Social Psychology Flashcards
Define attitude.
A positive or negative evaluative reaction towards a stimulus, e.g. a person, action, object or concept
Define prejudice.
To judge, often negatively, without having relevant facts, usually about a group or its individual members
Define conformity.
The adjustment of individual behaviours, attitudes + beliefs to a group standard
State 3 factors that affect conformity.
Group size: increases up to a group size of 5 (no increase thereafter)
Presence of a dissenter: 1 person disagreeing greatly reduces conformity
Culture: greater in collectivistic cultures
Describe the Asch study on conformity and what it showed.
Simple vision test comparing lengths of lines + put a subject in the room with several actors who all chose the wrong answer
Majority of people conformed when everyone else chose the wrong answer
In the control group, < 1% conformed
Define obedience.
Compliance with commands given by an authority figure
State 4 factors influencing obedience.
Remoteness of the victim
Closeness + legitimacy of the authority figure
Diffusion of responsibility (obedience increases when someone else takes the blame)
NOT personal characteristics
Describe the Milgram experiment on obedience.
1 learner + 1 teacher
They were told the experiment studied the effect of punishment on memory + to deliver increasingly intense shocks as the actor made increasing mistakes
Even though the shock had reached a fatal level when the actor seemed unconscious or even dead, the majority of subjects still obeyed the commands
Define Social Loafing.
The tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working in a group than when working alone
State 4 factors that make social loafing more likely to occur.
Person believes that the individual performance is not being monitored
Task/ group has less value or meaning to the person
Person generally displays low motivation to strive for success
Person expects other group members will display high effort
In which gender and cultures are social loafing more likely to occur?
All male groups
Individualistic cultures
When might social loafing disappear?
Individual performance is being monitored
Members highly value their group/ task goal
Groups are smaller
Members are of similar competence
Define group polarisation.
The tendency for people to make decisions that are more extreme when they are in a group as opposed to a decision made alone/ independently
Define group think.
The tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are striving to seek agreement
State 4 situations that make group think more likely to occur.
Group... is under high stress to reach a decision is insulated from outside input has a directive leader has high cohesiveness
