Social Psychology Midterm III Vocabulary
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76 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 conformity | a change in behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure |
| compliance | conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing |
| obedience | acting in accord with a direct order or command |
| acceptance | conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure |
| autokinetic phenomenon | the apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark |
| cohesiveness | a "we feeling"; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction for one another |
| normative influence | conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance |
| informational influence | conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people |
| reactance | a motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom; arises when someone threatens our freedom of action |
| group | two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as "us" |
| co-actors | cooperating participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity |
| social facilitation | the strengthening of dominant, prevalent, or likely responses in the presence of others |
| evaluation apprehension | concern for how others are judging us |
| social loafing | the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable |
| free riders | people who benefit from the group but give little in return |
| deindividuation | loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad |
| group polarization | group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group |
| social comparison | evaluating one's opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others |
| pluralistic ignorance | a false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding |
| groupthink | the mode of thinking people engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so strong in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic judgment of other option |
| leadership | the process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group |
| task leadership | leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals |
| social leadership | leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support |
| transformational leadership | leadership that exerts significant influence inspired by a leader's vision and inspiration |
| prejudice | a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members |
| stereotype | a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people; sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information |
| discrimination | unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members |
| racism | (1) an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or (2) institutional practices that subordinate people of a given race, even if not intended to do so |
| sexism | (1) an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices that subordinate people of a given sex, even if not intended to do so |
| social dominance orientation | a motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups |
| ethnocentric | believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups |
| authoritarian personality | a personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status |
| realistic group conflict theory | the theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources |
| social identity | the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that arises from our group memberships |
| ingroup | "us"-- a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity |
| outgroup | "them"-- a group that people perceive as distinctly different from or apart from their ingroup |
| terror management | people's self-protective emotional and cognitive responses when confronted with reminders of their mortality, including a stronger adherence to their cultural worldviews and prejudices |
| outgroup homogeneity effect | perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members |
| own-race bias | the tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race |
| stigma consciousness | a person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination |
| group-serving bias | explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group) |
| just-world phenomenon | the tendency of people to believe that the world is fair and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get |
| subtyping | accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "the exceptions to the rule" |
| subgrouping | accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group |
| stereotype threat | a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype |
| need to belong | a motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive interactions |
| proximity | geographical nearness; powerfully predicts liking |
| mere exposure effect | the tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them |
| matching phenomenon | the tendency for men and women to choose as partners those who are a "good match" in attractiveness and other traits |
| physical attractiveness stereotype | the presumption that physically attractive people possess other socially desirable traits as well |
| complementarity | the popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two people, for each to complete what is missing in the other |
| ingratiation | the use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain another's favor |
| reward theory of attraction | the theory that we like those whose behavior is rewarding to us or whom we associate with rewarding events |
| passionate love | a state of intense longing for union with another; marked by a couple's absorption with each other, ecstatic feelings associated with one another's love, and worry about losing it |
| two-factor theory of emotion | arousal x its label = emotion |
| companionate love | the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined |
| secure attachment | attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy |
| preoccupied attachment | attachments marked by a sense of one's own unworthiness and anxiety, ambivalence, and possessiveness |
| dismissive attachment | an avoidant relationship style marked by distrust of others |
| fearful attachment | an avoidant relationship style marked by fear of rejection |
| equity | a condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it |
| self-disclosure | revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others |
| disclosure reciprocity | the tendency for one person's intimacy of self-disclosure to match that of a conversational partner |
| social categorization | the automatic cognitive process of placing people into groups based on their personal characteristics (such as age, race, or religion) |
| BIRG | Basking In Reflected Glory, or identifying oneself with a group that's been successful |
| illusory correlation | overestimating the strength of the relationship between two distinctive events |
| foot-in-the-door technique | the target agrees to a small request in the beginning, and then a larger request later |
| door-in-the-face technique | the target refuses a large request, but then agrees to a subsequent smaller request |
| that's-not-all technique | the target is offered a deal as well as an extra addition |
| lowballing | an initial agreement is made by the target, but the persuader later adds to the cost of the agreement |
| bait and switch | an initial commitment is made, but the option becomes unavailable, leading the target to accept a more costly offer |
| labeling | a person is knowingly placed into a category, and then the person agrees to a request that is consistent with that categorization |
| koro | a form of mass hysteria that takes place periodically in the Middle East where people believe ghosts can cause the shrinking of male genitalia |
| ultimate attribution error | the tendency to attribute negative behavior of minorities to their dispositions, and the positive behavior of minorities to the situation |
| production blocking | failure of members to express ideas due to the norm that only one person talks at a time |
| brainstorming | a process in which group members are encouraged to produce as many ideas as possible in an uninhibited way |
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