Social Psychology — High-Yield MCAT Concepts

Attribution theory:

Internal attribution — behavior caused by the person's character

External attribution — behavior caused by the situation

Fundamental attribution error — overestimating internal factors for others' behavior

Actor-observer bias — attribute own behavior to situation, others' to character

Self-serving bias — attribute successes to self, failures to situation

Conformity and obedience:

Asch experiment — ~75% conformed to obviously wrong group answer at least once

Milgram experiment — ~65% administered maximum shock when ordered by authority

Stanford Prison Experiment — normal people adopt roles of authority brutally

Key social phenomena:

Bystander effect — less likely to help when others present; diffusion of responsibility

Social loafing — work less hard in a group

Groupthink — desire for conformity overrides critical thinking

Deindividuation — loss of self-awareness in crowds → less inhibited behavior

Reference:

Wikipedia: Social Psychology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychology