Chapter 18: Social Psychology

Social psychology

refers to the study of psychology within the context of social or interpersonal interactions.

Sociology

is the study of cultures and societies, and these have a large effect on an individual’s environment, which can influence cognition and behavior.

Personal identities

are generally words that describe personality, such as kind, generous, thoughtful, insightful, etc., while social identities are how individuals are seen in the context of their society.

Social identities

can be related to religion, work, appearance, disability, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or any other label that societies have come to understand through their shared culture.

In-groups

refer to groups of individuals with a shared identity.

An out-group

is a group that someone does not identify with or belong to.

Ethnocentrism

refers to holding the values or beliefs of one’s own in-group as better than those of another’s, which can lead to conflict, prejudice, and more.

Cultural relativism

is the idea that the beliefs and values of one’s in-group may be different than those of another, but that they are not necessarily better or worse, just different.

Culture shock

refers to the way in which behaviors and values can be seen differently across cultures.

Cultural lag

refers to the time it takes for cultures to catch up to technological innovations or practices.

Role conflict

occurs when two or more of these roles are at odds with each other

Role strain

can occur within the same role

Role exit

occurs when a person leaves behind a role to take on another

Institutionalized discrimination

is a particular type of discrimination that refers to unfair treatment of certain groups by organizations.

Availability

refers to whether something even exists for a person to use.

Accessibility

refers to whether a person can actually use the tools and resources that are available to them.

Group dynamics

is a general term for some of the phenomena we observe when people interact.

Social facilitation

is an increase in performance on a task that occurs when that task is performed in the presence of others.

Social inhibition

which occurs when the presence of others makes performance worse.

Attribution

refers to the way in which people assign responsibility for certain outcomes.

Dispositional attribution

assumes that the cause of a behavior or outcome is internal.

Situational attribution

assigns the cause to the environment or external conditions.

self-serving bias

sees the cause of actions as internal (or dispositional) when the outcomes are positive and external (or situational) when the results are negative.

Interpersonal attraction

is obviously based on characteristics of the person to whom we are attracted, but it may be subject to environmental and social influences, as well.

Positive evaluation

refers to the fact that we all like to be positively evaluated, and therefore, we tend to prefer the company of people who think highly of us.

Shared opinions

as a basis for interpersonal attraction are typically thought of as a form of social reinforcement.

Mere exposure effect

which states that people tend to prefer people and experiences that are familiar.

Conformity

is the modification of behavior to make it agree with that of a group.

Solomon Asch

performed studies on the nature of conformity.

Compliance

is the propensity to accede to the requests of others, even at the expense of your own interests.

reciprocity

which involves creating the appearance that you are giving someone something in order to induce that individual to comply with your wishes.

foot-in-the-door phenomenon

which involves making requests in small steps at first (to gain compliance), in order to work up to big requests.

door-in-the-face phenomenon

in which a large request is made first, making subsequent smaller requests more appealing.

Obedience

was studied by Stanley Milgram in a series of famous experiments.

Attitudes

are combinations of affective (emotional) and cognitive (perceptual) reactions to different stimuli

Cognitive dissonance

occurs when attitudes and behaviors contradict each other.

Leon Festinger

studied this phenomenon and came to the conclusion that people are likely to alter their attitudes to fit their behavior.

Persuasion

is the process by which a person or group can influence the attitudes of others.

elaboration likelihood model

explains when people will be persuaded by the content of a message (or the logic of its arguments), and when people will be influenced by other, more superficial characteristics like the length of the message, or the appearance of the person delivering it.

central route

people are persuaded by the content of the argument.

peripheral route

functions when people focus on superficial or secondary characteristics of the speech or the orator.

Altruism

can help reduce the tendency toward the bystander effect.

equity theory

proposes a view whereby workers evaluate their efforts versus their rewards.

Human factors research

deals with the interaction of person and machine.

Hawthorne effect

indicates that workers being monitored for any reason work more efficiently and productively

Antisocial behavior

behavior that is harmful to society or others, can be divided roughly into two kinds

Prejudice

is a negative attitude toward members of a particular group without evidentiary backing.

Bias

simply refers to a tendency or preference, and biases are not necessarily negative.

Stereotypes

are prototypes of people.

Aggression

is behavior directed toward another with the intention of causing harm.

Hostile aggression

is emotional and impulsive, and it is typically induced by pain or stress.

Instrumental aggression

is aggression committed to gain something of value.