PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Pole And Polar, Fundamental Attribution Error, Stanley Milgram

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Toni Serafini

Document Summary

The scientific study of how individual behaviour is influenced by the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others. Social influence: the ways people alter the attitudes or behaviours of others. Social psychologists have tried to understand how social influence makes the techniques for inducing compliance effective. They especially want to know what everyone else is doing especially their peers: commitment and consistency: people do not back out of deals. We are more likely to do something after they have agreed to it verbally or in writing. They want to follow the lead of real experts. Factors like business titles, impressive clothing, or driving an expensive car are proven to lend credibility of a person: scarcity: a fundamental economic theory, scarcity relates to supply and demand. Basically, the less there is of something, the more valuable it is. The more rare and uncommon something is, more people want it. Behaviour that complies with explicit demand of an individual in authority.