What is social psychology?
The study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in social contexts.
What is conformity?
The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.
What is automatic mimicry?
The unconscious imitation of the gestures, speech patterns, or attitudes of others.
What is normative social influence?
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection.
What was the Asch line length conformity experiment?
An experiment that demonstrated the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
What is informational social influence?
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
What is obedience?
Compliance with the commands of a person in authority.
What was the Milgram obedience experiment?
A study that measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
What is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
What is compliance?
The act of conforming to a request or demand.
What is the power of situation?
The idea that situational factors can greatly influence individual behavior.
What was the Stanford prison experiment?
A psychological study of the human response to captivity, in which participants were assigned roles as guards or prisoners.
What is social facilitation?
The tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence of others than when alone.
What is optimal arousal theory?
The theory that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal for performance.
What is social loafing?
The phenomenon where individuals exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone.
What is deindividuation?
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations.
What was the Halloween experiment?
A study that examined the effects of anonymity on children’s behavior during Halloween.
What is group polarization?
The tendency for group discussion to amplify the initial leanings of group members.
What is groupthink?
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
What is minority influence?
The process by which a minority group influences the majority to accept its beliefs or behaviors.
What is altruism?
The selfless concern for the well-being of others.
What is the bystander effect?
The phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present.
What is the Kitty Genovese case?
A case that highlighted the bystander effect, where a woman was murdered and many witnesses did not intervene.
What were Darley & Latane’s experiments?
Studies that demonstrated the bystander effect through scenarios involving smoke and seizures.
