Unit 9: Social Psychology

• Attribution Theory: The theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation (external) or the person's disposition (internal).
• 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: Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events. (ABC)
• Peripheral Route Persuasion: Attitude change path in which people are influenced by incidental cues, emotional responses such as a speaker's attractiveness.
• Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
• Role: A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory: The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognition) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting discomfort by changing our attitudes.
• Conformity: Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
• Normative Social Influence: Influence (conforming) resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.
• Informational Social Influence: Influence (conforming) resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.
• Social Facilitation: Stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.
• 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. (Mob Mentality)
• Group Polarization: The enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. (Extremes)
• Groupthink: The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
• Culture: The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
• Norm: An understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. They prescribe "proper" behavior.
• Prejudice: An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. It generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.
• Stereotype: A generalized (sometimes accurate, but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.
• Discrimination: (Social) unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.
• Ingroup: "Us"—people with whom we share a common identity.
• Outgroup: "Them"—those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.
• Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor our own group.
• Scapegoat Theory: The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
• Other-Race Effect: The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races. Also called the cross-race effect and the own-race bias
• Just-World Phenomenon: The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get. (Blame the Victim)
• Aggression: Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone.
• Frustration-Aggression Principle: The principle that frustration—the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal—creates anger, which can generate aggression.
• 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.
• Self-Disclosure: Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.
• Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
• Social Exchange Theory: The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
• 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.
• Social Trap: A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.
• Mirror-Image Perceptions: Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive.
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy: A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.
• Superordinate Goals: Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.
• Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction (GRIT): Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction—a strategy designed to decrease international tensions.