Unit 14: Social Psychology

The psychologist who first studied the effects of group pressure on conformity is ____.

Solomon Asch

Taking on a set of behaviors, or acting in a certain way, generally ____ people's attitudes.

changes

The term that refers to the tendency to adjust one's behavior to coincide with an assumed group standard is ____.

conformity

The feeling of anonymity and loss of self-restraint that an individual may develop when in a group is called ___.

deindividuation

Dissonance theory predicts that people induced (without coercion) to behave contrary to their true attitudes will be motivated to reduce the resulting ____ by changing their ____.

dissonance attitudes

In getting people to administer increasingly larger shocks, Milgram was in effect applying the _____ technique.

foot-in-the-door

The enhancement of each group's prevailing tendency over time is called ____. Electronic discussions on the ____ provide a medium for this tendency.

group polarization Internet

When the desire for group harmony overrides realistic thinking in individuals, the phenomenon known as ____ has occurred.

groupthink

The power of one or two individuals to sway the opinion of the majority is called ____.

minority influence

One reason that people comply with social pressure is to gain approval or avoid rejection; this is called ____. Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior are called social ____.

normative social influence norms

When you follow the social prescriptions for how you should act as, say, a college, student, you are adopting a ___.

role

The Asch and Milgram studies demonstrate that strong ____ influences can make ____ people ____ to falsehoods and ____ orders to commit cruel acts.

social ordinary conform obey

In considering the power of social influence, we cannot overlook the interaction of ___ (the power of the situation) and ____ (the power of the individual).

social control personal control

The tendency to perform a task better when other people are present is called ____. In general, people become aroused in the presence of others, and arousal enhances the correct response on a(n) ___ task. Later research revealed that arousal strengthens the response that is most ____ in a given situation.

social facilitation easy likely

Psychologists who study how we think about, influence, and relate to one another are called ___ ___.

social psychologists

A minority opinion will have the most success in swaying the majority if it takes a stance that is ____.

unswerving

The classic social psychology studies of obedience were conducted by ____. When ordered by the experimenter to electrically shock the "learner," the majority of the participants (the "teachers") in these studies ____. More recent studies have found that women's compliance rates in similar situations were ____ men's.

Stanley Milgram complied similar to

Many research studies demonstrate that our attitudes are strongly influenced by our ___. One example of this is the tendency for people who agree to a small request to comply later with a larger one. This is the ___-___ ___-___ phenomenon.

actions; foot in the door

Researchers have found that the reactions of people in crowded situations are often ____.

amplified

Ingham found that people worked ___ in a team tug-of-war than they had in individual contest. This phenomenon has been called ____.

easier social loafing

Another reason people comply is that they have genuinely been influenced by what they have learned from others; this type of influence is called ___.

informational social influence

Feelings, often based on our beliefs, that predispose our responses are called ___. When people focus on an issue and respond favorably to an argument, ___ ___ ___ has occurred. Persuasion may also occur through the (slower/faster) ___ ___ as people respond to incidental cues such as a speaker's appearance

attitudes; central route persuasion; faster; peripheral route.

Heider's theory of how we explain other's behavior is the ___ theory. According to this theory, we attribute behavior either to an internal cause, which is called a ___ ___, or to an external cause, which is called a ___ ___.

attribution; dispositional attribution; situational attribution

Over time, the initial differences between groups usually ____.

increase

The chameleon effect refers to our natural tendency to unconsciously ___ others' expressions, postures, and voice tones. This helps us to feel what they are feeling, referred to as ___.

mimic mood linkage

Most people (overestimate/underestimate) the extent to which people's actions are influenced by social situations because their ___ is focused on the person. This tendency is called the ___ ___ ___. When explaining our own behavior, or that of someone we know well, this tendency is (stronger/weaker). Wen observers view the world from others' perspectives, attributions are (the same/reversed)

overestimate; attention; fundamental attribution error; weaker; reversed

Copycat violence is a serious example of the effects of ____ on behavior.

suggestibility

In this study, when the opinion of other group members was contradicted by objective evidence, research participants ____ willing to conform to the group opinion.

were