PSYC1030 Week 6: Persuasion, Aggression, & Pro-sociality

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering persuasion, compliance techniques, obedience, aggression theories like GAM, and the mechanics of prosocial behaviour and the bystander effect based on Dr Leah Sharman's PSYC1030 lecture.

Compliance

The act of agreeing to a request from a person who does not have the authority to make you obey.

Caldini’s Six Principles of Compliance

A set of principles explaining how people are persuaded to say yes, including Reciprocation, Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Scarcity, and Authority.

Reciprocation

A powerful social norm where individuals feel obligated to return favours to others to build trust, cooperation, and social stability.

Reciprocal Concessions

A feeling of obligation to make a concession in return when someone else has made a concession to us.

Door in the face technique

A compliance tactic where a person makes a ridiculously large request and, upon refusal, follows it up with a smaller, more reasonable request, as demonstrated by Cialdini et al. ($1975$).

Contrast Effects

A psychological phenomenon where relative judgments are made based on a preceding reference point, such as an expensive item making subsequent options seem more reasonable.

Consistency

The internal drive to behave in ways aligned with prior beliefs, values, actions, or commitments to be seen as reliable and rational.

Foot-in-the-door Technique

A tactic investigated by Freedman and Fraser ($1966$) where a person first makes a small request to gain commitment before making a larger, related request.

Low-balling

A compliance method where a person makes a seemingly reasonable request and then reveals a hidden cost after the initial commitment is made.

Obedience

A form of social influence where an authority specifically commands a change in behaviour, and the individual complies.

Aggression

Behaviour intended to harm another individual who does not wish to be harmed; it is distinct from the emotion of anger and the non-harmful intent of assertiveness.

Reactive Aggression

A type of aggression that is impulsive, emotionally driven, and often triggered by aversive stimuli.

Proactive Aggression

A type of aggression that is calculated, goal-directed, and characterized by low emotional arousal.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The theory by Dollard et al. ($1939$) that blocked goals lead to frustration, which in turn always leads to aggression.

Goal gradient Principle

A principle by Thompson and Kolstoe ($1974$) stating that the closer an individual is to achieving a goal, the more intense the frustration and aggression if the goal is blocked.

Cognitive neo-associationist model

Berkowitz's ($1989$) model proposing that any aversive stimulus, such as heat, pain, or insults, can trigger aggression.

Social Learning Theory

Bandura's ($1961$) theory that aggression is learned from the social environment through observation and reinforcement, specifically vicarious reinforcement.

General Aggression Model (GAM)

An integrative framework that combines biological, cognitive, and social inputs (person and situational variables) to determine internal states (cognition, affect, arousal) and subsequent impulsive or thoughtful actions.

Alcohol Myopia

A state described by Steele & Josheph ($1990$) where alcohol makes a person more sensitive to the immediate environment and reduces the ability to think about future consequences.

Online disinhibition effect

As described by Suler ($2004$), the tendency for people to say and do things online, such as cyber-aggression, that they would not do face-to-face.

De-individuation

A process where personal identity submerges into collective identity, loosening moral constraints and reducing fear of evaluation through anonymity.

SIDE model

The Social Identity Model of deindividuation effects, which suggests that crowd behaviour reflects the norms of whichever group identity becomes salient rather than impulsive rule-breaking.

Ostracism

Social exclusion where individuals or groups purposely ignore someone, which can lead to feelings of helplessness and ruined well-being.

Prosocial behaviour

Voluntary action intended to benefit others, such as sharing resources, offering emotional support, volunteering, or assisting those in distress.

Kin Selection Theory (Hamilton, 1963)

An evolutionary concept of altruism suggesting net benefits must exceed costs based on the frequency of alleles, expressed as $(1/p^2) (\sum b_k - \sum c_j) > (1/q^2) \sum b_m$.

Bystander Effect

The phenomenon identified by Darley & Latan e ($1968$) where the presence of others reduces the likelihood of an individual helping in an emergency.

Diffusion of Responsibility

A cause of the bystander effect where observers assume someone else will or should act, resulting in everyone doing nothing.

Pluralistic Ignorance

A cause of the bystander effect where individuals assume a situation is not a real emergency because they observe that others are not reacting.

Evaluation Apprehension

The fear of acting inappropriately or being judged by others, which acts as a barrier to helping in social situations.