Social Psychology
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56 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 social psychology | the branch of psychology that studies persons and their relationships with others and with groups and with society as a whole |
| attribution theory | the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition; studied by Fritz Heider |
| fundamental attribution error | the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition |
| attitude | a relatively enduring evaluation of a person or thing; doesn't always match one's behavior |
| cognitive dissonance | The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes, often in a self-justifying way. |
| foot-in-the-door phenomenon | the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request |
| door-in-the-face phenomenon | tendency for people who won't agree to a large task, but then agree when a smaller request is made |
| central route to persuasion | occurs when people think carefully about the message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling. |
| peripheral route to persuasion | Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness, emotional music or images. |
| conformity | adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard |
| normative social influence | influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval |
| informational social influence | influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality. |
| Solomon Asch | conducted an experiment where participants' estimates of line length were influenced by the presence of others giving incorrect answers |
| Philip Zimbardo | conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment |
| social facilitation | improved performance of tasks in the presence of others; occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered |
| social loafing | the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable |
| deindividuation | the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity |
| group polarization | the enhancement of a group's prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group |
| groupthink | the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives |
| prejudice | an unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members |
| stereotype | a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people |
| discrimination | unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice |
| institutionalized discrimination | the persistence of discrimination in social institutions that is not necessarily recognized by everybody as discrimination |
| ingroup | "us"—people with whom one shares a common identity. |
| ingroup bias | the tendency to favor one's own group |
| outgroup | generally, any group that one does not belong to |
| scapegoat theory | the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame |
| just-world phenomenon | the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get |
| blaming the victim | the tendency to blame an innocent victim of the misfortune for having somehow caused the problem or for not having taken steps to avoid or prevent it |
| aggression | any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy |
| frustration-aggression principle | the principle that frustration- the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal- creates anger which can generate aggression |
| conflict | a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas |
| social trap | a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior |
| mere exposure effect | the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them |
| passionate love | an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship |
| companionate love | the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined |
| equity | a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it |
| self-disclosure | revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others |
| altruism | unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness |
| bystander effect | the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present |
| social exchange theory | the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs |
| superordinate goals | shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation |
| GRIT | Graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension-reduction; strategy designed to decrease international tensions |
| Stanley Milgram | conducted experiments where "teachers" were made to shock "learners" under direction from an authority figure |
| obedience | changing behavior in response to a demand from an authority figure |
| feel-good, do-good phenomenon | people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood |
| approach-approach conflict | Conflict that results from having to choose between two attractive alternatives |
| approach-avoidance conflict | conflict occurring when a person must choose or not choose a goal that has both positive and negative aspects |
| avoidance-avoidance conflict | Conflict that results from having to choose between two distasteful alternatives |
| actor-observer effect | the tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviors while making dispositional attributions for the identical behavior of others |
| self-serving bias | the tendency to assign oneself credit for successes but to blame failures on external forces |
| diffusion of responsibility | reduction in sense of responsibility often felt by individuals in a group; may be responsible for the bystander effect, social loafing, and related phenomena |
| reciprocity norm | an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them |
| social responsibility norm | an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them (especially those who cannot help themselves) |
| self-fulfilling prophecy | an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true. |
| ethnocentrism | the tendency to view one's own group as superior to others and as the standard for judging the worth of foreign ways |
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