Social Psychology Exam 1

Social Psychology

the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Social Influence

The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior

Evolutionary Psychology

the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection

Construal

the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world

Level of Analysis

the individual in the context of a social situation

Fundamental Attribution Error

the tendency to explain our own and other people’s behavior entirely in terms of personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational factors

Behaviorism

a school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment

Gestalt Psychology

a school of psychology that stresses the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds rather than the objective, physical world

Naive Realism

the conviction that we perceive things “as they really are”, underestimating how much we are interpreting or “spinning” what we see

Self-esteem

people’s evaluations of their own self worth, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, or decent

Social Cognition

how people select, interpret, remember, and use information to make judgements and decisions

Applied Research

Studies designed to solve a particular social problem

Archival Analysis

a form of the observational method in which the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or Archies, of a culture

Basic Dilemma of the Social Psychologist

the trade-off between internal and external validity in conducting research

Basic Research

studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave as they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity

Correlation Coefficient

a statistical technique that assess how well you can predict one variable from another

Correlational Method

the technique whereby two or more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them

Cover Story

A description of the purpose of a study, given to participants, that is different from its true purpose and is used to maintain psychological realism

Cross-Cultural Research

Research conducted with members of different cultures, to see whether the psychological processes of interest are present in both cultures or whether they are specific to the culture in which people were raised

Debriefing

Explaining to participants, at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired

Deception

Misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire

Dependent Variable

the variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the independent variable

Ethnography

the method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions they might have

Experimental Method

The method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable

External Validity

The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people

Field Experiments

Experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory

Hindsight Bias

The tendency for people to exaggerate, after knowing that something occurred, how much they could have predicted it before it occurred

Independent Variable

The variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable

Informed Consent

Agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment, which has been explained in advance

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

A group made up of at least one scientist, one nonscientist and one member not affiliated with the institution that reviews all psychological research at that institution and decides whether it meets ethical guidelines; must approve all research before it is conducted

Internal Validity

Making sure that nothing besides the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all extraneous variables and by randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions

Meta-Analysis

A statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable

Observational Method

The technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behavior

Probability Level (p-value)

A number calculated that tells researchers how likely it is that the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not because of the independent variable(s); <.05 = significant

Psychological Realism

The extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

Random Assignment

Process ensuring that all participants have equal change in participating in any condition of an experiment

Random Selection

A way of ensuring that a sample of people s representative of a population by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample

Replications

Repeating a study, often with different subject populations or in different settings

Surveys

Research in which a representative sample of people are asked (often anonymously) questions about their attitudes or behavior

Prosocial Behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person

Altruism

The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper

Kin selection

The idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection

Norm of reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

Empathy

The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain

Altruistic Personality

the qualities that cause an individual to help others in a wide variety of situations

In-group

the group with which an individual identifies as a member

Out-group

Any group with which an individual does not identify

Urban Overload Hypothesis

the theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it

Bystander Effect

The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help

Pluralistic Ignorance

The case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not

Diffusion of Responsibility

The phenomenon wherein each bystanders’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases

Accessibility

The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world

Analytic Thinking Style

a type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context; common in Western cultures

Automatic Thinking

Thinking that is non conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless

Availability Heuristic

A mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring something to mind

Base Rate Information

Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population

Controlled Thinking

Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary

Counterfactual Thinking

Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been

Holistic Thinking Style

A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly through ways in which objects relate to each other; common in East Asian cultures

Judgemental Heuristics

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently

Planning Fallacy

The tendency for people to be overly optimistic about how soon they will complete a project, even when they have failed to get similar projects done on time in the past

Priming

The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, concept, or goal

Representative Heuristic

A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case

Schemas

Mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice think about, and remember

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The case wherein people have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations, making the expectations come true

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves and the social world; how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions