Social Psychology Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for the Social Psychology exam.

Person Perception

The process of forming impressions of others.

Stereotypes

General beliefs about a group of people.

Prejudice

A negative attitude toward a group and its members.

Discrimination

Unjustified negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Just World Hypothesis

The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Interpersonal Attractiveness

Factors that lead people to like each other.

Matching Hypothesis

The tendency to choose partners who are similar in attractiveness.

Bystander Effect

The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

Attributions

Inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others behavior, and their own behavior.

Dispositional (internal) attributions

Attributing behavior to internal causes, such as personality traits.

Situational (external) attributions

Attributing behavior to external causes, such as the situation or environment.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the role of personal factors and underestimate the role of situational factors in explaining other people's behavior.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to attribute one's successes to personal factors and one's failures to situational factors.

Cognitive Dissonance

The discomfort felt when one's thoughts and behaviors are inconsistent.

Effort Justification

The tendency to increase liking for something that one has worked hard to attain.

Persuasion

The process of changing someone's attitude or behavior.

Central Route of Persuasion

Persuasion based on the content and logic of the message.

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

Persuasion based on cues unrelated to the content of the message.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

A persuasion technique that involves getting someone to agree to a small request before asking for a larger one.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

A persuasion technique that involves making a large request that is likely to be refused before making a smaller request.

Reciprocity Norm

The expectation that people will help those who have helped them.

Group Polarization

The tendency for group discussion to strengthen the dominant point of view and produce a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction.

Groupthink

The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Obedience

Compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority.

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Solomon Asch's experiment

A study on conformity that tested if individuals would conform to a group, even if the group's answer was wrong.

Stanley Milgram's experiment

A study on obedience, tested the extent to which individuals would obey orders from an authority figure, even if it meant harming another person.

Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study

A study on deindividuation, investigated the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers.

Darley & Latane's research

Pioneering research on the bystander effect, explaining diffusion of responsibility.

Attractiveness

The quality of eliciting interest or pleasure.

Impression

An idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone.

Bias

Inclination for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair.

Norm

Something that is usual, typical, or standard.

Attitude

A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior.

Persuasion Techniques

Methods of convincing someone to agree with your point of view.

Ethics

Moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity.

Social Psychology

The study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Diffusion of Responsibility

A social psychological phenomenon that tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned.

Social Influence

The process by which individuals change their behavior or beliefs to meet the demands of a social environment.