Social Psychology Flashcards
Deindividuation
Loss of self-restraint that occurs when group members feel anonymous and aroused.
Sometimes people get swept up by a group and do things they never would have done if on their own, such as looting or rioting.
False-Consensus Effect
Tendency for people to overestimate the number of people who
agree with them.
For example, if Jamal dislikes horror movies, he is likely to think that most other people share his aversion. Conversely, Sabrina, who loves a good horror flick, overestimates the number of people who share her passion.
Conformity
The tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of others.
Solomon Asch (1951) found that in approximately one-third of the cases when people gave an incorrect answer, the participants conformed to that wrong answer.
Approximately 70 percent of the participants conformed on at least one of the trials.
In general, conformity is most likely to occur when a group’s opinion is unanimous.
Groups larger than three (in addition to the participant) do not significantly increase the tendency to conform.
Obedience Studies
Studies that focus on participants’ willingness to do what another asks them to do;
Milgram (1974) found that over 60 percent of participants obey experimenters’ orders, even when the orders involve potentially hurting someone else,
Participants’ compliance is decreased when they are in close contact with those people whom they are being ordered to harm.
When the experimenter left in the middle of the experiment and was replaced by an assistant, obedience also decreased.
When other people were present in the room and they objected to the orders, the percentage of participants who quit in the middle of the experiment skyrocketed.
Migram’s research has been severely criticized on ethical grounds.
Attraction Research
Social psychologists study what factors increase the chance that people will like one another:
Similarity-we are drawn to people who are similar to us, those who share our attitudes, backgrounds, and interests.
Proximity-the greater your exposure to another person, the more you will generally come to like that person.
Reciprocal liking–the more someone likes you, the more you will probably like that person.
Social Loafing
Phenomenon wherein individuals do not put in as much effort when acting as part of a group as they do when acting alone.
One explanation for this effect is that when alone, an individual’s efforts are more easily discernible than when in a group.
Thus, as part of a group, a person may be less motivated to put in an impressive performance.
For example, if a large group of people are trying to load band equipment back into the van, each individual in the group might move more slowly than a single individual working alone would move.
Group Norms
Rules about how group members should act.
For example, businesses may have rules governing appropriate work dress.
Central Route to Persuasion
One of the ways persuasive messages can be processed.
Involves deeply processing the content of the message, such as focusing on safety features when shopping for a new car.
The opposite route is the peripheral route to persuasion, which focuses on other aspects of the message including the characteristics of the person imparting the message (the communicator)
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
One of the ways persuasive messages can be processed.
Involves other aspects of the message including the characteristics of the person imparting the message (the communicator).
Certain characteristics of the communicator have been found to influence the effectiveness of a message (e.g., attractive people, famous people, and experts are among the most persuasive communicators).
The opposite route is the central route to persuasion, which involves deeply processing the content of the message.
Foot-in-the-Door Compliance Strategy
One of the compliance strategies used to get others to comply.
Suggests that if you can get people to agree to a small request, they will become more likely to agree to a follow-up request that is larger.
For example, once your friend agrees to lend you $5, he or she will be more likely to lend you additional funds.
Group Polarization
The tendency of a group’s views to get stronger during group discussions, which may lead to more extreme decisions.’
Explanations include the fact that in a group, individuals may be exposed to new, persuasive arguments they had not thought of themselves and that the responsibility for an extreme decision in a group is diffused across the group’s many members.
For example, if a group of people who all support the same presidential candidate get together to discuss political issues, they are likely to leave the discussion more convinced that they are correct about the issues and have stronger positive feelings about their political candidate.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors. When they do not, they experience unpleasant mental tension or dissonance.
For example, Amira thinks that studying is only for geeks. If she studies for 10 hours for her chemistry test, she will experience cognitive dissonance.
Because she cannot, at this point, alter her behavior (she has already studied for 10 hours), the only way to reduce this dissonance is to change her attitude and decide that studying does not necessarily make someone a geek.
This change in attitude happens without conscious awareness.
Based on experiments by Festinger and Carlsmith in the late 1950s.
Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment
Social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, assigned a group of Stanford students to play either the role of a prison guard or a prisoner.
All were dressed in uniforms, and the prisoners were assigned numbers. The prisoners were locked up in the basement of the psychology building, and the guards were put in charge of their treatment.
The students took to their assigned roles perhaps too well, and the experiment had to be ended early because of the cruel treatment the guards were inflicting on the prisoners.
Social Facilitation
People perform tasks better in front of an audience than they do when they are alone.
They yell louder, run faster, and reel in a fishing rod more quickly.
The opposite effect is social impairment. When the task being observed was a difficult one rather than a simple, well-practiced skill, being watched by others actually hurt performance.
Discrimination
Acting on a prejudice.
The difference between prejudice and discrimination is that prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is a behavior.
Do not confuse the term “discrimination” in the context of social psychology with the ways it is used in operant and classical conditioning contexts.
