Week 10: Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology?
The study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in social contexts.
What is conformity?
The tendency to change one’s behavior or beliefs to match those of others.
Who conducted the famous conformity experiments involving line judgment?
Solomon Asch.
What is obedience?
A: Following orders or instructions from an authority figure.
Who conducted the famous obedience study involving electric shocks?
Stanley Milgram.
What is the bystander effect?
The phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when others are present.
What is diffusion of responsibility?
The tendency for individuals to feel less responsible for helping when others are around.
What is social facilitation?
The tendency for people to perform better on simple tasks when in the presence of others.
What is social loafing?
The tendency for people to exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone.
What is groupthink?
A phenomenon where the desire for harmony in a group leads to poor decision-making.
What is deindividuation?
A loss of self-awareness and individual accountability in groups, often leading to impulsive behavior.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency to overemphasize personal traits and underestimate situational factors when explaining others’ behavior.
What is an attribution?
An explanation for the cause of behavior, either internal (personal) or external (situational).
What is cognitive dissonance?
The discomfort felt when holding conflicting thoughts, leading to a motivation to reduce the inconsistency.
Who developed the theory of cognitive dissonance?
Leon Festinger.
What is an in-group?
A group to which an individual feels they belong.
What is an out-group?
A group to which an individual feels they do not belong.
What is in-group bias?
The tendency to favor one’s own group over others.
What is prejudice?
A negative attitude toward individuals based solely on their membership in a particular group.
What is discrimination?
Unjust treatment or behavior toward individuals based on their group membership.
What is a stereotype?
A generalized belief about a group of people.
What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?
A: When an individual’s expectations about another person lead to that person behaving in ways that confirm those expectations.
What is the mere exposure effect?
The tendency to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar.
What is social comparison theory?
The idea that people evaluate themselves by comparing to others, proposed by Leon Festinger.
