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.