Social Psychology
is the study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others.
Attitudes
Evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief, or concept Factors:
Message source
Characteristics of the message
Characteristics of the target
Message source
The characteristics of a person who delivers a persuasive message, known as the attitude communicator
Characteristic of the message
What the message is like
-One-sided argument
-Two-sided argument
-Fear-producing message
Characteristics of the target
-Central-route processing
-Peripheral-route processing
Central-route processing
Occurs when the recipient thoughtfully considers the issues and arguments involved in persuasion
Peripheral-route processing
Occurs when people are persuaded on the basis of factors unrelated to the nature or quality of the content of a persuasive message
Cognitive dissonance
occurs when a person holds two attitudes or thoughts (referred to as cognitions) that contradict each other
Social cognition
Processes that underlie our understanding of the social world
Schemas
Sets of cognitions about people and social experiences
Impression formation
The process by which an individual organizes information about another person to form an overall impression of that person
Central traits
Traits utilized to form an overall impression of others.
Attribution theory
seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual's behavior, what the specific causes of that person's behavior are
Situational causes
A cause of behavior that is brought about by something in the environment
Dispositional causes
A cause of behavior that is prompted by the person's disposition (his or her internal traits or personality characteristics)
Self-serving bias
Tendency to attribute success to personal factors and attribute failure to factors outside oneself
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to over-attribute others' behavior to dispositional causes, and the corresponding failure to recognize the importance of situational causes
Halo effect
Phenomenon in which an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics.
Assumed-similarity bias
The tendency to think of people as being similar to oneself, even when meeting them for the first time
Social Influence
is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others
Groups
Consist of two or more people who:
-Interact with one another
-Perceive themselves as part of a group
-Are interdependent
Conformity
is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people
Groupthink
is a type of thinking in which group members share such a strong motivation to achieve consensus that they lose the ability to critically evaluate alternative points of view.
-NASA
Conformity to Social Roles
Behaviors that are associated with people in a given position
Philip Zimbardo's Prison Study (1973)
Abu Ghraib
Foot-in-the-door technique
Small request followed by a larger request
Door-in-the-face technique
Large request followed by a smaller request
That's-not-all technique
Offered a deal at an inflated price
Not-so-free sample
Norm of reciprocity
Obedience
is a change in behavior due to the commands of others
Stereotypes
Generalized beliefs and expectations about social groups and their members
Prejudice
The negative (or positive) evaluations of groups and their members
Discrimination
Negative behavior toward members of a particular group
Passionate (or romantic) love
Represents a state of intense absorption in someone that includes intense physiological arousal, psychological interest, and caring for the needs of another
Companionate love
Strong affection that we have for those with whom our lives are deeply involved
Aggression
Intentional injury or harm to another person
Instinct approaches
Catharsis
-Process of discharging built up aggressive energy
Frustration-aggression approaches
Frustration
-The thwarting or blocking of some ongoing, goal-directed behavior Instinct approaches
Observational learning approaches
Effects of modeling Instinct approaches
Prosocial behavior
Helping behavior
Altruism
Helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-sacrifice.
Diffusion of responsibility
Tendency for people to feel that responsibility for acting is shared, or diffused, among those present.