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Social Psychology

Manual: General · Subject: Psychology

Investigate how the presence and actions of other people can influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Social Influence: Conformity and Obedience

Classic Experiments

Asch's Conformity Study

  • Participants were asked to judge line lengths.
  • Confederates gave obviously wrong answers.
  • A significant number of participants conformed to the group's incorrect answer at least once.

Milgram's Obedience Study

  • Participants were instructed by an authority figure to deliver 'electric shocks' to a 'learner'.
  • A majority of participants obeyed the authority figure and delivered the maximum shock level.
  • Demonstrated the power of authority on obedience.

Attribution Theory

Attribution theory suggests how we explain someone's behavior—by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person's disposition (a dispositional attribution). The fundamental attribution error is our tendency, especially when judging others, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Group Dynamics

Behavior in Groups

Social Loafing
The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.
Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Groupthink
The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
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Cognitive Dissonance

Proposed by Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance theory states that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

In Milgram's famous study, a majority of participants:

What is the term for the tendency to blame others' behavior on their personality rather than their situation?