social cognition and social influences on behaviour

Attitude

an evaluation a person makes about a person, event or issue.

Social Influence

how others behavior or thoughts influences the way someone may think, feel or act.

Perceived Control

A belief that the individual is capable of influencing and making a difference in the events that surround their lives.

stereotype

A collection of beliefs that we have about people who belong in a certain group, regardless of individual differences among members of the group.

Classical Conditioning

A form of learning that occurs through repeated association of two or more different stimuli.

Old fashioned prejudice

A form of prejudice in which members of the majority group openly reject minority group members and their views towards the minority group are obvious and recognisable to others

Operant conditioning

A learning for which the consequences of an action determines the likelihood that it will be performed right in the future.

Ingroup

A social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

A systematic approach used to determine strengths and weaknesses to options that provide the best or lead to attaining the most benefits.

Outgroup

An outgroup is any group you do not belong to or identify with

Coercive Power

Ability to give negative consequences or remove positive consequences in response to specific behaviour

Reward Power

Ability to give positive consequences or remove negative consequences in response to specific behaviour

Milgram's experiments

An experiment testing the level of obedience in relation to voluntary (electrocuting someone) under a high authority's commands

Jane Elliott's experiment

An experiment that tests the impact of distinguishing members of ingroups and outgroups on the basis of stereotyping

Tricomponent model

An explanation of attitudes in terms of three related components (attitude, affective, behavioural) that comprise of any attitude.

Situational Attribution

An explanation of behaviour based on factors external to the person involved, such as the actions of another person, some aspect of the environment, the task, luck and fate

Personal Attribution

An explanation of behaviour based on the characteristics of the person involved, such as their personality, ability, attitude, motivation, mood or effort; sometimes called dispositional

Legitimate Power

An individual's status or position in a group, institution or society in general gives them the right (authority) to exercise power over those with a lower status or with less authority

Group pressure

Applies to any direct or indirect social pressure that is exerted by a group on its individual members to influence their choices. Group pressure is applied to people in the group in order to make them conform

Accessibility of the attitude

Closely related to to behaviour that they can guide or even predict

affective

Concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional. Influenced by or resulting from the emotions

Modern prejudice

Form of prejudice which is more subtle, hidden and expressed in ways more likely to be accepted within the majority group

Informational Power

Having resources or information that are useful and are not available elsewhere

Expert Power

Having special knowledge and skills that are desirable or needed

Pro-social behaviour

Helping that involves personal cost to the helper as well as everyday acts of helping others.

prejudice

Holding a negative attitude towards the members of a group, based solely on their membership of that group

legitimacy of authority figure

In order to obey authority, the obeying person has to accept that it is legitimate (i.e. rightful, legal) for the command to be made of them. Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure

Referent Power

Individuals identify with or want to be like or liked by this person

inconsistency

Internal consistency reliability is a measure of how well the items on the test measure the same construct or idea

Conformity

Is the tendency to adjust one's thoughts, feelings or behaviours in ways that are in agreement with those of a particular individual or group, or with accepted standards about how a person should behave in certain situations

Halo effect

It is about accepting someone's flaws or declining them because of how they present themselves and what type of body language they show. Example: a good looking person will perceive the person to be nice, based MAINLY on their appearance

cognitive

It looks at how we process information we receive and how the treatment of this information leads to our responses

Social factors (pro-social behaviour)

Our desire to help is influenced by social norms which are standard that guide what people should do and do not do in social situations.

actor observer bias

The actor-observer bias is a term in social psychology that refers to a tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes, while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes.

Role

The behaviour adopted by an individual or assigned to them that influences the way that they function or act in different situations and life in general

Diffusion of Responsibility

The belief that, in a situation where help is required and others are present, responsibility is spread between everyone, causing each individual to feel less responsible for helping than when alone because they assume that someone else will take responsibility.

Person Perception

The mental processes used to form impressions and draw conclusions about the personal characteristics of other people

Attribution

The process by which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behaviour; also used to refer to the explanation

Self Serving Bias

The tendency to attribute positive events to oneself's character (internal attribution) and attribute negative events to external factors (external attribution).

Personal factors (pro-social behaviour)

These factors include our ability to empathise others with others, the mood we are in when the help is required and whether we are competence enough to give the help required.

Obedience

This occurs when we follow commandments of someone with authority, or rules, or laws of our society.

Fundamental Attribution Error

When explaining someone's behaviour, the tendency to overestimate the influence of personal factors and underestimate the impact of situational factors; behaviour is attributed to internal rather than external factors

Social Context of the Attitude

When relationships between attitude and behaviour is being considered

Group

a collection of two or more people who influence one another and share a common purpose.

asch experiment

a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.

consistency

incorrectly remembering one's past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour

role

is a set of connected behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behaviour and may have a given individual social status or social position

Social Cognition

is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions.

Behaviour

is any observable actions made by a human or an animal (Thoughts, Feelings, Behaviour)

cognitive dissonance

is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time

actor observer bias

refers to a tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes, while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes

Bystander Effect

refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present.

Discrimination

refers to negative or positive behavior (actions) directed towards a social group and its members.

Affective component

refers to the emotional reactions (or feelings) a person has towards an object, person, group or event.

Status

refers to the importance of a member in a group, as perceived by the other group members.

Power

refers to the person's ability to control (the group's/members in the groups) thoughts, feelings or behavior.

Situational factors (pro-social behaviour)

situational factors that affect people on being prosocial and helping are whether we notice the situation, interpret whether help is needed, and whether we are ready to take the responsibility of helping.

Strength of the Behaviour

stronger attitudes are easier to predict than weaker attitudes.

Zimbardo's stanford experiment

the Zimbardo Stanford experiment was conducted in 1971 by American psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in California. The aim of the experiment was to find out the psychological effects of being either a prison guard or prisoner.

Social proximity

the closeness between two or more people, either in physical distance or in the closeness of their relationship.

Audience Inhibition

when people do not help, in fear that other bystanders will evaluate them negatively if they intervene and the situation is not an emergency.