Social Psychology Basics
What do social psychologists study?
How people think about, influence, and relate to one another.
What is the just-world hypothesis?
The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
Define conformity.
Changing thoughts or behaviors to match a group’s standards.
Define social roles.
Expected patterns of behavior based on position or group membership.
Define prejudice.
An unjustified negative attitude toward a group and its members.
Define a situational attribution.
Explaining behavior as caused by external factors (e.g., “She was late because of traffic”).
Name one advantage and one disadvantage of the just-world hypothesis.
Advantage: promotes fairness and motivation; Disadvantage: can lead to victim blaming.
What happened in Asch’s conformity study?
Participants conformed to wrong answers given by confederates about line lengths.
Give an example of how social roles influence behavior.
In the Stanford Prison Study, guards became abusive and prisoners submissive.
Define stereotype.
A generalized belief about a group of people.
Define a personal/dispositional attribution.
Explaining behavior as caused by internal traits (e.g., “She was late because she’s careless”).
What is cognitive dissonance?
The discomfort felt when our actions and attitudes do not match.
What reduced conformity in the Asch study?
Having a partner who answered correctly or writing answers privately.
Define social loafing.
People exert less effort in groups than when working alone.
Define discrimination.
A negative behavior/action toward someone based on group membership.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency to overemphasize personal traits and underestimate the situation when explaining others’ behavior.
Give an example of cognitive dissonance.
“I’m on a diet but I eat cake because I ‘deserve it’ after a hard day.”
Describe Milgram’s obedience experiment.
Participants “shocked” a learner when instructed by authority; most continued despite apparent pain.
Explain normative social influence.
Conforming to fit in or avoid disapproval.
What are microaggressions?
Subtle, everyday comments or actions that convey prejudice toward marginalized groups.
Give a real-life example of the fundamental attribution error.
Thinking a cashier is rude because of personality, rather than stress or exhaustion.
Differentiate between central and peripheral routes to persuasion.
Central: based on logic and evidence. Peripheral: based on superficial cues (attractiveness, emotion).
What did Milgram’s study reveal about human behavior?
People obey authority figures even when it conflicts with personal morals.
Explain informational social influence.
Conforming because we believe others’ opinions are correct.
Distinguish between implicit and explicit prejudice.
Explicit: conscious bias; Implicit: unconscious bias revealed through tests like the Implicit Association Test.