social psychology | The branch of psychology that studies individuals as they interact with others.
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deindividuation | State in which people in a group can feel anonymous and unidentifiable and therefore feel less concerned with what others think of their behavior.
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diffusion of responsibility | The effect of being in a group that apparently reduces the sense of personal responsibility of each group member to act appropriately.
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social facilitation | An effect in which working in a group improves one's performance on individual projects.
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social loafing | The tendency of members of groups to work less hard when group performance is measured than when individual performance is measured.
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groupthink | The faulty decision-making processes that may occur in groups.
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polarization | The tendency for group discussion to make beliefs and attitudes more extreme.
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conformity | Yielding to group pressure even when no direct request to comply has been made.
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social roles | Culturally determined guidelines that tell people what behavior is expected of them.
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social norms | Guidelines provided by every culture for judging acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
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obedience | Doing what one is told to do by people in authority.
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attitudes | Beliefs that predispose one to act and feel in certain ways.
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persuasion | The process of changing another person's attitudes through arguments and other related means.
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sleeper effects | According to Hovland, the potential for low-credibility speakers to influence opinion after a period of time.
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cognitive dissonance | The discomfort that results from inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior.
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prejudice | A harmful attitude based on inaccurate generalizations about a group of people.
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stereotype | An inaccurate generalization on which a prejudice is based.
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attribution theory | The theory that people tend to look for explanations for their own behavior and that of others.
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person perception | The process of forming impressions of others.
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primacy effect | The tendency for first impressions to heavily influence opinions about other people.
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fundamental attribution error | The tendency to underestimate the impact of situations on others while overestimating the impact on oneself.
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attribution | The process of trying to explain why things happen--that is, attribute them to some cause.
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situational attribution | An explanation for behavior that is based on an external cause.
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dispositional attribution | An explanation for behavior that is based on a personal characteristic of the individual.
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passionate love | The mixture of romantic, sexual, and other feelings of love.
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companionate love | The blend of friendship, intimacy, commitment, and security that generally develops after passionate love.
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equity theory | The theory that partners will be comfortable in their relationship only when the ratio between their perceived contributions and benefits is equal.
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