.

Groupthink Symptom: Illusion of Invulnerability

Excessive group optimism that fosters an unjustified belief that the group cannot possibly fail.

Groupthink Symptom: Illusion of Unanimity

The false belief that everyone in the group is in full agreement, often created by viewing silence as consent.

Groupthink Symptom: Belief in Moral Correctness

The unquestioned assumption that the group's intentions and causes are inherently ethical and right.

Groupthink Symptom: Direct Conformity Pressure

Active, overt pressure applied to dissenters to stop them from questioning the group's consensus.

Groupthink Symptom: Stereotyping Outgroups

Viewing outside opponents or rival groups as too weak, stupid, or evil to warrant serious consideration.

Groupthink Symptom: Self-Censorship

Members holding back their own personal doubts and counterarguments to preserve group consensus and avoid rocking the boat.

Groupthink Symptom: Mindguards

Group members who take it upon themselves to shield the leader and peers from contradictory, dissenting information.

Groupthink Prevention: Impartial Leadership

A leader who remains neutral, refrains from stating personal preferences early, and encourages open criticism.

Groupthink Prevention: Structural Checks

Appointing a devil’s advocate, inviting independent outside experts, dividing into subgroups, and utilizing secret anonymous ballots.

Group Polarization Definition

The tendency for a group's final decision to be more extreme than the initial inclinations of its individual members.

Group Polarization Required Conditions

Requires that members have an initial leaning toward a specific position, followed by interactive group discussion.

Group Polarization Mechanism: Persuasive Arguments

Hearing new, compelling arguments supporting one's original leaning shifts the individual further toward that extreme.

Group Polarization Mechanism: Social Comparison

Members observe the group norm and shift further in that direction to be evaluated positively and seen as decisive.

The ABC Model of Bias

A framework dividing intergroup bias into Affective/emotional (Prejudice), Behavioral (Discrimination), and Cognitive (Stereotype) components.

Prejudice (Affective/Emotional Component)

A negative attitude or emotional gut-level feeling toward members of a group based solely or partially on their group membership.

Discrimination (Behavioral Component)

Unjustified negative or harmful actions directed toward members of a group based solely or partially on their group membership.

Institutional Discrimination

Societal policies, laws, and organizational practices that systematically deny equal rights or opportunities to minority groups.

Institutional Racism

Racist attitudes and practices held by the vast majority of people within a society, embedded into cultural norms and legal structures.

Stereotype (Cognitive Component)

A cognitive schema or generalization that attributes identical traits to all members of a group, regardless of actual individual variation.

Stereotypes and Semantic Memory

Stereotypes are organized and stored as networks of semantic associations linking specific demographic categories to traits.

Maladaptive Stereotyping

Occurs when generalizations blind individuals to individual variation or are used as prescriptive injunctive norms dictating how people must act.

Automatic Social Categorization

The brain's automatic processing of observable physical traits to categorize individuals by race, age, and gender.

Evolutionary Function of Social Categorization

Allowed ancestral humans to rapidly distinguish coalitional allies from hostile competitors to aid survival and reproduction.

Smoke Detector Principle

An evolutionary adaptation where false alarms (assuming danger when safe) carry far lower survival costs than misses (assuming safety when danger exists).

Evolutionary Mismatch in Bias

Ancestral cognitive adaptations evolved for isolated, small hunter-gatherer bands that produce maladaptive prejudices in modern multicultural societies.

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner)

The theory that self-concept and self-esteem are intimately derived from the status and value of the social groups to which one belongs.

Ingroup Favoritism

The tendency to allocate more resources, evaluate positively, and give preferential treatment to one's own group to elevate self-esteem.

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

The perception that outgroup members are "all the same" and interchangeable, while ingroup members are seen as distinct, diverse, and unique.

Realistic Group Conflict Theory (RGCT)

The theory that intergroup hostility, prejudice, and discrimination are caused by direct competition over scarce, valuable resources.

Scapegoating

The psychological tendency to displace frustration, blame, and aggression onto a visible, disliked, and relatively powerless outgroup during times of distress.

Superordinate Goals

Shared objectives that require conflicting groups to combine forces and cooperate, dissolving intergroup competition and hostility.

Intergroup Threat Theory: Realistic Threats

Perceived challenges to physical safety, health, economic resources, or political power, experienced at either the individual or group level. An individual or group is perceived to be too similar in ability to another individual group, and thus able to cause physical harm or compete for resources.

Intergroup Threat Theory: Symbolic Threats

Perceived challenges to an ingroup's moral values, religious beliefs, ideology, or cultural way of life. They are perceived when an individual or group's values are too dissimilar from another individual or group.

Bias Learning: Operant Conditioning

Prejudiced expressions and behaviors that are reinforced through social rewards, approval, or inclusion from peers and family.

Bias Learning: Negative Reinforcement

Avoiding an outgroup provides immediate relief from social anxiety, which negatively reinforces and perpetuates avoidance behavior.