31 checked facts

Social

Everything on this site about social — each one naming the study behind it.

You change your own behavior when being watched.
The 'Hawthorne effect' is a popular but scientifically contested term used to describe the hypothesis that subjects ch…
People perform better because you expect them to.
Higher performance expectations lead to improved outcomes for the individuals being observed.…
You perform better at simple tasks when others watch.
The presence of an audience increases your speed on easy tasks.…
You assume your private opinions are the majority view.
You consistently overestimate how much others agree with your personal beliefs.…
Your personal effort drops when you join a group.
The phenomenon of decreased group effort is often termed 'social loafing,' a term coined by Latané et al. in 1979, whi…
You only remember the very first impression you formed.
Information presented at the beginning of a sequence is retained better than information in the middle.…
You like the people you encounter most frequently.
Physical proximity is a stronger predictor of friendship than shared interests.…
Your performance drops when you fear confirming a stereotype.
The awareness of a negative stereotype regarding your group can cause an involuntary decline in performance.…
People perform better when you expect them to succeed.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where high expectations lead to improved performance in a given are…
You feel an ownership for groups you did not join.
Basking in reflected glory is the tendency to associate yourself with successful groups or individuals to bolster your…
You judge your own actions by intent, but others' by outcomes.
The actor-observer asymmetry was a widely cited hypothesis, but it has failed to replicate in broad meta-analyses.…
Everyone follows a rule that no one actually likes.
A 1993 study found that students privately disliked campus drinking but believed peers enjoyed it.…
You prefer associating with winners to signal your status.
A 1976 study found students wore more university gear the day after their football team won.…
You mistakenly believe others think exactly like you do.
The false consensus effect is the cognitive bias where you overestimate the extent to which your opinions and habits a…
You like people more when you live near them.
The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships with those they encounter in their daily physica…
You judge your behavior by your circumstances, not character.
Jones and Nisbett (1971) proposed the actor-observer asymmetry hypothesis, though subsequent meta-analyses have found …
You assume attractive people are also morally good.
While Thorndike identified the 'halo effect' as a general cognitive error in 1920, the systematic experimental finding…
You are a member of a group just by existing.
A 1970 study showed that people favored others simply because they were assigned to the same arbitrary group, even whe…
You adapt your behavior to fit what others expect.
A 1974 study found that high self-monitors consistently changed their behavior to match the social situation, whereas …
You assume everyone shares your private opinions.
A 1977 study showed that people who agreed to wear a sandwich board were more likely to believe others would too.…
You believe your inner emotions are visible to others.
A 1998 study showed that speakers overestimate how much their nervousness is detectable by their audience.…
You perceive members of other groups as all identical.
Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency to see individuals in other groups as having fewer unique traits than people in y…
You prefer strangers just because they are like you.
A 1970 study found that participants assigned to arbitrary groups awarded more money to their own team, even when grou…
You claim credit for things you did not do.
A 1976 study found students were significantly more likely to wear school apparel after their team won a game.…
You like people just because you see them often.
A 1950 study found that physical proximity is a significant predictor of friendship formation, working in tandem with …
You think your virtues are unique, but your vices are normal.
The 1987 study by Suls and Wan demonstrated that people tend to underestimate the commonality of their positive or hea…
A rumor becomes truth if it is repeated enough.
The availability cascade is a self-reinforcing process in which an idea gains social momentum through the interaction …
You conform to the group to avoid social discomfort.
A majority of participants conformed to an obviously incorrect group consensus on at least one occasion, though most i…
You are harder on yourself during simple tasks.
Social facilitation reveals that the presence of others improves performance on simple, well-rehearsed tasks but degra…
You assume people notice your mood more than they do.
The 'illusion of transparency' causes individuals to overestimate how much their internal state is visible to others.…
You believe the world is fundamentally fair to everyone.
A 1966 study demonstrated that people will blame victims for their own misfortune to maintain the belief that people g…