Social Psychology: Relationships, Groups, and Helping Behavior

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering core concepts of interpersonal attraction, close relationships, group dynamics, and helping behaviors from Chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Social Psychology.

Need to Belong

A basic human motive to establish social connections, leading people who possess a network of close social ties to be happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life.

Need for Affiliation

A desire to establish and maintain many rewarding interpersonal relationships, which varies in strength among individuals and is aroused by stress, loneliness, or powerlessness.

Loneliness

A feeling of deprivation about existing social relations, often contributed to by shyness and social isolation.

Proximity Effect

The principle that physical nearness is the single best predictor of attraction and influences friendship formation.

Mere Exposure Effect

The phenomenon whereby the more often people are exposed to a stimulus, the more positively they evaluate that stimulus.

What-is-Beautiful-is-Good Stereotype

The belief that physically attractive individuals also possess desirable personality characteristics.

Hard-to-Get Effect

The tendency to prefer people who are highly selective in their social choices over those who are more readily available.

Conspicuous Consumption

In the context of relationships, individuals seeking resources in a partner rather than love, or flaunting their financial spending to impress others.

Social Exchange Theory

An economic perspective proposing that people tend to stay in relationships when the benefits outweigh the costs.

Reciprocity

A mutual exchange between what one gives and what one receives, creating a state of psychological balance in a relationship.

Exchange Relationships

Relationships where people expect to receive something in return for what they give or do, characterized by a quid pro quo or give-and-take dynamic.

Communal Relationships

Relationships where partners care for and support each other out of a genuine desire to meet each other's needs, without expecting immediate repayment.

Equity Theory

The theory that people are most satisfied with a relationship when the ratio between benefits and contributions is similar for both partners.

Attachment Style

The way a person typically interacts with significant others, often examined for continuity from parent-child relationships into adult romantic bonds.

Triangular Theory of Love

Robert Sternberg's model proposing that love is composed of three basic components—intimacy, passion, and commitment—that combine to produce seven distinct subtypes.

Passionate Love

Romantic love characterized by high arousal, intense attraction, and fear of rejection.

Excitation Transfer

The process whereby physical arousal or excitement from one situation carries over into another, intensifying emotional reactions and attraction toward someone.

Companionate Love

A secure, trusting, and stable partnership that is less intense than passionate love, but deeper and more enduring.

Self-Disclosure

Revelations about oneself that an individual shares with others, which increases as emotional involvement deepens.

Sexual Orientation

A person's enduring pattern of romantic, emotional, and/or sexual attraction to others.

Group

A set of individuals who have direct interaction with each other over time and share a common fate, identity, or set of goals.

Collectives

People engaging in a common activity but having little to no direct interaction with each other.

Social Brain Hypothesis

An evolutionary hypothesis proposing that humans have an innate, evolved drive and neural architecture to belong to groups.

Instrumental Role

A group role focused primarily on helping the group complete its tasks and achieve its objectives.

Expressive Role

A group role focused on providing emotional support, keeping morale high, and acting as the social 'glue' of the group.

Tight Culture

A culture that possesses strong social norms and very little tolerance for deviant behavior.

Loose Culture

A culture with relatively weaker social norms and a greater tolerance for deviant behavior.

Group Cohesiveness

The extent to which forces push group members closer together, characterized by feelings of intimacy, unity, and shared commitment to group goals.

Social Facilitation

A process whereby the presence of others increases arousal, improving performance on easy, well-learned tasks but impairing performance on new or difficult tasks.

Evaluation Apprehension

The fear of being judged, critiqued, or negatively evaluated due to the presence of others.

Distraction-Conflict

The concept that the presence of others produces social facilitation effects only when observers divert attention away from the task, creating attentional conflict.

Social Loafing

A group-produced reduction in individual output on easy tasks where individual contributions are pooled together.

Collective Effort Model

The model asserting that individuals exert effort on a collective task when they believe their personal contributions will help achieve outcomes they value.

Social Compensation

An increase in personal effort on a collective task to compensate for the anticipated social loafing or poor performance of fellow group members.

Deindividuation

The loss of a person's sense of individuality and the reduction of normal social constraints against engaging in deviant behavior.

Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE)

A model proposing that deindividuation does not represent a loss of control, but rather a cognitive shift from personal identity to group identity.

Brainstorming

A group technique aimed at increasing creative idea generation by encouraging members to speak freely without self-censorship or mutual criticism.

Group Polarization

The exaggeration and intensification of group members' initial tendencies and opinions following group discussion.

Groupthink

A group decision-making style marked by an excessive drive toward concurrence, consensus, and agreement over critical analysis.

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely

S.M.A.R.T

Cultural Metacognition

An individual's conscious awareness and monitoring of cultural assumptions and preconceptions during cross-cultural interactions.

Collective Intelligence

A group's aggregate capacity and ability to perform tasks, solve problems, and contribute to knowledge.

Social Dilemma

A situation in which self-interested choices by an individual or subgroup produce the worst overall outcome for the entire collective.

Integrative Agreement

A negotiated resolution in which all parties reach an outcome superior to what an equal 50/50 division of contested resources would yield.

Prisoner's Dilemma

A game scenario where parties choose cooperative or competitive actions; competing appears personally beneficial, but mutual competition causes greater suffering than mutual cooperation.

Virtual Teams

Groups of interdependent individuals who collaborate across time, space, and organizational boundaries using electronic communications to accomplish shared goals.

Prosocial Behaviors

Actions and behaviors explicitly intended to benefit or help other individuals.

Egoistic Motive

A motivation to provide assistance driven primarily by the desire to improve one's own personal welfare or relief.

Altruistic Motive

A motivation to provide assistance driven exclusively by the desire to improve another person's welfare.

Kin Selection

The preferential helping of genetic relatives, increasing the likelihood that shared genes will survive into future generations.

Reciprocal Altruism

A form of prosocial behavior where an individual assists someone despite immediate costs because of the heightened expectation of future help in return.

Indirect Reciprocity

A form of altruism where an individual who helps someone becomes more likely to receive assistance from a third party.

Empathy

Understanding or vicariously experiencing another individual's perspective along with feeling sympathy and compassion toward them.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The proposition that taking the perspective of a person in need produces empathic concern, generating a genuinely altruistic motive to reduce the victim's distress.

Negative State Relief Model

The proposition that individuals help others to relieve their own negative feelings of sadness and distress.

Courageous Resistance

Providing sustained, deliberate, and proactive help in the face of potentially dangerous, devastating, or enormous personal costs.

Pluralistic Ignorance

The cognitive state where individuals in an ambiguous emergency mistakenly conclude from others' inaction that nothing is wrong and help is not required.

Audience Inhibition

The reluctance to intervene or offer help caused by the fear of making a bad social impression on observers or appearing foolish.

Bystander Effect

The phenomenon in which the presence of multiple bystanders inhibits and reduces the likelihood that any one individual will offer help.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The belief among individuals in a group that someone else will or should take the responsibility to provide assistance.

Reluctant Altruism

Prosocial behavior and charitable contributions resulting primarily from direct social influence, external expectations, or peer pressure.