Social Psychology-Exam 3

Intrapersonal

emotions and attitudes, self perception, and social cognition

Interpersonal

relationship and communication between people (helps behavior, agression, prejudice, and discrimination and group processes)

What is Conformity?

changing you behavior to better fit in or go along with a group (EX: everyone picks the obvious wrong answer in a group and you go along with it even though you know its wrong)

Normative social influence

feeling the need to act in certain ways so we feel accepted or liked by a group

Informational social influence

taking cues from other people for how to behave in a situation that isn’t clear (EX: standing in a line but you don’t know what it’s for but everyone’s doing it)

Asch’s Experiment

the one with the lines that was a study on conformity in a group

What are some factors that may cause someone to conform to the group?

Size of majority, presence of another dissenter (partner that agrees with them), public or private nature of the responses.

Whats a common example of how conformity is reduced?

Voting in the United States

What is groupthink?

groups desire for harmony often gets in the way of a critical evaluation

What psychology behavior is associated with the, “don’t rock the boat,” mentality?

Groupthink

Social Facilitation

individual performs better when there is an audience watching them versus when the individual performs alone

Social Impairment

presence of others has a negative impact on an individuals performance

Social Loafing

people put in less effort into a group versus when they work alone. (EX: overstaffed office-people assume work gets done and slack off on their own responsibilites)

What is Compliance?

changing one’s behavior as a result of a resuest

Foot-in-the-door Technique

asking for a small commitment then asking for a bigger commitment

Door-in-the-face Technique

asking for a big commitment, being refused, then asking for a smaller commitment

Lowball Technique

getting a commitment from a person then raising the cost of the commitment (EX: raising the price of a car after the buyer commits)

Obedience

changing ones behavior at the command of an authority figure

Social Role

pattern of behavior that is expected of a person in a given setting or group. (EX: being a student)

Social Norm

group’s expectation of what is appropriate and acceptable behavior for members

Script

person’s knowledge and sequence of events expected in a specific setting

Attribution

process of explaining ones own behavior and the behavior of others

Attribution theory

explains how people infer the causes of behavior

Locus of Control

describing how individuals perceive the source of control over the events in their lives

Internal locus of control

individuals believe that their actions, decisions, and efforts directly influence outcomes

External Locus of Control

lives outcomes are determined by outside forces like luck, fate, or other people rather than one’s own actions.

Situational Cause

Cause of behavior attributed to external factors such as delays, actions of others, or some aspect of the situation (EX: student does bad on exam because they couldn’t sleep due to construction noise.)

Dispositional Cause

cause of behavior attributed to internal factors such as personality or character traits (EX: “bad driver” but aren’t considering the road conditions or situation)

Actor-Observer bias

phenomenon explaining that other people’s behaviors are due to internal factors and our own behaviors are due to situational forces

Self-Serving Bias

tendency of an individual to take credit by making dispositional or internal attributions for positive outcomes (EX: if the result is good you take credit. If it’s bad you blame others.)

Just World Hypothesis

Belief that people get what they deserve, world is a fair place where good people get positive outcomes and bad people get negative outcomes