Social Psychology: Social Influence, Group Processes, Intergroup Relations, Prosocial Behaviour, and Aggression

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering social influence, group dynamics, prejudice and intergroup relations, prosocial behaviour, and aggression mechanisms based on the lecture series.

Social Influence

The many ways that people impact one another, encompassing major forms such as conformity and obedience.

Conformity

The tendency to change one’s perceptions, beliefs, or behaviour in response to real or imagined pressure from others.

Autokinetic Illusion (Sherif, 1936)

An optical illusion where a stationary point of light in a dark room appears to move; Muzafer Sherif found that individual estimates converged into an enduring group norm that persisted when participants were retested individually a year later.

Line Judgment Task (Asch, 1951; 1956)

A visual discrimination procedure in which participants matched comparison line lengths to a standard line; $76\%$ of participants conformed to unanimous incorrect confederate judgments on at least 1 of 12 critical trials, conforming $37\%$ of the time overall.

Informational Influence

Influence that produces conformity when a person believes that others are correct in their judgment.

Normative Influence

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

Private Conformity

A genuine change in beliefs that occurs when a person truly and internally accepts the position taken by others.

Public Conformity

A superficial change in overt behaviour produced by real or imagined group pressure without any accompanying change in private opinion.

Group Unanimity Effect

The finding that the presence of even one fellow dissenter reduces conformity rates by almost $80\%$, even if the dissenter does not share the same opinion or appears incompetent.

Minority Influence

The process by which dissenters produce change and innovation within a group.

Consistent Minority Style (Moscovici et al., 1969)

A behavioural style wherein minority dissenters firmly repeat the same stance; in color-naming studies, calling all 36 blue slides green produced an $8.42\%$ agreement rate, compared to only $1.25\%$ for an inconsistent minority and $0.25\%$ for the control.

Conversion Theory (Moscovici, 1980)

A theoretical model proposing that minority influence operates progressively through five stages: revelation, cognitive conflict, incubation, innovation, and social cryptomnesia.

Social Cryptomnesia

A stage in minority conversion where society accepts a previously minority-led reform while forgetting that the idea originated from a marginalized or minority group.

Obedience

Behaviour change produced specifically by the explicit commands of an authority figure.

Group (Social Psychology)

A collection of three or more people who interact with and influence one another.

Social Facilitation

The process by which the presence of others enhances performance on simple or well-learned tasks, but impairs performance on difficult or novel tasks.

Social Loafing

The tendency for people to reduce their effort and relax in the presence of others when their individual performance cannot be evaluated.

Ringelmann Effect

The reduction in individual pulling effort as group size increases, dropping from $100\%$ effort alone to $93\%$ in pairs, $85\%$ in trios, and $49\%$ in groups of eight.

Deindividuation

The loss of a person’s sense of individuality and the loosening of normal behavioural constraints when people cannot be identified.

Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE)

A model stating that whether deindividuation leads to prosocial or antisocial outcomes depends on the salient norms and characteristics of the group surrounding the individual.

Groupthink

A group decision-making style characterized by excessive pressure among members for consensus, leading to inadequate appraisal of alternatives and flawed outcomes.

Mindguards

Group members who protect the leader and group cohesion by suppressing dissenting opinions, contrary evidence, and outside evaluations.

Risky Shift

The tendency for group decisions to be consistently riskier than the average decisions made by individuals prior to group discussion.

Group Polarization

The tendency for group discussion to exaggerate and strengthen the initial leanings, preferences, or attitudes of group members.

Intergroup Bias

The systematic tendency to perceive, evaluate, and treat one’s own group (the ingroup) more favourably than a group to which one does not belong (the outgroup).

Stereotype

A generalized cognitive belief that links an entire group of people with specific traits or characteristics.

Prejudice

Negative feelings or affective attitudes directed toward a specific group and its individual members.

Discrimination

Unfair, negative, or differential action and behaviour directed against an individual based on their group membership.

Aversive Racism

A subtle form of prejudice that surfaces when discrimination is safe, socially acceptable, and easily rationalized under non-racial justifications.

Implicit Bias

Automatic, non-conscious mental associations held between a specific group and evaluative feelings or stereotypic attributes.

Realistic Conflict Theory

The proposition that direct competition for scarce material or economic resources between groups breeds prejudice, negative stereotypes, and intergroup hostility.

Superordinate Goals

Shared objectives that require cooperative interdependence between opposing groups to achieve, demonstrated in the Robbers Cave experiment to eliminate hostility.

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

The theory that self-concept and self-esteem are derived not only from personal accomplishments, but also from the status, achievements, and favorable comparisons of one's ingroups against relevant outgroups.

