Social psychology: the scientific study of how we think, influence, and relate to one another

Social cognition: the mental processes that people use to make sense of their social environments

Person perception: the mental processes we use to form judgements and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of other people

• Principle I: our reactions to others are determined by our perception of them, not who the really are

• Principle II: our self-perception also influences how we perceive others and how we act on our perceptions

• Principle III: our goals in a situation determine the amount of information we collect about others.

• Principle IV: in every situation, you evaluate people in terms of how we expect them to act in a particular context

Attribution theory: the tendency for observers when analyzing another’s behavior to give causal

explanations for someone’s behavior often by crediting either the situation or surroundings

• Dispositional attribution: blaming someone’s behavior on their personality

• Situational attribution: blaming someone’s behavior on their surroundings

• Confirmation bias: the tendency of people to favor information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values and is difficult to dislodge once affirmed.

• Fundamental Attribution error: the tendency people have to overestimate personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others' behavior

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: one person’s belief about others leads one act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief that leads to its own fulfillment

• Self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute successful outcomes to your behavior to internal cause and unsuccessful outcomes to external causeEx: when I win a round of fortnite, it is because of my skill, when I lose, it is because my squad was not focused.

• Confirmation bias: the tendency to find information that support your opinion and ignore contradictory evidence

• Rosenthal Effect: situations where high expectations lead to improved performance, while low expectations lead to poor performance

• False Consensus Effect: a tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs

• Halo Effect: the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, country, brand, or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion

• The looking glass effect: when we are aware of our attitudes, they are more likely to guide our actions

• Chameleon Effect: unconsciously mimicking others

• Herding: tendency for people to follow the sentiment of the majority

Attitudes: a belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people and events.

• Cognitive dissonance: the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs.

  • Leon festinger

• Elaboration likelihood model: theory that there are two ways to persuade

• Central vs. Peripheral route

  • Central: arguments that focus on facts

  • Peripheral: swayed by more superficial cues

Conformity, Compliance, Obedience:

Persuasion Techniques:

• Central Route Persuasion: a method of convincing others to take an action or make a decision based on facts and evidence of the merits of the outcome ex: a car company seeking to persuade you to purchase their model will emphasize the car's safety features and fuel economy.

• Peripheral Route persuasion: persuasion which does not rely on the intrinsic merits of an argument ex: having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes

• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply with a larger request. Small request —-> Larger request

• Door-in-the-face phenomenon: a persuasive strategy that involves making a large, unreasonable request first, followed by a smaller, more acceptable one.

Obedience: people comply to social pressure, stanley milgram

• Stanford prison experiment: Zimbardo

• Milgram experiment: sought to identify how much influence a person in power holds over another person

  • The shocking chair experiment

Social Influence:

• Normative social influence: behavior caused by a person desire to gain validation or avoid isolation from a group

• Informative social influence: influence from the willingness to accept other;s opinions because they could be better/more knowledgeable

Prejudice: unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members

Causes of Prejudice:

• Social inequality: prejudice develops when people have money, power, and prestige, and others do not. The “haves” dev

  • Social Facilitation:improved performance on task to do the presence of a group

  • Social inhibition:

  • Social Contagion: imitative behavior, yawning

  • Asch line experiment: people will conform even though the answer is wrong

  • Group polarization: tendency for people in a group who are like minded to move to extreme positions as discussing an issue

  • Deindividuation: loss of self-awareness and self-restraint during protests or situations where they think they aren't going to get caught

  • Groupthink: the tendency of group members to conform, resulting in a narrow view of an issue

    • mind guard: a member of the group who, in an attempt to preserve the central group idea, omits any information which may cause doubts to arise within the group.

  • GRIT: Graduated And Reciprocated Initiatives In Tension Reduction (GRIT) Graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction (GRIT) is a conflict de-escalation method developed by Charles Osgood. It is a bargaining strategy with the end goal being a "gradual reduction in tension" between two parties.

    • Irving Janis:

    • Roles: set expectations about a social position

• Cultural relativism:

• Assimilation:

• In-group vs. Out-group: common identity vs. different than common identity

• Primary vs Secondary groups:

Mirror-image perceptions: mutual views often held by conflicting people

• Scapegoating: theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

The Just World phenomenon: tendency for people to believe the world is just

Victim blaming: placing responsibility for a situation on the person on the receiving end of the bad experience

Aggression: can be any physical or verbal behavior that threatens

Frustration-Aggression Principle: a principle in which frustration (caused by blocking an attempt to achieve something) creates anger, which can generate aggression.

Social Scripts: generates mental tapes in the minds of viewers

The social trap: decisions that seem good in the moment but hut society in the long run ex: peer pressure of alcohol

Altruism: an unselfish regard for the welfare of others

• Bystander Effect: any given bystander is less likely to give aid to someone they see in distress

• Helping behavior:

• Diffusion of responsibility: felling diminished responsibility for their actions when they are surrounded by others acting the same ex: group project, people not working enough

  • Superordinate goals: shared goals that override differences that require cooperation