Chap 12 - Social Psychology

• Key concepts in Social Psychology

  • Obedience
  • Compliance
  • Group behavior
  • Conformity
  • Deindividuation
  • Social facilitation
  • Groupthink
  • Social loafing
  • Group polarization
• Social psychology


  The scientific study of how a person’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings influence and are influenced by social groups
• Social influence


  The process through which the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of an individual
• Conformity


  Changing one’s own behavior to match that of other people
• Normative social influence


  The need to act in ways that we feel will let us be liked and accepted by others
• Informational social influence


  Taking cues for how to behave from other people when in an unclear or ambiguous situation
• Participants in Asch’s famous study on conformity were first shown the standard line and then the three comparison lines
• Groupthink occurs when people place more importance on maintaining group cohesiveness than on assessing the facts of the problem
• Symptoms of Groupthink


  • Group invulnerability
  • Stereotyping those who disagree
  • “Don’t rock the boat” mentality
• Characteristics of Groupthink


  • Invulnerability
  • Rationalization
  • Lack of Introspection
  • Stereotyping
  • Pressure
  • Lack of disagreement
  • Self-deception
  • Insularity
• Group polarization


  The tendency for members involved in a group discussion to take more extreme positions
• Social facilitation


  The positive influence of others on performance
• Social impairment


  The negative influence of others on performance
• Social loafing


  People who are lazy tend not to do as well when others are also working on the same task
• Deindividuation


  A lessening of one’s sense of personal identity and personal responsibility
• Compliance


  Changing one’s behavior as a result of other people directing or asking for the change
• Compliance techniques


  • Foot-in-the-door technique
  • Door-in-the-face technique
  • Lowball technique
• Foot-in-the-door technique


  Asking for a small commitment and then asking for a bigger commitment
• Door-in-the-face technique


  Asking for a large commitment and then asking for a smaller commitment after being refused
• Lowball technique


  Getting a commitment from a person and then raising the cost of that commitment
• Cultural differences determine susceptibility to compliance techniques
• Obedience


  Changing one’s behavior at the command of an authority figure
• Milgram’s shocking research involved a “teacher” administering what he or she thought were real shocks to a “learner”
• Social cognition


  The mental processes that people use to make sense of the social world around them
• Attitude


  A tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain person, object, idea, or situation
• People’s general attitudes may not reflect in their behavior
• Three components of an attitude

  • Affective component
  • Behavioral component
  • Cognitive component
• Attitudes consist of the way a person feels and thinks about something, as well as the way the person chooses to behave
• Ways attitudes can be formed

  • Direct contact
  • Direct instruction
  • Interacting with others
  • Vicarious conditioning
• Persuasion


  The process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, position, or course of action of another person
• Key elements in persuasion


  • Source of the message
  • The message itself
  • The target audience
  • The medium
• Cognitive dissonance


  A sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when a person’s behavior does not correspond to their attitudes
• Cognitive dissonance occurs in children as young as 4
• Cognitive dissonance alternatives


  • Self-perception theory
• Impression formation


  Forming of the first knowledge a person has about another person
• Primacy effect


  The very first impression one has about a person tends to persist
• Social categorization


  The categorization of people based on characteristics they have in common with others
• Stereotype


  A set of characteristics that people believe is shared by all members of a particular social category
• Implicit personality theory


  Sets of assumptions about how different types of people, personality traits, and actions are related to each other
• Implicit Association Test (IAT)


  Measures the degree of association between concepts