| social psychology | study of how people influence others' behaviour, beliefs and attitudes |
| need-to-belong theory | humans have a biologically based need for interpersonal connections |
| social comparison theory | theory that we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others |
| upward social comparison | comparing to superior people |
| downward social comparison | comparing to inferior people |
| mass hysteria | outbreak of irrational behaviour that is spread by social contagion |
| collective delusions | many people simultaneously coming or be convinced of bizarre things that are false |
| urban legends | false stories repeated so many times that people believe them to be true |
| social facilitation | enhancement of performance brought about by the presence of others |
| social disruption | a worsening of performance in the presence of others |
| attribution | process of assigning causes to behaviour |
| fundamental attribution error | tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences on other people's behaviour |
| conformity | tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure |
| deindividuation | tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behaviour when they are stripped of their usual identities |
| groupthink | emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking |
| group polarisation | tendency of group discussion to strengthen the dominant positions held by individual group members |
| cults | group of individuals who exhibit intense and unquestioning devotion to a single cause |
| inoculation effect | approach to convincing people to change their minds about something by first introducing reasons why the perspective might be correct and then debunking them |
| obedience | adhere to instructions from those of higher authority |
| how is obedience a double-edged sword? | - society runs smooth because of obedience
- obedience can cause trouble if we stop asking why we are obeying |
| explain the Milgram Paradigm | - researcher, confederate and participant, the researcher is the 'teacher' and the confederate is the 'learner'. You do a paired-associate task, with each mistake you issue a painful shock (range of shocks) to the learner
- shock will increase with each mistake |
| pluralistic ignorance | error of assuming that no one in a group perceives things as we do |
| diffusion of responsibility | reduction in feelings of personal responsibility in the presence of others |
| social loafing | phenomenon whereby individuals become less productive in groups |
| altruism | helping others for unselfish reasons |
| enlightenment effect | learning about psychological research can change real-world behaviour for the better |
| relational aggression | form of indirect aggression prevalent in girls, involving spreading rumours, gossiping and using nonverbal putdowns for the purpose of social manipulation |
| belief | a conclusion regarding factual evidence |
| attitude | belief that includes an emotional component |
| self-monitoring | personality trait that assesses the extent to which people's behaviour reflects their true feelings and attitudes |
| cognitive dissonance theory | theory that states that we alter our attitudes because we experience cognitive dissonance |
| cognitive dissonance | unpleasant mental experience of tension resulting from two conflicting thoughts or beliefs |
| self-perception theory | theory that we acquire our attitudes by observing our behaviours |
| impression management theory | theory that we do not really change our attitudes, but report that we have so that our behaviours appear consistent with out attitudes |
| foot-in-the-door techniques | persuasive technique involving making a small request before making a bigger one |
| door-in-the-face technique | persuasive technique involving making an unreasonably large request before making the small request we're hoping to have granted |
| low-ball technique | persuasive technique in which the seller of a product starts by quoting a low sales price and them mentions all of the add-on costs once the customer has agreed to purchase the product |
| "but you are free" technique | persuasive technique in which we convince someone to perform a favour for us by telling them that they are free not to do it |
| implicit egotism effect | the finding that we are more positively disposed toward people, places or things that resemble us |
| name-letter effect | the finding that we're more positively disposed to people whose names contain the first letter of our first (or last) name |
| prejudice | the drawing of negative conclusions about a person, group of people of situation prior to evaluating the evidence |
| stereotype | a belief, positive or negative, about the characteristics of members of a group that is applied generally to most members of the group |
| the ultimate attribution error | assumption that behaviours among individual members of group are due to their internal dispositions |
| adaptive conservatism | evolutionary principle that creates a predisposition toward distrusting anything or anyone unfamiliar or different |
| in-group bias | tendency to favour individuals within our group over those from outside our group |
| out-group homogeneity | tendency to view all individuals outside our group as highly similar |
| discrimination | negative behaviour toward members of out-groups |
| minimal intergroup paradigm | a laboratory method for creating groups based on arbitrary differences |
| scapegoat hypothesis | claim that prejudice arises from a need to blame other groups for our misfortunes |
| just-world hypothesis | claim that our attributions and behaviours are shaped by a deep-seated assumption that the world is fair and all things happen for a reason |
| explicit prejudice | unfounded negative belief of which we are aware regarding the characteristics of an out-group |
| implicit prejudice | unfounded negative belief of which we're unaware regarding the characteristics of an out-group |
| jigsaw classrooms | educational approach designed to minimise prejudiced by requiring all children to make independent contributions to a shared project |
