social psych terms

what is Social Psychology

The scientific study of how individuals think, feel and behave in a certain social context

True or Flase: social psychology uses the scientific method

True

what is social faclitation?

preforming better in the presence of others

what is social loafing

preforming worse in the presence of others

what is the interactionist percpective?

how both ones personality and environment interact to play a role on an individuals behavior

what inspired Stanley Milgrams Obidience to authority study?

Obedience by nazi officers and ordinary citizens in WWII

what is the “cold percpective”?

Emphasized the role of cognition, deemphasized the role of emotion and motivation

what is the “hot percpective”?

Focus on emotions and motivation as determinants of thoughts and actions

which is an older percpective, hot or cold?

cold percpective most prominent in earlier days of social psychology

what is behavioral genetics

Examines the effect of genes on certain behaviors

what is behavioral economics?

How psychology influences economic decisions

what is social neuroscience

Study between neural and social processes

“Having close friends and family lead to better health and longer life span, making more money” is this an example from social neuroscience or behavioral genetics?

social neuroscience

what is the open science movement?

Advocated for greater accountability, accessibility of researchers data and materials in science

what is the difference between applied and basic research?

Basic research increases understanding of human behaviour and Applied research focuses on real-world applications and solving social problems

what is a conceptual variable?

An abstract, general idea researchers want to study

what is an operational variable?

The specific way a conceptual variable is manipulated or measured in a study

what is construct validity?

How well the operational definition actually represents the conceptual variable

What is the issue with self reports?

People may answer in ways that make them look good to themselves or others

what is the bogus pipeline technique?

Participants are led to believe their answers will be checked by an infallible lie detector, making people answer their self reports honestly.

what are the main methods someone can do descriptive research?

1. Observational studies

2. Archival research

3. Surveys

what is a correlation coefficient?

 statistic showing the strength and direction of a relationship

if a correlation co-efficient is closer to 1, is it weaker or stronger?

stronger

if a correlation coefficient is closer to 0, is it weaker or stronger?

weaker

correlations show the _______ and ________ of relationships

strength and direction (positive or negative)

random assignment vs random sampling

• Random sampling = who gets selected for the study (helps generalize)

• Random assignment = which condition participants are placed in (establish cause and effect)

what is statistical significance?

results are unlikely to have occurred by chance

what is Replication

repeating a study to see if similar results occur

what is a Confound

an unwanted factor that changes along with the independent variable and could explain the results

what is Mundane realism

• how much the study resembles real life.

what is Experimental realism

 how real and involving the experience feels to participants

what is Cross-cultural research

Studying whether social psychological findings apply across different cultures.

who is Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

 group that reviews research proposals to make sure participants’ rights, safety, and welfare are protected

what two things must researchers follow for ethics

1. IRB requirements

2. Their profession’s code of ethics

what two things must participants know for ethics reasons?

• Participation is voluntary.

• They can withdraw at any time

what is Active Forecasting

• Difficulty predicting how one would react to future events 

what is Impact Bias

• People overestimate strength and duration of emotional reactions 

what is Self perception theory

• people infer what they think or how they feel by observing their own behavior and the situation in which that behavior takes place

what is Facial Feedback hypothesis

Changes in facial expression can trigger corresponding changes in the subjective experience of emotion

what is Intrinsic motivation

originates in factors within a person: Eating a good meal; listening to music; spending time with friends; or getting engrossed in a book

what is extrinsic motivation

originates in factors outside the person: engage in an activity as a means to an end, for tangible benefit

what is Overjustification effect

•  receiving a reward for something one already likes to do

what is Social comparison theory

• when people are uncertain of their abilities or opinions they evaluate themselves by comparison to similar others

what is the Two factor theory of emotion

how arousal of emotion needs to be cognitively labeled

would a high social class have more indivdualism or collectivism?

more individualism

would a low social class have more individualism or collectivism

more collectivism, relying on others more

what is terror management theory?

• terrified by—the inevitability of our own death

• To cope with this we construct and accept cultural worldviews about how, why, and by whom the Earth was created

what is Self Discrepancy Theory

• self-esteem is defined by the match or mismatch between how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves, comparing actual self, ought self and ideal self to see how they align shows your self esteem

what is self handicapping

we come up with excuses in anticipation of future performance to prevent failure

what is sand bagging

• people to play down their own ability, lower expectations, and publicly predict that they will fail

what is Basking in Reflected Glory

associating oneself with positive connections to successful others

what are Downward social comparisons

When a person’s self-esteem is at stake, he or she often benefits from comparing themselves to others who are doing worse than them ( less successful, less happy, or less fortunate)

what are temperal comparisons

 comparisons between our past and present selves

what is the spotlight effect?

