Psychology Key Terms: Social Cognition, Influence, Sensation, Perception, and Research Methods

A comprehensive vocabulary study set defining key psychology concepts including social cognition, cognitive biases, social influence, sensation and perception, experimental design, and research ethics.

Social cognition

The mental processes involved in perceiving, interpreting and making judgements about other people and social situations.

Person perception

The process of forming impressions and making judgements about other people from available information.

Internal attribution

Explaining someone's behaviour by referring to personal factors, such as their personality, ability, effort or motivation.

External attribution

Explaining someone's behaviour by referring to situational factors outside the person, such as luck, task difficulty or other people's actions.

Halo effect

A cognitive bias where one positive trait influences an overall impression of a person, causing other traits to be judged positively too.

Stereotype

A generalised belief or assumption about the characteristics of members of a particular social group.

Prejudice

A preconceived attitude or judgement about a person based on their membership of a social group, often negative.

Discrimination

Unfair or unequal behaviour towards a person because of their membership of a particular group.

Contact hypothesis

The idea that contact between members of different groups can reduce prejudice when certain conditions are met.

Cognitive bias

A systematic pattern of thinking that can lead to errors or distortions in judgement and decision-making.

Anchoring bias

Relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered when making a judgement.

Attentional bias

Paying more attention to certain information while overlooking other relevant information.

Confirmation bias

Seeking, noticing or interpreting information in ways that support existing beliefs or expectations.

False-consensus bias

Overestimating how many other people share our opinions, beliefs or behaviours.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to see an event as having been predictable after it has already happened.

Misinformation bias

When misleading or inaccurate information influences a person's memory or judgement of an event.

Optimism bias

The tendency to believe that positive events are more likely to happen to us, and negative events less likely, than to other people.

Dunning-Kruger effect

The tendency for people with low ability or knowledge in an area to overestimate their competence.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut or simple rule used to make judgements and decisions quickly, sometimes at the expense of accuracy.

Availability heuristic

Judging how likely or common something is by how easily examples come to mind.

Representativeness heuristic

Judging the likelihood that something belongs to a category by how closely it resembles a typical example of that category.

Affect heuristic

Making a judgement or decision based on the positive or negative feelings associated with something.

Attitude

A learned evaluation of a person, object, issue or situation that can be positive, negative or neutral.

Tri-component model of attitudes

A model proposing that attitudes are made up of cognitive (beliefs), affective (feelings) and behavioural (actions or intentions) components.

Cognitive component of an attitude

The beliefs, thoughts and knowledge a person holds about an attitude object.

Affective component of an attitude

The emotions and feelings a person has towards an attitude object.

Behavioural component of an attitude

The way a person acts, or intends to act, towards an attitude object.

Cognitive dissonance

The uncomfortable psychological tension experienced when a person's beliefs, attitudes or behaviours conflict.

Social group

Two or more people who interact, influence one another and share a sense of belonging or common identity.

Social power

The capacity of a person or group to influence the behaviour, decisions or attitudes of others.

Reward power

Influence based on the ability to provide valued rewards or benefits.

Coercive power

Influence based on the ability to punish, threaten or impose negative consequences.

Legitimate power

Influence that comes from a recognised position of authority or status.

Expert power

Influence based on another person's perceived knowledge, skills or expertise.

Referent power

Influence based on admiration, respect or a desire to identify with another person.

Informational power

Influence based on having access to information that others need or value.

Groupthink

A group decision-making process in which the desire for agreement or harmony discourages critical thinking and alternative viewpoints.

Social loafing

The tendency for individuals to put in less effort when working in a group than when working individually.

Obedience

Changing or carrying out behaviour in response to a direct order or instruction from an authority figure.

Conformity

Changing one's behaviour, attitudes or beliefs to match those of a group or its expectations.

Compliance

A type of conformity involving outwardly changing behaviour to fit in, while privately disagreeing.

Identification

A type of conformity involving adopting behaviours or attitudes to be like or associated with a valued group or person.

Internalisation

A type of conformity in which a person genuinely accepts the group's beliefs or behaviour as their own.

