Social Psychology: Attitudes, Groups, Influence and Intergroup Relations
Attitudes and persuasion
Attitudes have affective, behavioural, and cognitive components. Cognitive dissonance (Festinger) motivates attitude change when behaviour and belief conflict. Persuasion routes: central (argument quality) and peripheral (cues). Compliance techniques include foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and low-ball.
Social cognition
Attribution: internal versus external; fundamental attribution error (overweighting disposition for others); actor-observer bias; self-serving bias. Stereotypes (cognitive), prejudice (affective), discrimination (behavioural). In-group bias and out-group homogeneity; contact hypothesis.
Groups and influence
Conformity (Asch), obedience (Milgram), normative versus informational influence. Group phenomena: social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group polarisation, groupthink, bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility. Leadership styles and group decision-making are relevant.
Intergroup relations
Realistic conflict theory, social identity theory (Tajfel), minimal group paradigm, scapegoating, and conflict resolution strategies.
Traps and rule of thumb
Questions often swap social facilitation (better performance on simple tasks in presence of others) with social loafing (reduced effort in groups). Rule of thumb: presence of others energises simple tasks and impairs complex ones; in groups, individual accountability drops effort. Also keep stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination separate.