AP Psychology Social Psychology

Minority Influence

The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities

Central Route

people are analytical and involved with the problem, giving facts, demonstrating, etc. (focus on arguments and respond with favorable thoughts), less superficial

Peripheral Route

people respond to incidental cues, attractiveness, celebrity endorsement, etc. (faster judgements)

Empathy-Altruism model

Capacity to be able to experience others emotional states, feel sympathy for them

Stereotype

A set of characteristics believed to be shared by all members of that social category; stereotype is a special type of schema; inference based on social category and ignores facts about the individual's traits

Hostile Aggression

Aggression stemming from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain

Similarity

Factor that shows how closely linked people are; complementary traits of attitudes, interests, values, backgrounds, and beliefs; part of the reward theory of attraction

Mere-Exposure effect

Familiarity breeds fondness. The more often you're exposed to something the more you like it.

Group Think

Janis's term for the tendency of members of a decision-making group to be more focused on reaching a consensus than on critically examing the issues at hand

Deinvidualization

Loss of self awareness that may occur when one acts in conjunction with the actions of the crowd.

Diffusion of Responsibility

Similar to bystander effect, people feel less responsible when in the presence of others

Group Polarization

Tendency for members of decision-making groups to shift toward more extreme views in whatever direction they were initial leaning.

Actor-Observer Bias

Tendency to attribute the causes of one's own behavior to situational factors while attributing the causes of other people's behavior to internal factors or dispositions.

Hindsight Bias

Tendency to overestimate ones ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome

Self-Serving Bias

Tendency to take credit for our accomplishment and to explain away failures or disappointments.

Social Facilitation

Tendency to work better or harder in the presence of others than when alone

Just World/Defensive Attribution

The belief that good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is punished. People get what they deserve.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and unsuccessful behaviors

Self-Perception

The theory developed by Daryl Bem that assumes that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them by examining our behavior and the context in which it occurs

Instrumental Aggression

Using aggression as means to some goal other than causing pain

Schema

a set of beliefs or expectations about something based on past experience; mental representation of an event, object, situation, person, process, or relationship stored in memory that leads one to expect an experience to be a certain way; Example: if you are in a room with a chalkboard and desks, schema leads you to believe that you are in a classroom of a school

Prejudice

an attitude; intolerant, unfavorable, and rigid view of a group of people; assumption that all members of a group share certain negative qualities; unable to see members of a group as individuals; ignore information that disproves beliefs; theories such as frustration-aggression theory and racism often account for prejudice; expression of suspicious, mistrusting approach to life

Bystander Effect

as the number of passive bystanders increases, the likelihood that any one of them will help someone in trouble decreases; used to explain the death of Kitty Genovese

Lowball technique

compliance technique based on obtaining a person's initial agreement to purchase an item at a lower price before revealing hidden costs that raise the ultimate price

Foot-in-the-Door

compliance technique based on securing compliance with a smaller request as a prelude to making a larger request

Door-in-the-Face

compliance technique in which refusal of a large technique in which refusal of a large unreasonable request is followed by a smaller, more reasonable request

Scapegoat theory

finding someone to blame releases tension

Outgroup

groups that one does not identify with

Negative state relief model

help someone to make you feel better because you are in a negative mood

Cognitive Dissonance

perceived inconsistency between two thoughts; when a person has 2 contradictory or opposite thoughts at the same time;

Social Inhibition

phenomena where people exert less effort when working in groups than they would if working individually because they assume that other group members will do the work

Self-Fulfilling prophecy

process in which a person's expectation about another elicits behavior from the second person that confirms the expectation; evidenced in a study by Rosenthal and Jacobsen at an elementary school where students performed to the teacher's expectation, AKA Pygmalion Effect

Fundamental Attribution Error

tendency to attribute the behavior of others to causes within themselves; overemphasizes personal causes for other people's behaviors and to underemphasize personal causes for their own behavior; part of the actor-observer effect

Self-Handicapping

the strategy whereby people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves

Cost-Reward Model

the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs

Reciprocity

People tend to like others who like them back.

Proximity

People tend to like people near them.

Matching Hypothesis

People tend to pair off with others who are similar to themselves in physical attractiveness and other characteristics.

Ingroup

social, religious, ethnic, or national groups with which one identifies

Norms of Reciprocity

we help others who have helped us - expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

Prisoner's Dilemma

(Type of social trap); shows why individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it's in their best interests to do so

Commoner's Dilemma

(Type of social trap); some pooled resource is available and people act in self-interest (take more than their fair share)