a tendency to believe that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it really does

what is strategic self presentation?

 consists of our efforts to shape others’ impressions in specific ways in order to gain influence, power, sympathy, or approval

what is self monitoring

 the tendency to regulate one’s own behavior to meet the demands of social situations

what is mind perception

• the process by which people attribute human-like mental states to various animate and inanimate objects, including other people

what is the anger superiority effect

•  people are quicker to spot—and slower to look away from—angry faces in a crowd than faces with neutral, nonthreatening emotions

• New research suggests that lie detection should focus on _________ cues that betray cognitive effort

behavioral cues

what is the main thing that makes it hard for people to lie

alternate cognitive effort such as telling sequence of events in reverse or maintaining eye contact

what is Correspondent Inference Theory

• predicts that people try to infer from an action whether the act corresponds to an enduring personal trait of the actor

what are the three factors that people base their inferences on in correspondance inference theory?

degree of choice, Expectedness of behavior and intended concequences

explain how degree of choice can affect perceptions of a behavior being situational or dispotional

was it their own choice or were they forced- if they were forced the behavior is situational, if it was their choice it is dispositional

explain how expectedness of behavior can affect perceptions of a behavior being situational or dispotional

is this behavior usual or unusual for this person? if it is unusual, its situational and if it is expected, it is dispositional

what is Kelley’s Covariation Theory

explains how people decide why someone behaved a certain way by looking at what happens when the behaviour is present versus absent based on three factors

what are the three factors in Kelleys converiation theory that effect how we think about ones behavior?

•  consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency

what is consensus in kelleys converation theory?

How different persons react to the same stimulus. High in consensus means many people react the same way as that person and low in consensus means person acts differently than others in the same situation

what is distinctiveness in kelleys converation theory?

Looking at how the same person reacts to different situations or stimuli. It helps you determine whether someone's behaviour is specific to one thing or happens in many situations.

what is consistency in Kelleys converation theory

checking whether the same person reacts the same way to the same stimulus over time. Does the same behaviour happen repeatedly over time when the person and situation stay the same?

what is the False consensus effect

• a tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes, and behaviors

what is the Base-rate fallacy

ignoring statistical facts or probabilities and focusing more on dramatic, memorable examples.

wha is The fundamental attribution error

• overestimate the role of personal factors and overlook the impact of situations

what is the two step model of the fundamental attribution error?

personal attributions are automatic but that the later adjustment for situational factors requires conscious thought

Explain Impression formation Averaging of traits

if we barely know someone/only know one of their traits, we exagurate their trait (say they are very good at something) but as we get to know someone, and more of their traits, we start to say the traits they have are average.

which trait is easiest to spot?

extraversion

what is negativity bias in impression formation

• Negative info weighs more heavily than positive info

• one bad trait can ruin someones entire reputation

what is implicit pesonality theory

beleiving that someone has other traits just because of a single trait we know they have (f someone is unpredictable, you might assume they are dangerous)

what is the primacy affect in impression formation?

the first information we learn about someone influences our impression of them more than information we learn later. The order of information changes how we perceive someone, even when the information is the same.

what trait has the strongest influence of positive on our impressions?

Morality

what is self fufiling prophecy?

• A perceiver's expectation leads to behavior that makes the expectation come true

does individualistic culture have a interdependent or independent view of self?

independent

does collectivist culture have a interdependent or independent view of self?

interdependent

what is the rosenburg SE scale?

a questionnaire that measures how positively or negatively someone feels about themselves

what are the two statements from the rosenberg SE scale?

I am satisfied with myself, I have good qualities

does high self esteem correlate with success or precived success?

precived success?

what is compensatory self enhancment

after failure, focus on something else your good at

what is discounting?

downplaying the importance of something you failed at

what is self serving attributional bias

taking credit for success but blaming failures on situational factors

what is a Quasi experiment

experiment not using random variation but choosing participants due to the traits they already have

does Quasi experiment have high or low external validity

high external validity- generalizable

does Quasi experiment have high or low internal validity

low internal validity

do field experiments have high or low external validity

high external validity- generalizable

do field experiments have high or low internal validity

low internal validity

can fieled experiments be easily causal claimed

No, hard to claim as causal

what is the replication crisis

when many scientific studies cannot be repeated by other researchers to get the same results, making people question whether the original findings are reliable

Stereotype vs Prejudice

Stereotype- Unfair generalizations about a group

Prejudice- Bias emotional responses to someone based on group membership

what is negative interdependence

one group wins, other lose This causes hate because people feel threatened

what is positive interdependence

• leads to decrease in discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping 

stereotypes save you cognitive _______

energy

what is the theory of shared distinctiveness

When two rare events happen at the same time, we will mistakenly assume those two things will always happen together