AP Psychology Chapter 11

Chapter 11 (Social Psychology)

Reading Assignment: P.436-450 Stop @ end of 11.4

• Social Psychology - The scientific study of how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected and influenced by social groups and interactions.

• Social Influence - The process through which the presence of others can influence the thoughts, feelings, and actions of an individual

• Conformity - Changing one’s behavior to match that of other people

• Normative Social Influence - The need to act in ways that we feel will let us be liked by others

• Informational Social Influence - Our tendency to act like other people when we are in an uncertain situation

• Group Think - When people place more importance on maintaining group cohesiveness rather than focusing on facts

• Group Polarization - Tendency for members of a group to take more extreme positions than they would have if they were alone

• Social Facilitation - Tendency for presence of others to have a positive effect on the performance of an easy task

• Social Impairment - Tendency for presence of others to have a negative effect on the performance of a difficult task

• Social Loafing - Tendency for people to put less effort into a simple task when working in a group

• Deindividuation - The lessening of personal identity, self restraint and personal responsibility that occurs when in one is in a group

• Compliance - Changing your behavior when someone asks you to do so

• Foot-in-the-door technique - Asking for a small commitment, getting accepted, and then asking for a larger commitment

• Door-in-the-face technique - Asking for a large commitment, getting rejected, and then asking for a smaller commitment

• Lowball - Getting a commitment, and then raising the cost of that commitment

• Obedience - Changes in one’s behavior at the command of an authority figure

• Milgram Study - A study that showed that people would torture others if they were pressured to by an authority figure

Reading Assignment: P.450-461 Stop @ end of 11.9

• Social Cognition - The mental processes people use to make sense of the social world around them

• Attitude - A tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain person, object, idea, or situation (ABC Model)

  • Affective Component - The way that a person feels towards the object, person, or situation

  • Behavior Component - The action that a person takes in regard to the object, person, or situation

  • Cognitive Component - The way a person thinks about an object or situation

• Persuasion - The process by which one person tries to change the opinion of another person through argument, pleading or explanation

• Elaboration Likelihood Model - Model of persuasion stating that people will either elaborate on the persuasive message or fail to elaborate on it. The actions of those who elaborate are more predictable than those who don’t

• Central Route Processing - Type of information processing that involves attending to the content of the message itself

• Peripheral Route Processing - Type of information processing that involves attending to factors not involved in the message, such as the appearance of the messenger, or the length of the message itself

• Cognitive Dissonance - A sense of discomfort that occurs when a person’s behavior does not correspond to that person’s attitudes 

• Festinger Study (1959) - A study that showed that people who were paid less to lie were more likely to convince themselves that they weren’t lying because they felt bad for lying for less money

• Impression Formation - The forming of the first knowledge that a person has concerning another person

• Social Categorization - The assignment of a person one has just met to a category based on characteristics the new person has in common with other people with whom one has had experience in the past

• Implicit Personality Theory - Sets of assumptions about how different types of people, personality traits, and actions are related to each other

• Attribution Theory (1958) - The theory of how people make attributions (the process of explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of others)

• Situational Cause - Cause of behavior attributed to external factors, such as delays, the action of others, or some other aspect of the situation

• Dispositional Cause - Cause of behavior attributed to internal factors such as personality or character

• Fundamental Attribution Error - Tendency to overestimate the influence of external factors while underestimating situational factors

• Actor-Observer Bias - The tendency to blame others for their own behavior while blaming external factors for our behavior

Reading Assignment: P.461-466 Stop @ end of 11.11

• Prejudice - Negative attitude held by a person about members of another social group

• Discrimination - Treating people different based on prejudice towards their social group

• Ethnocentrism - Evaluating other cultures based on your own culture

• In-Group - Social group that a person identifies with

• Out-Group - Social group that a person doesn’t identify with

• Scapegoating - A group who is used as a target for frustrations and negative emotions, even if they didn’t necessarily do anything wrong

• Realistic Conflict Theory - States that prejudice are discrimination increase between two groups under conflict for limited supplies

• Social Cognitive Theory - Prejudice is formed through direct instruction, modeling, and other social influences

• Social Identity Theory - Formation of a person’s identity in a particular group is caused by social categorization, identification (social identity), and social comparison 

• Social Comparison - Comparing oneself to others in a way that makes improves their self esteem

• Stereotype Vulnerability - The effect that people’s awareness of a stereotype has on their behavior

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Tendency for one’s expectations to affect one’s behavior in a way that makes the expectation more likely to occur

• Equal Status Contact - Contact between groups that have equal status, considered a key factor in reducing prejudice

Reading Assignment: P.466-483

• Interpersonal Attraction - Liking or having the desire for a relationship with another person

• Mere Exposure Effect - The more people experience something, the more they like it

• Causes of Attraction - Physical attractiveness, proximity, similarity, reciprocity of liking

• Components of Love 

  • Intimacy - Having emotional ties with someone; feeling close

  • Passion - Physical aspect of love

  • Commitment - Involves the decisions one makes about a relationship

• Aggression - When a person deliberately tries to harm another person physically or psychologically

• Stanford Prison Experiment - Participants were either assigned the prisoner or guard role. Throughout the experiment, the guards started becoming very controlling and the prisoners became depressed and sick. It showed how powerful social roles are in behavior

• Prosocial Behavior - Socially desirable behavior that benefits others

• Altruism - Prosocial behavior done with no expectation of reward and may involve risk of harm to oneself

• Bystander Effect - Tendency for people to be less likely to help when there are other people around

• Diffusion of Responsibility - When people fail to take responsibility for actions/inaction because of the presence of other people who are seen to share the responsibility.

Additional Vocab

• Foot in the door vs low ball - Both theories start with asking for a low commitment. The foot in the door theory involves asking for a larger commitment later while the lowball theory involves 

• Conformity vs Compliance - Conformity is usually done to fit in with a group while compliance is done because someone requested it. 

• Explicit Attitudes - Attitudes towards people or events that we are explicitly aware of

• Self-Serving Bias - The tendency to interpret events in a way that assigns credit for success to oneself but denies one’s responsibility for failure, which is blamed on external factors.

• Just-world Hypothesis - The belief that, in general, the social environment is fair, and people get what they deserve.

• Robbers Cave Experiment (1954) - Study where researchers divide a group of boys into two separate groups of boys into two separate groups, creating conflict between them by making them compete for limited resources.

• Reducing Friction Stage - A process where the goal is the actively decrease tension, conflict, or negative interactions between individuals or groups, essentially aiming to smooth out any existing hostility or barriers to cooperation

• Superordinate goals -  Goals that are worth achieving but require two or more social groups to work together cooperatively. These goals are so important that they encourage groups to set aside their differences and work toward a common objective.

Equal Status Contact - a social interaction between individuals from different groups where both groups are perceived as having equal power and status within that interaction.