Social Psychology: Emotions, Attitudes, Social Influence, and Intergroup Bias

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the components and theories of emotion, attitude formation and persuasion, social influence mechanisms (conformity, compliance, obedience), and stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

Emotion

A temporary affective state that is usually a direct reaction to an event, can be positive or negative, and varies in intensity.

Mood

A prolonged, less intense affective state compared to emotions that does not occur in response to a specific experience and may not be consciously recognized or intentional.

Three Ingredients of Emotions

The three components that constitute an emotion: physiology (e.g., heartbeat, sweating, shaking, freezing, getting "hot in the face"), cognition (e.g., thoughts like "My life is over" or "I am so lucky!"), and behavior (e.g., running away, laughing, smiling).

Hippocampus

A brain structure responsible for integrating emotional experiences with cognition.

Amygdala

A brain structure responsible for processing emotional information, especially fear and anxiety.

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

A theory positing that emotions arise directly from physiological arousal: an event triggers a bodily reaction, which then produces the emotional experience ($\text{Event} \rightarrow \text{Bodily reaction} \rightarrow \text{Emotion}$).

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

Also known as thalamic theory, this theory asserts that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously yet independently upon encountering an event ($\text{Event} \rightarrow \text{Bodily reaction} + \text{Emotion}$).

Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

A theory stating that emotion is composed of two factors—physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation—where bodily reactions are interpreted within a situational context to determine the emotional experience ($\text{Event} \rightarrow \text{Bodily reaction} + \text{Interpretation} = \text{Emotion}$).

Lazarus's Cognitive-Mediational Theory

A theory proposing that our cognitive appraisal of a stimulus precedes and determines both emotional experience and physiological arousal ($\text{Event} \rightarrow \text{Interpretation} \rightarrow \text{Emotion} + \text{Bodily arousal}$).

Basic Emotions

A set of universal emotions identified across cultures—joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise—which are communicated via universal facial expressions, prosody, and vocal bursts.

Emotional Suppression

A pattern that occurs when individuals are socialized to not recognize, experience, and/or embrace negative emotions.

Emotion Regulation

Any effort directed toward modifying an emotional experience, whether positive or negative.

Emotion Regulation Strategies

A sequence of strategies used to modify emotional experiences along a process model, consisting of situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation.

Affect Valuation Theory

A theory stating that cultures place value on certain cultural goals, which causes emotions aligning with those goals to be more highly valued.

Display Rules

Cultural guidelines that dictate how, when, and to whom it is appropriate to express emotions.

Attitude

A positive or negative evaluation of a person, object, or idea.

Explicit Attitudes

Conscious evaluations of people, objects, or ideas generated by the rational system.

Implicit Attitudes

Unconscious associations regarding people, objects, or ideas generated by the intuitive system.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A computer-based implicit measure that uses reaction time as its metric to assess unconscious associations toward specific groups or concepts.

Theory of Planned Behavior

A framework stating that behavior is directly determined by intention, which in turn is predicted by behavioral attitude ("Do I like it?"), subjective norms ("What do others think of this?"), and perceived behavioral control ("Do I have the means to do this?").

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The theory proposing that psychological discomfort arises when a person holds two contradictory cognitions, driving individuals to modify cognitions, change the perceived importance of cognitions, add new cognitions, or deny connections.

Post-Decisional Dissonance

A state of psychological discomfort that occurs after making an important decision between attractive alternatives.

Spreading of Alternatives

A method of resolving post-decisional dissonance by emphasizing the positive attributes of the chosen option while highlighting the negative aspects of the unchosen option.

Induced Compliance Paradigm

An experimental paradigm where participants are nudged into engaging in behavior that contradicts their true attitudes, resolving dissonance by adapting attitudes to match the induced behavior.

Effort Justification

A dissonance-reduction strategy where individuals reduce discomfort by convincing themselves that the suffering, pain, or effort expended to achieve an outcome was worthwhile.

Persuasion

Intentional efforts to alter someone's attitude, typically with the ultimate goal of changing their behavior.

