| attitudes | Beliefs that predispose one to act and feel in certain ways.
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| attribution theory | (ah-tri-bu'shun) The theory that people tend to look for explanations for their own behavior and that of others.
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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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| cognitive dissonance | (dis'so-nans) The discomfort that results from inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior.
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| companionate love | The blend of friendship, intimacy, commitment, and security that generally develops after passionate love.
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| conformity | Yielding to group pressure even when no direct request to comply has been made.
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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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| dispositional attribution | (dis''po-zish'un-al) An explanation for behavior that is based on a personal characteristic of the individual.
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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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| fundamental attribution error | The tendency to underestimate the impact of situations on others while overestimating the impact on oneself.
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| obedience | Doing what one is told to do by people in authority.
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| passionate love | The mixture of romantic, sexual, and other feelings of love.
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| person perception | The process of forming impressions of others.
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| persuasion | The process of changing another person's attitudes through arguments and other related means.
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| polarization | The tendency for group discussion to make beliefs and attitudes more extreme.
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| prejudice | A harmful attitude based on inaccurate generalizations about a group of people.
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| primacy effect | The tendency for first impressions to heavily influence opinions about other people.
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| situational attribution | An explanation for behavior that is based on an external cause.
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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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| social facilitation | An effect in which working in a group improves one's performance on individual projects.
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| social impairment | An effect in which working in a group impairs individual performance.
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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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| social norms | Guidelines provided by every culture for judging acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
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| social psychology | The branch of psychology that studies individuals as they interact with others.
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| social roles | Culturally determined guidelines that tell people what behavior is expected of them.
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| stereotype | An inaccurate generalization on which a prejudice is based.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education