The term mind games refers to three main categories: a largely conscious struggle for psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or empower the thinking subject, making the aggressor look superior – ‘mind games or power games’. ‘the unconscious games played by innocent people engaged in duplex transactions of which they are not
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects. The published evidence
Inoculation Theory was developed by social psychologist William J. McGuire in 1961 to explain more about how attitudes and beliefs change, and more important, how to keep original attitudes and beliefs consistent in the face of persuasion attempts. Inoculation Theory continues to be studied today by communication, social psychology, and social science researchers. The theory
Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) is a goal pursuit theory formulated by Columbia University psychology professor and researcher E. Tory Higgins regarding peoples’ perceptions in the decision making process. RFT examines the relationship between the motivation of a person and the way in which they go about achieving their goal. This psychological theory, like many others
Compliance gaining is a term used in the social sciences, specifically in sociology and communication studies, to identify the act of intentionally trying to alter behavior. The term refers to how people try to get other people to DO things, or comply. Compliance is separate, but not unrelated to persuasion. There is a distinction between
Social influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. In 1958, Harvard psychologist, Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence. Compliance is when people appear to agree
Minority influence, a form of social influence, takes place when a minority, like an individual, influences a majority to accept the minority’s beliefs or behaviour. There are two types of social influence: majority influence (conformity) and minority influence (innovation). Majority influence refers to the majority trying to produce conformity on the minority, while minority influence
The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present. The probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders;
Empathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on feelings for others. The social exchange theory basically states that altruism does not exist unless benefits outweigh the costs. C. Daniel Batson disagrees. He feels that people help out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The key ingredient to helping is empathy. According
Somebody Else’s Problem (also known as Someone Else’s Problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. Author Douglas Adams’ description of the effect, which he playfully ascribed to a physical “SEP field”, has helped to
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a measure within social psychology designed to detect the strength of a person’s automatic association between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory. The IAT was introduced in the scientific literature in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz. The IAT is now widely used in social
The theory of reasoned action (TRA), developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975, 1980), derived from previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory was “born largely out of frustration with traditional attitude-behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between
In psychology, the theory of planned behavior is a theory about the link between attitudes and behavior. It was proposed by Icek Ajzen as an extension of the theory of reasoned action. It is one of the most predictive persuasion theories. It has been applied to studies of the relations among beliefs, attitudes, behavioral intentions
Expectancy-value theory was originally created in order to explain and predict individual’s attitudes toward objects and actions. Originally the work of psychologist Martin Fishbein, the theory states that attitudes are developed and modified based on assessments about beliefs and values. Primarily, the theory attempts to determine the mental calculations that take place in attitude development.
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission)
Agenda-setting theory states that the news media have a large influence on audiences. In terms of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. Agenda-setting theory’s main postulate is salience transfer. Salience transfer is the ability of the news media to transfer issues of importance from their news media
In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction (Piwinger & Ebert 2001, pp. 1–2). It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation
Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective stemming from symbolic interactionism. The term was first adapted into sociology from the theatre by Erving Goffman, who developed most of the related terminology and ideas in his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Kenneth Burke, whom Goffman would later acknowledge as an influence, had earlier presented
Ingratiation, a term coined by social psychologist Edward E. Jones, is a social psychological technique in which an individual attempts to become more attractive or likeable to their target. This outcome can be achieved by using several methods such as other-enhancement, opinion conformity, and self presentation/self-promotion. Other enhancement is a method in which the ingratiator
Peter Steiner’s cartoon, as published in The New Yorker “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is an adage which began as the caption of a cartoon by Peter Steiner published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993. The cartoon features two dogs: one sitting on a chair in front of a
Personal branding is, for some people, a description of the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to
Self-monitoring is a theory that deals with the phenomena of expressive controls. Human beings generally differ in substantial ways in their abilities and desires to engage in expressive controls (see dramaturgy). People concerned with their expressive self-presentation (see impression management) tend to closely monitor themselves in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances. People
Self-verification is a social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves, that is self-views (including self-concepts and self-esteem). A competing theory to self-verification is self-enhancement or the drive for positive evaluations. Because chronic self-concepts and self-esteem play an important
In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, “spin” often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or