Kaplan Social Psychology Flashcards
Norman Triplett
Published what is thought to be the first social psychology study 1898. The study dealt with the concept of social facilitation
Fritz Heider’s balance theory
Balance theory is concerned with three elements: a person (P), another person (O) and some third idea or person (X). Balance exists when all three fit together harmoniously and when there is not balance there will be stress and a tendency to remove this stress to achieve balance.
Leon Festinger
Known for Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Forced Compliance Dissonance
Occurs when a individual is forced to do something that is inconsistent with his/her beliefs.
Festinger & Carlsmith’s experiment (1959)
Students participated in a boring task for an hour. Afterwards they were either payed $1 or $20 to tell the next student, a confederate, that the task was really fun and enjoyable. Afterwards they were given a survey to rate how enjoyable they found the task to be. Students who were only paid $1 rated the tasks as more enjoyable than students receiving $20, demonstrating cognitive dissonance theory. People who only received $1 had to rationalize why they told the “next student” the activity was fun for such a small amount of money.
Daryl Bem’s self-perception theory
The idea that people infer their own attitude about something based on their behavior.
Over-justification effect
When an individual is rewarded for something that they already enjoy doing leading to decreased enjoyment of that activity.
Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
Suggests that their are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. If the issue is very important to us we are dealing with the central route of persuasion and we place close attention to the logic of the arguments being used and strong arguments will change our minds. If the issue is not very important to us or we are otherwise distracted it is the peripheral route and the logical strength of the argument is not as important as how, by whom or in what surroundings the argument is being persuaded.
Analogy of inoculation
Used by William McGuire to describe how people are able to resist persuasion. Using cultural truisms (cultural beliefs that are seldom tested). Because individuals had little practice or experience defending such arguments they were vulnerable to persuasion.
Social Exchange Theory
Assumes that a person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with another. The more the rewards outweigh the costs, the greater the attraction to the other person.
Attractiveness Stereotype
The tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people
Bystander Intervention
The more people witnessing an emergency the less likely an individual is to report it.
Pluralistic Ignorance
When an individual rejects a norm but incorrectly believes that others accept is and, as a result, do not act on their beliefs.
Foot in the door effect
Demonstrates that compliance with a small request increases compliance with a larger request.
Door in the face effect
People who refuse a large initial request are more likely to agree to a later smaller request.
