Social Psychology and Personality

Conformity - the tendency to align one's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those of a group, often driven by the desire for acceptance or fear of rejection.

Normative Social Influence - influence to conform to positive expectations, leading to desire to be liked or accepted by the group

Social Norms - the implicit or explicit rules that govern the behavior of members within a society or group, which dictate what is considered acceptable or unacceptable in various contexts.

Relative Deprivation - feeling of dissatisfaction or injustice experienced when individuals compare themselves to others who are perceived to be better off, leading to feelings of resentment and social tension

Upward Social Comparison - comparing oneself to others who are perceived to be better off or more skilled, leading to motivation or low self-esteem

Downward Social Comparison - comparing oneself to others who are percieved to be worse off or less skilled, boosting self-esteem but lowering motivation

Informational Social Influence - influence to accept information from others when one believes that others possess more accurate knowledge, often leading to conformity in beliefs or behaviors.

Obedience - the act of following orders or instructions from an authority figure, which can significantly impact individual behavior and decision-making, often studied through classic experiments such as those conducted by Stanley Milgrem.

Social Facilitation - the phenomenon for people to perform differently when in the presence of others, typically showing improved performance on simple or well-practiced tasks

Group Polarization - when people in a group talk about an idea, they often end up agreeing even more strongly with each other, making their group opinion more extreme

Groupthink - the desire for harmony in a group leads to dysfunctional decision-making outcomes. Members suppress dissenting opinions, leading to loss of individual creativity

Bystander Effect - phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present, due to the diffusion of responsibility among the group

Diffusion of Responsibility - the tendency for individuals to feel less responsible for taking action when others are present, leading to decrease in chance of intervention

Social Loafing - tendency for individuals to exert less effort when working in a group then when working alone

Deindividuation - psychological state where individuals lose their self-awareness and sense of individuality in group settings

Attribution Theory - explains how people decide whether someone’s behavior is caused by their personality or their situations

Dispositional Attributions - assuming a person’s actions are due to their PERSONALITY, not their situation

Situational Attributions - assuming a person’s actions are due to their CIRCUMSTANCES, not their personality

Explanatory Style - how a person USUALLY EXPLAINS THE REASONS BEHIND EVENTS - whether they blame themselves or outside factors

Optimistic Explanatory Style - the habit of explaining good things as LIKELY TO HAPPEN AGAIN and bad things as ONE-TIME EVENTS

Pessimistic Explanatory Style - the habit of explaining bad things as likely to HAPPEN AGAIN and good things as ONE-TIME EVENTS

Fundamental Attribution Error - the tendency to blame people’s actions MORE ON THEIR PERSONALITY AND LESS ON THEIR SITUATION

Actor-Observer Bias - the habit of blaming out OWN ACTIONS ON THE SITUATION but blames OTHER PEOPLE’S ACTIONS ON THEIR PERSONALITY

Self-Serving Bias - the tendency to attribute ONE’S SUCCESS TO PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS and FAILURES TO EXTERNAL FACTORS, enhancing one’s self-esteem

Internal Locus of Control - the belief that ONE’S OWN ACTIONS and decisions directly influence the outcomes and events in their life

External Locus of Control - the belief that outcomes and events are determined by EXTERNAL FORCES OR FATE, rather than one’s own actions

Altruism - the SELFLESS CONCERN FOR THER WELL-BEING OF OTHERS, leading to behavior that benefits others at a personal cost

Social Responsibility Norm - the societal expectation that people should help others who need assistance, WITHOUT REGARD TO FUTURE EXCHANGES

Stereotype - a GENERALIZED BELIEF about a particular category of people, often oversimplified and not based in direct experience

Confirmation Bias - a tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses

Belief Perseverance - the tendency to hold on to one’s initial beliefs even after they have been shown to be false, often ignoring contradictory evidence presented

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - when a belief about a situation of a person leads to actions that make the belief come true

Prejudice - an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude towards a group and its members. generally involves negative emotions, beliefs, and predisposition to discriminatory action

Discrimination - unjustifiable negative behavior towards a group or its members

Implicit Attitudes - unconscious feelings that influence a person’s behavior and perceptions without their awareness

Just-World Phenomenon - a belief tat the world is fundamentally fair, leading people to rationalize injustice or see misfortune as deserved

Out-Group Homogeneity Bias - the tendency to see members of an outgroup as more similar to each other than they really are, often perceiving them as less varied than members of one’s own group

In-Group Bias - the tendency to favor and extend loyalty to members of one’s own group over those in other groups, often leading to preferential treatment and judgement

Mere Exposure Effect - the phenomenon where repeated exposure to s stimulus increases on individual’s preference for that stimulus

Ethnocentrism - the belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture, often accompanied by a feeling of contempt for other groups

Collectivism - a cultural value that emphasizes the importance of the group or community over individual goals and desires, prioritizing group cohesion and interdependence

Multiculturalism - the view that promotes the acknowledgement and respect of diverse cultural backgrounds and traditions, encouraging the coexistence and values of various cultural identities within a society

Superordinate Goals - shared goals that require cooperation among individuals or groups, typically overriding smaller or individual conflicts and fostering collaborative effort

Social Traps - situations in which individuals or groups pursue innovative rewards that later prove to have negative or even catastrophic consequences for the larger community