1. Social Influence in Social Psychology
Group Influence
Social Influence in Social Psychology

2. Individual Behavior in the Presence of Others
Social psychology’s first experiments focused on the simplest of all questions about social behavior:
How are we influenced by the mere presence of others?
How are we influenced by people watching us or joining us in various activities?

3. Social Facilitation
Stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.
Ex: After a traffic light turns green, drivers take about 15% less time to travel the first 100 yards when another car is beside them than when they take off from the intersection alone.

4. Social Facilitation
On tougher tasks, people perform less well when observers or others working on the same task are present.
Golf- beginners perform worse in the presence of others.

5. Social Facilitation
What you do well, you are likely to perform better in front of a friendly audience.
What you find difficult will likely become impossible in front of other people.

6. Social Loafing
The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

7. Social Loafing
Have you ever been assigned to a group project and one or more members did not put in their best effort?
This is social loafing.

8. Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Ex: Food Fights; Yelling at a referee; riots

9. Group Polarization
The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.
Ex: Prejudice groups become more prejudice and tolerant groups become more tolerant.

10. Groupthink
The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Ex: JFK & Bay of Pigs Disaster

11. Power of Individuals
Individuals with conviction can sway large groups or even majorities.
Ex: MLK, Gandhi, Inventors such as Robert Fulton, Johann Gutenburg, and Thomas Edison.