Social Psychology Flashcards
Conformity
Tendency for people to align their behavior with that of the group
Informative influence
Conforming to a group belief because you do not know the correct answer, and you assume the group is right
Normative influence
Conforming to the group answer in order to avoid social rejection
Private conformity
Changing your beliefs to align with the group
Public conformity
Maintaining your beliefs, but changing your outward behavior to align with the group
Group polarization
Phenomenon where group decision making amplifies the original opinion of group members
Groupthink
Phenomenon in which maintaining group harmony leads to irrational decision making
Social anomie
Breakdown of social bonds within a community resulting from weak set of shared norms. Often occurs during periods of rapid change
Compliance
Changing a behavior because it is requested
Identification
Acting/dressing a certain way to mimic someone you respect
Internalization
Strongest form of conformity, integrating a belief into our own values
Asch conformity studies
People conform to the group even when there is no reward/punishment for doing so
Milligram experiment on obedience
Had subject (the teacher) shock confederate (the learner) if they gave the wrong answer. Most people followed the orders of the experimenter, despite protests from the learner
Just world phenomenon
Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people
Fundamental Attribution error
tendency to overemphasize personality characteristics and underemphasize situational circumstances when explaining a behavior
Demand characteristics
When behavior is influenced by what the subject perceives the observer to want
Factors affecting conformity
Group size Unanimity Group status Group cohesion (connectedness with group) Whether behavior is observed Public response
Factors affecting obedience
Closeness to authority Physical proximity to authority Legitimacy of authority Institutional authority Victim distance depersonalization Role models for defiance
Bystander effect
Failure to intervene in a situation because it is assumed that others will do so
Effect increases in larger groups
Explained by the diffusion of responsibility theory
Deindividuation
When people in a group act inappropriately because they believe the crowd will conceal their identity
Social Facilitation
States that the presence of others will increase the most dominant response
For example, if you are giving a presentation you know well, presence of others will increase performance. If you do not know it well, the opposite will occur
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Presence of others improves performance on simple tasks and hinders it on difficult tasks
Social loafing
Tendency to put forth less efforts in a group if individual performance is not being evaluated
Norms
Standards for behavior that govern how people behave. Vary across cultures and situations
