Exam 3 Short Answer

Yale Communication Model

Persuasion framework (Janis & Hovland, 1959) summarized as “Who says what to whom?” It analyzes attitude change by SOURCE (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness/likability, status/prestige, group membership), MESSAGE (type of appeal, one- vs. two-sided, argument order/primacy-recency, conclusion type, fear/emotional arousal), and AUDIENCE (initial attitude, group norms, comprehension/intelligence, general susceptibility, personality/self-esteem).

Source Credibility

How believable and persuasive a communicator is perceived to be.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Dual-process model of persuasion holding that people are persuaded in two ways: carefully thinking about the message (central route) or relying on shortcuts/cues (peripheral route).

Central Route to Persuasion

Persuasion through careful consideration, deep processing and active evaluation of the message and its core arguments.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

Persuasion through simple cues and shortcuts rather than argument quality.

Motivation and Ability to Elaborate

The core prerequisite for central-route processing: people elaborate on a message only when they WANT to think about it (e.g., personal relevance, direct stakes) and ARE ABLE to.

Psychological Reactance

When a message threatens one's freedom of choice, people may resist it or even move in the opposite direction (boomerang). One of the mechanisms of resistance to persuasion

Propinquity

Physical/spatial nearness. People who live or work close together are more likely to meet and become friends. Proximity determines who enters our psychological field, the “opportunity” stage of a relationship.

Functional Distance

Who we actually cross paths with, not simply geographic distance. Determined by the layout of physical environments that make contact likely or unlikely, and therefore shape who we have a chance to become attracted to.

Mere Exposure Effect

Repeated exposure to a stimulus tends to increase liking for it at least under many ordinary conditions

Reciprocal Liking

We tend to like people who like us. One of the factors in initial attraction, alongside familiarity, physical attractiveness, and similarity

Social Penetration Theory

Relationships deepen as people disclose increasingly personal information. Disclosure has BREADTH and DEPTH. Includes reciprocal disclosure (matching the other's openness) and gradual progression from safe small talk to more frequent, deeper disclosures as trust builds.

Interpersonal Process Model of Intimacy

intimacy develops through a process: self-disclosure → partner response → perceived partner responsiveness → intimacy. The critical construct is perceived partner responsiveness

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Love has three components. INTIMACY (“I feel close to you”: closeness, connectedness, emotional bonding), PASSION (“I want to be with you”: physical/romantic attraction, arousal, desire), and COMMITMENT (“I choose to stay with you”: decision to maintain the relationship long-term).

Rusbult’s Investment Model

Commitment depends on satisfaction (how rewarding), quality of alternatives (other options), and investment (what you’d lose by leaving: time, shared friends, emotional history, housing, pets, finances, identity, future plans). Satisfaction + poor alternatives + high investment → commitment.

Equity Theory

People care about fairness, outcomes proportional to contributions (equity), not just everyone getting the same (equality). Also: comparison level and comparison level for alternatives.

Territoriality

Feeling and behavior of claiming a place as “mine” even without legal ownership: occupying a place, marking it, defending it, and expecting others to recognize the claim

Collective Psychological Ownership

A group experiences a territory as “ours” even though individual members don’t legally own it Based on first occupancy, investment, and formation

Boundary Regulation

Social processes through which people define who is expected, entitled, or welcome to use a space

Spatialized Intergroup Contact

The idea that space determines whom we meet: before contact can reduce prejudice, groups must occupy overlapping spaces (shared space → opportunity for contact → intergroup experience).

Allport’s Conditions for Positive Intergroup Contact

Classic conditions under which contact between majority and minority groups reduces prejudice: (1) equal group status in the situation, (2) common (superordinate) goals, (3) intergroup cooperation rather than competition, and (4) support of authorities, laws, or local customs.

Aggression

Behavior intended to harm another person who is motivated to avoid that harm.

Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis

Frustration (something blocking a desired goal) leads to aggression

Excitation Transfer Model

Not all frustration leads to aggression. Aggression = a function of a learned aggressive behavior, arousal/excitement from another source, and the person’s interpretation of the arousal state

Disinhibition and Aggression

Disinhibition is a reduction in the usual social forces that restrain us from acting antisocially, illegally, or immorally.

Deindividuation and Aggression

Deindividuation: people lose their sense of socialized individual identity and engage in unsocialized, often antisocial behavior; linked to anonymity and low concern for victims

Crowding and Aggression

Crowding can increase stress and frustration when people feel they lack control.

General Aggression Model

An integrative model in which personal variables and situational variables (inputs) activate a present internal state made up of affect, arousal, and cognition

Prosocial Behavior

voluntary behavior with positive social consequences, intended to benefit others (includes cooperating, sharing)

Helping

A subset, actions that ease someone’s immediate problem or need.

Altruism

helping motivated primarily by concern for another’s welfare, sometimes costly, performed without expectation of personal gain

Evolutionary Explanations of Helping

Helping may benefit genetic relatives or support reciprocal cooperation, promoting survival of genes.

Bystander-Calculus Model

In an emergency, the bystander weighs the perceived costs and benefits of helping against those of not helping. People intervene because the situation is unpleasantly arousing and they seek relief, reflecting self-interest/egoism underlying helping.

Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis

Empathic concern can motivate genuinely other-oriented helping. An act is truly altruistic only if people would still help even when they would no longer be troubled by observing the other’s suffering

Social Learning of Helping

We learn to be helpful (social learning and social norms) through instruction (caregivers tell us to help others), positive reinforcement (rewarding helping), and modeling (watching someone else help).

Bystander Effect

A lone bystander is much more likely to help than when other bystanders are present; the bigger the potential group of helpers, the less likely any of them are to help

Diffusion of Responsibility

A reason for the bystander effect: when others are present, each individual feels less personally responsible for acting, assuming someone else will help

Latané and Darley’s Cognitive Model

Step-by-step decision model of bystander intervention. In an emergency a person must: (1) notice the event, (2) interpret it as an emergency, (3) assume responsibility, (4) know how to help, and (5) implement help.