Social Psychology Key Concepts: Attitudes, Influence, and Group Dynamics

Social psychology

Branch of psychology that studies how a person's thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment.

Sense of self

Who you are in relation to others, which is influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences.

Person perception

Refers to the mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics of other people.

Social norms

The 'rules' or expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular social situation.

Social categorization

The mental process of categorizing people into groups based on their shared characteristics.

Explicit cognition

Deliberate, conscious mental processes involved in perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning.

Implicit cognition

Automatic, unconscious mental processes that influence perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning.

Implicit personality theory

A network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors.

Attribution

The mental process of inferring the causes of people's behavior, including one's own.

Attribution Theory

Proposed by Fritz Heider, suggests how we explain someone's behavior is the result of either the situation or the person's disposition/internal characteristics.

Situational attribution

Focus blame on the situation (environment, economy, traffic).

Internal attribution

Focus blame on the person or the person's characteristics or personality.

Fundamental attribution error

We overestimate the impact of the personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situation.

Attitudes

Feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events.

Components of attitudes

Emotions, Behaviors, and Cognitions.

Cognitive Dissonance

Unpleasant state of psychological tension resulting from two inconsistent thoughts or perceptions.

Social Influence

Can be seen in our conformity, our compliance, and our group behavior.

Conformity

Adjusting opinions, judgments, and behaviors so that they match those of others or the norms of a social group or situation.

Normative Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain social acceptance and approval or avoid disapproval.

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality because we want to be correct but are uncertain or doubt our own judgment.

Solomon Asch's research

Designed to answer whether people would still conform to the group if the group opinion was clearly wrong.

Obedience

Compliance with commands given by an authority figure.

Milgram's shock experiments

Demonstrated that most complied to the very last shock when orders were given by a legitimate authority figure.

Milgram's obedience experiments

Experiments that showed factors influencing participants' willingness to obey the experimenter.

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

The tendency to comply with a larger request after agreeing to a small one.

Door-in-the-face technique

A compliance method where a large request is followed by a smaller one, increasing the likelihood of compliance.

That's not all technique

A method where a request is followed by a lower offer or an incentive before the person can refuse.

Low-ball technique

A strategy where a person commits to a low offer, which is then increased unexpectedly.

Social facilitation

Improved performance on easy tasks and poorer performance on difficult tasks in the presence of others.

Social loafing

The phenomenon where individuals exert less effort when working in a group than when working independently.

Social striving

The tendency for individuals to work harder in groups than when alone.

Deindividuation

Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations, often leading to behavior one would not normally engage in.

Group polarization

The tendency for group discussions to lead to more extreme positions among group members.

Groupthink

A situation where the desire for harmony in a group leads to poor decision-making.

Prejudice

A negative attitude toward a specific social group, often based on preconceived notions.

Stereotypes

Generalized beliefs about a group of people that often lead to prejudicial emotions.

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's own culture or ethnic group is superior to others.

Cross-race effect

The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than those of other races.

Scapegoat theory

The theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by blaming someone else.

Victim blaming

The tendency to blame an innocent victim for their misfortune.

Just-world hypothesis

The belief that the world is fair and that people get what they deserve.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to overestimate one's ability to have predicted an event's outcome.

Self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

In-group

The social group to which a person belongs.

Out-group

The social group to which a person does not belong.

Out-group homogeneity effect

The perception that members of the out-group are more similar to each other than they actually are.

In-group bias

The tendency to judge in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably.

Proximity

Geographic nearness or familiarity that can influence attraction.

Mere exposure effect

The phenomenon where repeated exposure to something increases our liking for it.

Reciprocity norm

The expectation that we should return help to those who help us.

Social-responsibility norm

The belief that we should help those in need.

Altruism

The unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Bystander effect

The phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help when others are present.

Diffusion of responsibility

The reduction in individual responsibility when others are present.

Four key components that influence decisions.

1. Your reactions to others are determined by your

perceptions of them, not by who they really are.

2. Your self-perception also influences how you

perceive others and how you act on your

perceptions.

3. Your goals in a particular situation determine

the amount and kinds of information you collect

about others.

4. In every situation, you evaluate people partly in

terms of how you expect them to act. This

comes from Social Norms