SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
SOCIAL THINKING
Attributions
 Attribution theory - we try to explain people's behaviors by crediting the person's
internal disposition or the external situation.
 Fundamental attribution error - The tendency to underestimate the impact of the
situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition when trying to explain
another person’s behaviors.
Attitudes
 Foot in door phenomenon - Tendency to agree to a small request at first, then to a larger
request later
 Role-playing - Tendency to strive to be the role that is assumed
 Cognitive dissonance - The feeling of discomfort that results from holding conflicting
beliefs; leads to a change in attitude to reduce the dissonance.
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Conformity
 Normative social influence - conforming to gain social approval or avoid social
rejection
 Informational social influence - conforming due to uncertainty about how to act/think
Obedience - complying to social pressure and authority
Group influence
 Social facilitation - Stronger responses on tasks in the presence of others
 Social loafing - Tendency to slack off in a group setting when attaining a common goal
 Deindividuation - Losing individual identity and thought when in a group
 Group polarization - Strengthening and enhancement of a group’s ideas, thoughts,
tendencies through discussion in the group
 Groupthink - Thinking or make decisions as a group while overriding realistic
alternatives
SOCIAL RELATIONS
Prejudice - a negative unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members
 Ingroup bias - the tendency to favor one's own group
 Scapegoating - the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone
to blame.
 Just-world phenomenon - the tendency to believe the world is just/fair and that people
therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
Aggression - physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy
 Hostile aggression - stems from anger and aimed at inflicting pain
 Instrumental aggression - serves as a means to some other goal other than causing pain
Attraction
 Mere-exposure effect - the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli
increases liking of them
 Reward-theory of attraction - we will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us and
we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs.
 Passionate love - an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually
present at the beginning of a love relationship
 Companionate love - the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our
lives are intertwined
Altruism - unselfish regard for the welfare of others
 Bystander effect - the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if
other bystanders are present (diffusion of responsibility)
Major Psychological Studies in Social Psychology
Study
Description
Implications
Zimbardo's
Males assigned randomly to "prisoner" or Reiterates the importance of
Stanford Prison
"guard" groups. Soon, prisoners began to
the principal investigator's
Experiment
take on the role of a submissive prisoner,
objectivity during an
while guards took on the role of punisher
experiment.
and enforcer. Stopped after 6 days.
Demonstrates the swiftness of
role-taking.
Solomon Asch's
Participant placed at table with
Shows normative and
Conformity Study confederates, told to judge line lengths.
informational social influence.
When confederates answered wrong,
participant was likely to conform even
Conformity greatly dropped
with the knowledge that the group was
when there was a single
wrong.
defector from the majority.
Stanley Milgram's Teacher delivers an unknowingly fake
GREATEST impact on ethical
Obedience Study electric shock to the learner (confederate) standards in psychological
when they provide a wrong response.
studies  too much cognitive
When "shocks" intensify, teacher is told
dissonance and deception.
by the experimenter/authority figure to
continue, even as the learner appears
Demonstrated the power of
unconscious or dead. 60% of participants
real or perceived authority
completed the shocks to the highest
figures.
intensity.