Chapter 7 Social Psychology

Social Influence

Process whereby attitudes and behavior are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people

Norms

Attitudinal and behavioral uniformities that define group membership and differentiate between groups

Compliance

Superficial, public and transitory change in behavior and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion, or group pressure

Reference Group

Kelley’s term for a group that is psychologically significant for our behavior and attitudes

Membership Group

Kelley’s term for a group to which we belong by some objective external criterion

Dual-process Dependency Model

General model of social influence in which two separate processes operate—dependency on others for social approval and for information about reality

Power

Capacity to influence others while resisting their attempts to influence

Six Different Types of Power

Reward Power

Coercive Power

Informational Power

Expert Power

Legitimate Power

Referent Power

Agentic State

A frame of mind thought by Milgram to characterize unquestioning obedience, in which people as agents transfer personal responsibility to the person giving orders

Factors Influencing Obedience

Immediacy of the victim (may prevent dehumanization)

Immediacy of the authority figure (absence may lead to reduced obedience)

Group pressure (confirms power to be legitimate or illegitimate)

The principal components of psychology’s code of ethics:

Participation must be based on fully informed consent

Participants must be explicitly informed that they can withdraw, without penalty, at any stage of the study

Participants must be fully and honestly debriefed at the end of the study

Conformity

Deep-seated, private and enduring change in behavior and attitudes due to group pressure

Frame of Reference

Complete range of subjectively conceivable positions on some attitudinal or behavioral dimension, which relevant people can occupy in a particular context

(um so this definition is super confusing… I think it just means the context that filters the way we perceive the world)

Autokinesis

Optical illusion in which a pinpoint of light shining in complete darkness appears to move about

Factors Influencing Conformity

Culture (collectivist cultures tend value conformity)

Group size (larger the majority, the more easily swayed)

Group unanimity (increases conformity)

Informational Influence

An influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality

Normative Influence

An influence to conform to the positive expectation of others, to gain social approval, or to avoid social disapproval

Social Identity Theory

Theory of group membership and intergroup relations based on self-categorization, social comparison, and the construction of a shared self-definition in terms of ingroup-defining properties

Referent Informational Influence

Pressure to conform to a group norm that defines oneself as a group member

Meta-contrast Principle

The prototype of a group is that position within a group that has the largest ratio of “differences to ingroup positions” to “differences to outgroup positions”

Minority Influence

Social influences processes whereby numerical or power minorities change the attitudes of the majority

Conformity Bias

Tendency for social psychology to treat group influence as a one-way process in which individuals or minorities always conform to majorities

The three social influence modalities that define how people respond to within-group conflict:

Conformity (majority persuades minority)

Normalization (mutual compromise)

Innovation (minority creates conflict to persuade majority to adopt minority viewpoint)

Conversion Theory

Moscovici argued that majorities and minorities exert influence through different processes:

1. Majority influence produces direct public compliance for reasons of normative or informational dependence. Comparison process to fit in. Majority views passively accepted.

2. Minority influence produces indirect, often latent, private change in opinion due to the cognitive conflict and restructuring that deviant ideas produce. People engage in a validation process. Conversion effect.

Conversion Effect

When minority influence brings about a sudden and dramatic internal and private change in the attitudes of a majority

Convergent-divergent Theory

Minority groups stimulate divergent thinking in majority groups. Majority groups stimulate stress and convergent thinking in minority groups.

Attribution

The process of assigning a cause to our own behavior and that of others

Social Impact

The effect that other people have on our attitudes and behavior, usually as a consequence of factors such as group size, and temporal and physical immediacy