Social Psychology

I’m generally fascinated by psychology; how we decide, why we act the way we do, and how other people’s behaviours affect us. So, when I see this introductory course by Wesleyan University is being offered on Coursera, I decided to go for it.

Some takeaways from the course

Confirmation bias: We look for, read and recall information that supports our views and beliefs.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: A prediction or belief affects people’s behaviour, thus helping the prediction become a reality.

Attribution theory and fundamental attribution error: How people assign reasons to actions and why they tend to attribute things to personality-based behaviour rather than external factors.

Cognitive dissonance: People want to be psychologically consistent about their beliefs, decisions and actions. So, when there’s inconsistency, they try to find ways (e.g. justifying their actions, ignoring facts, etc.)

“Foot in the door” technique: Rather than asking for something big directly, asking for a small favour first from someone increases the chance of subject’s compliance for the bigger favour.

Reciprocity: People tend to return the favour. This tendency can be used as a sales technique where a potential buyer is given something small for free, which increases their chances of buying something.

Reciprocal concession and “Door in the face” technique: Instead of asking for a favour directly, asking for an outrageous favour that is certainly to be rejected first, increases the chances of actual favour’s acceptance.

Milgram experiment and obedience to authority: Why people follow orders and how far they can go at following orders? (Also a great book from Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem and also “Banality of Evil“)

Abilene paradox and decision making in groups: How groups make decisions and the phenomenon of choosing an option while no one in the group actually favours it.

Bystander effect: Chances of an individual helping someone in need diminishes when there are other people around.