| social psychology | The study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.
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| stereotype | A generalization about a group's characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another.
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| attribution theory | The view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior.
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| fundamental attribution error | Observers' overestimation of the importance of internal traits and underestimation of the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of an actor's behavior.
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| false consensus effect | Observers' overestimation of the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way they do.
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| positive illusions | Positive views of the self that are not necessarily rooted in reality.
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| self-serving bias | The tendency to take credit for our successes and to deny responsibility for our failures.
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| self-objectification | The tendency to see oneself primarily as an object in the eyes of others.
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| stereotype threat | An individual's fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about his or her group.
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| social comparison | The process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to those of other people.
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| attitudes | Our feelings, opinions, and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas.
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| cognitive dissonance | An individual's psychological discomfort (dissonance) caused by two inconsistent thoughts.
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| self-perception theory | Bem's theory on how behaviors influence attitudes, stating that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior.
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| elaboration likelihood model | Theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route and a peripheral route.
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| altruism | Unselfish interest in helping another person.
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| egoism | Giving to another person to ensure reciprocity; to gain self-esteem; to present oneself as powerful, competent, or caring; or to avoid censure from self and others for failing to live up to society's expectations.
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| empathy | A feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another person.
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| bystander effect | The tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone.
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| aggression | Behaviors that are intended to harm another person.
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| conformity | A change in a person's behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard.
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| informational social influence | The influence other people have on us because we want to be right.
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| normative social influence | The influence others have on us because we want them to like us.
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| obedience | Behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority.
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| deindividuation | The reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group.
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| social contagion | Imitative behavior involving the spread of actions, emotions, and ideas.
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| social facilitation | Improvement in an individual's performance because of the presence of others.
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| social loafing | Each person's tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort.
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| risky shift | The tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by the individual group members.
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| group polarization effect | The solidification and further strengthening of an individual's position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction.
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| groupthink | The impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony.
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| social identity | The way we define ourselves in terms of our group membership.
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| social identity theory | Tajfel's theory that our social identities are a crucial part of our self-image and a valuable source of positive feelings about ourselves.
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| ethnocentrism | The tendency to favor one's own ethnic group over other groups.
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| prejudice | An unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual's membership in a particular group.
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| discrimination | An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group.
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| mere exposure effect | The phenomenon that the more we encounter someone or something, the more probable it is that we will start liking the person or thing even if we do not realize we have seen it before.
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| romantic love | Also called passionate love; love with strong components of sexuality and infatuation, often dominant in the early part of a love relationship.
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| affectionate love | Also called companionate love; love that occurs when individuals desire to have another person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person.
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| social exchange theory | The view of social relationships as involving an exchange of goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits.
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| investment model | A model of long-term relationships that examines the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive alternative partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships.
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