Unit 9 AP Pysch Study Guide

Phillip Zimbardo

Most famous for his Stanford prison experiment

Stanley Milgram

Best known for his experiments investigating obedience, involving the seeming administration of electric shocks

Soloman Asch

known for his conformity experiments

Leon Festinger

Introduced the concept of cognitive dissonance

Sociocultural

Focuses on society and culture in terms of our behavior and shaping cognition

Conformity

The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms

Normative Influence “Social Norm”

Influence that produces conformity when a person fears the negative social consequences of appearing deviant

Asch Conformity Experiment

Conducted by Soloman Asch in which participants would generally conform with the group, even when group members gave obviously wrong answers

Obedience

when individuals follow the explicit directives of an authority figure (individual in a position of social power)

Milgram Experiment

experiment by Stanley Milgram in which participants demonstrated obedience to authority, administering shocks (or so they thought) when told by the researchers

Stanford Prision Experiment

experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in which deindividualization of participants roleplaying as prison guards led to uncharacteristic aggression

Deindividualization

the loss of self-identity within a group, often accompanied by uncharacteristic behavior

Social Facilitation

A process whereby the presence of others enhances performance on east tasks but impairs performance on difficult tasks

Social Inhibition

Performance is poorer when watched by others

Social Loafing

Tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group

Group Polarization

The exaggeration of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members through group discussions

Groupthink

A group decision-making style characterized by an excessive tendency among group members to seek congruence

Social Trap

A situation in which individuals within a group act in their own short-term self interest so the overall long-term detriment of the group

Prejudice “Prejudgment”

Unjustified Negative attitude about a group of people based on their membership or the group

Discrimination

Unjustified Negative behavior toward members of a target group (individual level) based on their race, ethnicity, or other shared characteristics

Racism

stereotyping, prejudice, or discrimination directed against members of marginalized racial ethnic groups

Sexism

discrimination based on sex or gender

Stereotype threat

A situation in which people feel at risk of performing as their group expected to perform

In-groups

Group that we identify with “us” or see ourselves as belonging to

Out-Groups

Social groups with whom a person does nto identify; “them”

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures on the basis of the values of your own culture

Superordinate goals

shared objectives that require cooperation between groups to accomplish

Robbers Cave Experiment

Experiment conducted by Muzafer Sherif in which two groups of boys at a summer camp overcome prejudices against each other by focusing on superordinate goals

Kitty Genovese

A young woman who was brutally murdered outside of New York City apartment in 1964. Due to inaccurate initial reports, her murder is used as an example of bystander effect.

Bystander effect

Phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present; the less likely people are to help a person in distress (diffusion of responsibility)

Diffusion of Responsibility

Tendency for members of a crowd to assume less responsibility for taking action, due to the assumption that others will do something

The Frustration-Aggression Principle

The idea that people become more aggressive when they’re frustrated by being blocked from reaching a goal

Instrumental Aggression

behaviors that carried out to attain a certain goal

Hostile Aggression

behaviors that aim to inflict pain or harm

Altrusim

The unselfish concern for other people; doing things to help, not because you fell obligated to

Social Exhange Theory

Argues that altruism exists only when benefits outweigh the costs, when your behavior helps you even more than it helps the other person

Reciprocity

Social expectation in which we feel pressured to help others if they have already done something for us

Social Responsibility Norm

Societal rule that tells people they should help others who need help even if they may not repay us

Attraction

the ways in which you take interest in and feel positively towards others (romantically or platonically)

Familiarity “Mere Exposure Effect”

Liking someone occurs because of repeatedly seeing that person or thing

Proximity

the closer together people are physically, the more likely they are to form a relationship/friendship

Similarity

The tendency to be attracted to people who share characteristics with you

Reciprocal Liking

the tendency to like people who like you

Attitudes

beliefs and feelings that predispose people to respond in particular wats to situations and other people

Self-Serving Bi

tendency to blame external forces when bad things happen and to give ourselves credit when good things happen

Actor-Observer Bias

tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes people’s behaviors to internal causes.

False Consensus Effect

tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with us

Just-World Phenomenon

Tendency to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

prediction that causes itself to come true due to the simple fact that the prediction was made

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

The process by which a person does not think carefully about communication and is influenced by superficial cues

Central Route of persuasion

the process by which a person thinks carefully about a communication and is influenced by the strength of its arguments

Foot-In-The Door Phenomenon

Tendency for people who have first agreed to small request to comply later with a larger request

Door-In-The-Face Technique

asking for a large commitment and being refused and then asking for a smaller commitment and getting an agreement

Mere-Exposure Effect

the tendency to like new stimuli more when you encounter them more frequently

Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger 1957):

Sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when a person’s behavior does not correspond to that person’s attitudes

Attribution Theory

a theory that describes how people explain their own and others’ behavior

Dispositional Attribution

a type of attribution in which you assign responsibility for an event or action to the person involved

Situational Attribution

a type of attribution in which you assign responsibility for an event or action to the circumstances of the situation

Stable Attribution

an attribution in which you believe a cause to be consistent and relatively constant over time

Unstable Attribution

an attribution in which you believe a cause to be consistent and relatively constant over time

Unstable Attribution

an attribution that credits a one-time source as the cause of an event

Fundamental Attribution Error

our tendency to underestimate the impact of situational factors and overestimate the impact of distortional (personal) factors when assessing why other people acted the way they did.