Central Route to Persuasion

A pathway in the Elaboration Likelihood Model used by motivated, analytical audiences who engage in high-effort evaluation of message arguments, producing lasting attitude change.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

A pathway in the Elaboration Likelihood Model used by unmotivated, non-analytical audiences who rely on low effort and are swayed by cues outside the core message, producing temporary attitude change.

Sleeper Effect

A delayed increase in the persuasive impact of a message that occurs when recipients remember the message content over time but forget the discounting source or cue.

Identifiable Victim Effect

The tendency of audiences to be more persuaded and moved by vivid stories of a specific individual victim than by statistical facts about broader groups.

Reception-Yielding Model

A model of fear appeals stating that persuasive messages must be sufficiently frightening to be convincing, yet not so extreme that the audience tunes out, requiring moderate fear paired with an actionable solution.

Chameleon Effect

The unconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, and nonverbal behaviors of an interaction partner, demonstrated by Chartrand and Bargh (1999).

Conformity

A change in behavior or beliefs to align with the majority group norm.

Informational Influence

Conformity stemming from the belief that others possess accurate information about reality, resulting in private acceptance and internalization.

Normative Influence

Conformity driven by the desire to fit in, gain social approval, and avoid rejection, leading to public compliance without internalization.

Compliance

Responding favorably to an explicit direct request, as opposed to a command or demand, made by another individual.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

A compliance strategy wherein a requester secures agreement to a small initial favor in order to increase the likelihood of agreement to a subsequent larger request.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

A compliance strategy wherein a requester first makes an unreasonably large request that is rejected, followed by a smaller target request that is more likely to be accepted.

Descriptive Norms

Norms reflecting what most people actually do in a given setting or situation.

Prescriptive Norms

Norms specifying what people ought to do or what behaviors are socially approved.

Obedience

A behavioral change occurring in direct response to a command issued by an authority figure.

Reactance

A motivational state that arises to protect or restore one's sense of freedom when that personal freedom feels threatened or restricted.

Stereotypes

Overgeneralized beliefs regarding the characteristics, traits, and attributes of members of a particular social group, representing the cognitive component of intergroup bias.

Illusory Correlation

The perception of a relationship between two variables or distinctive events where none exists, often driven by paired distinctiveness.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The process by which stereotypes influence one's behavior toward outgroup members in a manner that elicits behaviors confirming the original stereotypical expectations.

Stereotype Threat

The apprehension experienced by individuals that their actions or performance could confirm a negative stereotype about their social identity group.

Disidentification

The protective removal of effort and psychological engagement from academic or social domains where one's group has traditionally been underrepresented.

Prejudice

A negative attitude directed toward an individual based solely on their membership in a specific group, constituting the affective component of intergroup bias.

Realistic Group Conflict

An economic explanation of intergroup hostility proposing that prejudice and conflict emerge when social groups compete directly for scarce, limited resources.

Ingroup Bias

The systematic tendency to favor, evaluate positively, and allocate preferential treatment to members of one's own group ("us") over outgroups ("them").

Minimal Group Paradigm

An experimental approach demonstrating that people show ingroup favoritism even when groups are created arbitrarily with no prior history or social reality.

Implicit Prejudice

Negative attitudes and evaluations toward a group that operate below conscious awareness and can influence spontaneous behavior.

Stigma Consciousness

The chronic expectation that other people will judge and define an individual primarily through the lens of their membership in a stigmatized group.

Attributional Ambiguity

The psychological uncertainty experienced by stigmatized group members about whether positive or negative events and feedback are due to their personal abilities or to prejudice.

Superordinate Goals

Shared objectives that require cooperative interdependence between competing groups, fostering cooperation and reducing intergroup prejudice.

Multicultural Ideology

An approach to intergroup relations that emphasizes acknowledging, appreciating, and valuing cultural differences and worldviews, in contrast to colorblindness.

Discrimination

Negative or unfair behavior and differential treatment directed toward an individual based solely on their group membership, representing the behavioral component of intergroup bias.

Institutional Discrimination

Systemic policies, laws, and institutional practices that systematically and unfairly disadvantage particular social groups.