Social Terminology Flashcards
Social psychology
The ways people influence each other’s attitudes and behavior, the impact that individuals have on one another, the impact that social groups have on individual group members.
Free-choice dissonance
Occurs in a situation where a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives.
Minimal justification effect
When behavior can be justified by means of external inducements, then there is no need to change internal cognitions.
Forced-compliance dissonance
Occurs when an individual is forced into behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs and attitudes.
Post-decisional dissonance
When dissonance (discomfort w/ inconsistency) emerges after a choice.
Overjustification effect
If you reward people for something they already like doing, they may stop liking it.
Belief perserverance
Under certain conditions, people will hold beliefs even after those beliefs have been debunked.
Reactance
When someone reasserts their sense of freedom after feeling that it is being threatened by social pressure.
Gain-loss principle
An evaluation that changes will have more of an impact that an evaluation that remains constant.
Attractiveness stereotype
The tendency to attribute positive qualities to pretty people.
Need complementarity
Claims that people choose relationships in which they can mutually satisfy each other’s needs.
Spatial proximity
People will develop a greater liking for someone closer than someone far away.
Cultural truisms
Beliefs that are hardly questioned.
Altruism
A form of helping behavior in which we look to help someone else at a cost to us.
Pluralistic ignorance
Leading others to a definition of an event as a nonemergency.
Empathy
The ability to experience the emotions of others.
Modeling
Direct observation
Compliance
A change in behavior that occurs as a result of situational or interpersonal pressure.
Foot-in-the-door effect
Demonstrates that compliance with a small request increases the likelihood of compliance of a larger request.
Door-in-the-face effect
People who refuse a large initial request are more likely to accept a smaller one.
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to look for personality flaws rather than situational ones.
Halo effect
The tendency to allow a general impression about a person influence specific impressions.
Proxemics
The study of how individuals space themselves in relation to others.
Social loafing
Group phenomenon referring to the tendency for people to put forth less effort when part of a group effort than when acting individually.
Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and of personal identity.
Groupthink
The tendency of decision-making groups to strive for consensus by not considering discordant information.
Risky shift
The finding that group decisions are riskier than individual ones.
Cooperation
When people act together for their mutual benefit so that all of them can obtain a goal.
Competition
A person acting for their individual benefit so that they can obtain a goal that has limited availability.
Superordinate goals
Goals that are best obtained through group cooperation.