Social Categorization

The classification of individuals into groups based on common attributes, which economizes cognitive processing but leads to overestimating between-group differences and underestimating within-group differences.

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

The tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among members of an outgroup than among members of one's ingroup ('they are all alike, whereas we are diverse').

Ultimate Attribution Error (Intergroup Attribution Bias)

The tendency to attribute negative outgroup behaviour and positive ingroup behaviour to internal character, while attributing positive outgroup behaviour and negative ingroup behaviour to situational circumstances.

Subtyping

Explaining away exceptions to a stereotype by creating an isolated, narrow subcategory that differs from the group as a whole.

Attributional Ambiguity

The state of uncertainty experienced by members of stigmatized groups regarding whether positive or negative feedback reflects their actual performance or the evaluator's prejudice.

Stereotype Threat

The fear of being evaluated by or confirming a negative stereotype about one's group, which can impair performance in a personally important domain.

Contact Theory (Allport, 1954)

The hypothesis that direct contact between hostile groups will decrease prejudice under four essential conditions: equal status, common goals, personal interaction, and supportive social norms.

Prosocial Behaviour

Actions intended to benefit or improve the well-being of another individual or group.

Kin Selection

The evolutionary mechanism of preferential helping toward genetic relatives in order to increase the survival of shared genes.

Reciprocal Altruism

Helping non-relatives driven by the evolutionary expectation that the assistance will be returned in the future.

Arousal Cost-Reward Model

A model stating that observing a victim’s distress causes unpleasant physiological arousal, motivating observers to help in order to alleviate their own personal distress.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (Batson, 1991)

The proposition that empathizing with another's plight generates an unselfish desire to help motivated purely by improving the other person's welfare rather than one's own.

Bystander Effect

The social phenomenon whereby the presence of other people inhibits an individual from helping in an emergency.

Pluralistic Ignorance

A cognitive state in which individuals in a group mistakenly believe that their private feelings differ from the rest of the group, leading them to misinterpret an emergency as safe because no one else looks alarmed.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The belief that others in a group will or should take responsibility for taking action to assist a person in need.

Five Steps to Helping (Latané & Darley)

The cognitive decision path required for intervention: (1) Notice something is happening, (2) Interpret event as an emergency, (3) Take responsibility for providing help, (4) Decide how to help, and (5) Provide help.

Good Mood Effect

The empirical finding that positive mood increases prosocial helping behaviour by increasing self-focus on personal values, prolonging the pleasant emotional state, and promoting a benevolent view of others.

Aggression

Behaviour intended to injure or harm another individual physically or psychologically.

Violence

An extreme manifestation of aggression that is explicitly intended to cause severe physical injury or death.

Hostile Aggression (Emotional Aggression)

Harm-doing that stems from negative emotions such as anger, frustration, or hatred, where inflicting pain is the ultimate end goal.

Instrumental Aggression

Harm-doing that is performed as a calculated means to achieve a desired reward, resource, or status rather than causing harm for its own sake.

Relational Aggression

Harm-doing intended to damage another person’s social relationships, peer standing, or social inclusion through tactics such as gossiping and social exclusion.

Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene

A gene linked to aggressive behaviour; individuals carrying the short form of this gene who experience severe childhood abuse are $3$ times more likely to commit violent crime than non-abused carriers, exemplifying a gene-environment interaction.

Social Learning Theory of Aggression (Bandura)

The perspective that aggressive behaviours are learned via direct reinforcement and the observation and modeling of others, demonstrated in the classic Bobo doll experiments.

Culture of Honour

A culture where individuals—especially men—are taught to defend their personal reputation and property aggressively in response to insults, common in pastoral societies like the US South.

Excitation Transfer Theory (Zillmann)

The process whereby physiological arousal elicited from an unrelated prior event or physical exertion persists and intensifies subsequent anger-driven aggression when provoked.

Alcohol Myopia

A cognitive narrowing effect caused by alcohol intoxication that restricts attention to immediate, salient provocations while reducing the cognitive processing of inhibiting cues and long-term consequences.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The classic proposition that frustration always elicits the motive to aggress and that all aggression is caused by frustration, later modified to state that negative affect mediates the response.

Displaced Aggression

Aggressing against a substitute or safer target because direct aggression against the original source of frustration is prevented by fear or lack of access.

Catharsis (Aggression)

The belief that engaging in, viewing, or imagining aggressive acts purges aggressive impulses and reduces the motive to aggress; research shows it is ineffective and frequently increases subsequent aggression.