| Agentic state | A frame of mind thought by Milgram to characterise unquestioning obedience, in which people transfer personal responsibility to the person giving orders. |
| Attribution | The process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour and that of others. |
| Autokinesis | Optical illusion in which a pinpoint of light shining in complete darkness appears to move about. |
| Compliance | Superficial, public and transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitude in response requests, coercion or group pressure. |
| Conformity | Deep-seated, private and enduring change in behaviour and attitudes due to group pressure. |
| Confirmation bias | Tendency for social psychology to treat group influences as a one-way process in which individuals or minorities always conform to majorities. |
| Conversion effect | When minority influences brings about a sudden and dramatic internal and private change in the attitude of a majority. |
| Dual-process dependency model | General model of social influences in which two separate processes operate - dependency on others for social approval and for information about reality. |
| Frame of reference | Complete range of subjectively conceivable positions that relevant people can occupy in a particular context on some attitudinal or behavioural dimension. |
| Informational influence | An influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. |
| Membership group | Kelley's term for a group to which we belong by some objective external criterion. |
| Metacontrast principle | The prototype of a group is that position within the group that has the largest ratio of "differences to ingroup positions" to "differences to outgroup positions". |
| Minority influence | Social influence processes whereby the numerical or power minorities change the attitudes of the majority. |
| Normative influence | An influence to conform to the positive expectation of others, to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval. |
| Norms | Attitudinal and behavioural uniformities that define group membership and differentiate between groups. |
| Power | Capacity to influence others while resisting their attempts to influence. |
| Reference group | Kelley's term for a group that is psychologically significant for our behaviour and attitudes. |
| Referent informational influence | Pressure to conform to a group norm that defines oneself as a group member. |
| Social identity theory | Theory of group membership and intergroup relations based on self-categorisation, social comparison and the construction of a shared self-definition in terms of ingroup-defining properties. |
| Social impact | The effect other people have on our attitudes and behaviour, usually as a consequence of factors such as group size, and temporal and physical immediacy. |
| Social influence | Process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of others. |
