social psychology

Question 1

—————- credibility is often the key to effective persuasion.

Answer 1

communicator

Question 2

the central route to persuasion occurs when people think carefully about the —————- and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling.

Answer 2

message

Question 3

social thinking focuses on three key aspects

Answer 3

• impressions
• attributions
• attitudes

Question 4

the fundamental attribution error occurs when we are ————–in our expectation of other people’s behaviour

Answer 4

bias

Question 5

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 5

in impression formation, our tendency to attach more importance to the initial information we learn about a person.

Question 6

what is the norm of reciprocity?

Answer 6

the tendency to respond in kind when others treat us well or poorly.

Question 7

What is the foot-in-the-door technique

Answer 7

a persuader gets you to comply with a small request first (getting the ‘foot in the door’) and later presents a larger request (Eastwick & Gardner, 2009).

Question 8

What is lowballing?

Answer 8

a manipulation technique in which a persuader gets you to commit to some action and then—before you actually perform the behaviour—she or he increases the ‘cost’ of that same behaviour

Question 9

What is, informational social influence?

Answer 9

following the opinions or behaviour of other people because we believe that they have accurate knowledge and that what they are doing is ‘right’

Question 10

What is , normative social influence?

Answer 10

conformity motivated by gaining social acceptance and avoiding social rejection

Question 11

What are four ways to attempt persuasion?

Answer 11

the norm of reciprocity
foot-in-the-door technique
lowballing
door-in-the-face technique

Question 12

door-in-the-face technique

Answer 12

a manipulation technique in which a persuader makes a large request, expecting you to reject it and then presents a smaller request

Question 13

Social loafing

Answer 13

the tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working collectively in a group than when working alone

Question 14

social loafing is more likely to occur when:

Answer 14

• the person believes that individual performance within –the group is not being monitored
• the task (goal) or the group has less value or meaning to the person
• the person generally displays low motivation to strive for success and expects that co-workers will display high effort (Hart et al., 2004).

Question 15

What is, social compensation

Answer 15

working harder when in a group than when alone to compensate for other members’ lower output

Question 16

What is, group polarisation?

Answer 16

when a group of like-minded people discusses an issue, the ‘average’ opinion of group members tends to become more extreme (Krizan & Baron, 2007).

Question 17

Define groupthink.

Answer 17

the tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are motivated to seek agreement
Irving Janis (1982)

Question 18

Janis proposed that groupthink is most likely to occur when a group:

Answer 18

• is under high stress to reach a decision
• is insulated from outside input
• has a directive leader who promotes a personal agenda
• has high cohesiveness, reflecting a spirit of closeness and ability to work well together.

Question 19

Factors that affect conformity

Solomon Asch’s (1951; 1956)

Answer 19

Group size: conformity increased as group size -increased from one to about four or five confederates, but further increases in group size did not increase conformity; this is reinforced by other conformity studies (Bond, 2005).
-Presence of a dissenter: according to plan, one confederate disagreed with the others (e.g. the majority said ‘line 3’; the dissenter said ‘line 2’ or even ‘line 1’).
This greatly reduced the participants’ conformity. When someone dissents (even if their response is not the correct one), this serves as a model for remaining independent from the group.

Question 20

define deindividuation.

Answer 20

a state of increased anonymity in which a person, often as part of a group or crowd, engages in disinhibited behaviour

Question 21

a positive or negative evaluative reaction towards a stimulus, such as a person, action, object or concept

Answer 21

attitude

Question 22

attitudes influence behaviour when–

Answer 22

1. the situation does not prevent us from following our attitudes
2. we are aware of our attitudes and the attitudes are strongly held
3. the attitudes and behaviour are actually related to each other general attitudes best predict general classes of behaviour, and specific attitudes best predict specific behaviours

Question 23

cognitive dissonance

Answer 23

The theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)
argues that people try to make their cognition’s
consistent with each other (strive for cognitive
consistency)