Non-conformity

Behaviour or beliefs that do not follow the expectations, rules or norms of a group.

Social media addiction

Persistent or excessive use, difficulty controlling use, preoccupation, neglect of other activities and continued use despite negative consequences.

Sensation

The process by which sensory receptors detect physical stimuli from the environment and send information to the nervous system.

Perception

The process of organising and interpreting sensory information to give it meaning.

Bottom-up processing

Perception that begins with incoming sensory information and builds towards a meaningful interpretation.

Top-down processing

Perception influenced by prior knowledge, expectations, experiences and context.

Selective attention

Focusing awareness on one stimulus or source of information while filtering out other information.

Sustained attention

Maintaining focus on a particular task or stimulus over an extended period.

Divided attention

Distributing attention across two or more tasks or sources of information at the same time.

Visual perception

The process of organising and interpreting visual sensory information to understand what is being seen.

Supertaster

A person who experiences certain tastes, particularly bitter tastes, more intensely than average.

Non-taster

A person who experiences certain tastes, particularly bitter tastes, less intensely than average.

Gustatory perception

The perception and interpretation of taste information detected by taste receptors.

Synaesthesia

A perceptual experience in which stimulation of one sensory pathway or concept consistently triggers an additional experience, such as seeing colours when hearing sounds.

Agnosia

A neurological condition involving difficulty recognising or identifying sensory information despite adequate basic sensation.

Independent variable (IV)

The variable deliberately manipulated or changed by the researcher to investigate its effect.

Dependent variable (DV)

The variable measured by the researcher; it is expected to change in response to the independent variable.

Controlled variable

A factor kept the same across conditions so it does not systematically influence the results.

Extraneous variable

A variable other than the IV that could affect the DV and add unwanted variation to results.

Confounding variable

An uncontrolled variable that changes systematically with the IV, making it difficult to determine what caused the results.

Random sampling

Selecting participants so each member of the target population has an equal chance of being chosen.

Convenience sampling

Selecting participants who are readily available to the researcher.

Stratified sampling

Dividing a population into relevant subgroups and randomly sampling from each subgroup, often in proportion to its size.

Abstract (psychological report)

A brief summary of the aim, method, key results and conclusion.

Introduction (psychological report)

Relevant background theory and research, the research question or aim, and the hypothesis where appropriate.

Method section (psychological report)

How the study was conducted, including participants, materials, design, procedure and relevant variables.

Results section (psychological report)

A clear, objective presentation of the data and statistical or descriptive findings, without explaining their meaning.

Discussion section (psychological report)

Interpretation of results, whether the hypothesis was supported, links to previous research, limitations and possible improvements.

Conclusion (psychological report)

A concise statement answering the research question or aim, based on the findings.

Quantitative data

Numerical information that can be counted or measured, such as scores, times or percentages.

Qualitative data

Non-numerical information describing experiences, opinions or characteristics, often collected through words or observations.

Primary data

Data collected first-hand by the researcher for the specific investigation.

Secondary data

Data that have already been collected by someone else, often for a different purpose.

Data interpretation

Examining and explaining what collected data show, including patterns, differences, relationships and possible meanings.

Beneficence

The ethical principle of acting to benefit participants and promote their wellbeing.

Integrity (in psychological research)

Being honest, accurate and transparent in conducting and reporting research.

Justice (in psychological research)

Treating participants fairly and ensuring the benefits and burdens of research are distributed fairly.

Non-maleficence

The ethical principle of avoiding or minimising harm to participants.

Respect (in psychological research)

Recognising participants' dignity, rights, autonomy, privacy and capacity to make informed choices.

Informed consent

Giving participants clear information about the study so they can freely agree to take part.

Right to withdraw

Participants can leave a study, and withdraw their data where applicable, without penalty.

Confidentiality

Protecting participants' personal information and ensuring their identities and data are not disclosed inappropriately.

Voluntary participation

Taking part in research freely, without pressure, coercion or unfair influence.

Deception (in psychological research)

Deliberately withholding or misleading participants about aspects of a study; it must be justified and carefully controlled.

Debriefing

Explaining the study's true purpose and procedures after participation, addressing deception and answering participants' questions.