Social Influence Key Words

Question 1

Agentic state

Answer 1

Individual carries out the orders of another person, acting as their agent with little personal responsibility

Question 2

Authoritarian personality

Answer 2

A person who has extreme respect for authority and is obedient to those who have power over them

Question 3

Autonomous state

Answer 3

Where individuals are seen as personally responsible for their actions

Question 4

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 4

Unpleasant feeling of anxiety created when simultaneously holding two contradictory ideas

Question 5

Compliance

Answer 5

Superficial type of conformity where people conform publicly by privately disagree

Question 6

Confederates

Answer 6

Alternative term for stooges or pseudo-participants

Question 7

Conformity

Answer 7

Changing what we do think or say in response to others

Question 8

Dehumanisation

Answer 8

Degrading people by lessening their human qualities

Question 9

Deindividuation

Answer 9

When a person moves into a group and as a result loses some individual identity

Question 10

Dispositional attribution

Answer 10

Explanation of individual behavior as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual

Question 11

Identification

Answer 11

Where people change their beliefs (sometimes temporarily) to fit in with a group

Question 12

Individual variables

Answer 12

Personal characteristics that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures

Question 13

Internalisation

Answer 13

Where people change their beliefs permanently

Question 14

Ironic deviance

Answer 14

Takes place when we believe that the behaviour of the majority is the result of unreasonable pressure from authority

Question 15

Locus of control

Answer 15

Extent to which individuals believe they can control events in their lives

Question 16

Majority influence

Answer 16

Alternative term for conformity

Question 17

Milgram paradigm

Answer 17

Experimental procedure for measuring obedience rates

Question 18

Minority influence

Answer 18

Where an individual or small group influence attitudes and behaviour of a larger group

Question 19

Morality

Answer 19

Decisions and behaviour based upon the perception of proper conduct

Question 20

Obedience

Answer 20

Complying with the demands of an authority figure

Question 21

Personality

Answer 21

Combination of characteristics that forms an individual’s distinctive nature

Question 22

Reactance

Answer 22

Occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away his or her choices or limiting the range of alternatives

Question 23

Situational variables

Answer 23

Features of an environment that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures

Question 24

Social change

Answer 24

The process by which attitudes, beliefs and norms of acceptable behaviour vary over time

Question 25

Social roles

Answer 25

The parts individuals play as part of a social group

Question 26

Social support

Answer 26

Perception of assistance and solidarity available from others

Question 27

Status

Answer 27

The position of an individual within a hierarchical group

Question 28

Systematic processing

Answer 28

Analysis based on critical thinking

Question 29

Unanimity

Answer 29

Complete agreement from a group of people about an issue or question