Chapter One: Introducing Social Psychology

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

fundamental attribution error

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people’s behavior is as a result of internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors

social influence

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

social cognition

how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions

construal

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

self-esteem

people’s evaluations of their own self-worth—that is, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent

Gestalt psychology

a school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people's minds rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object

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

naïve realism

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

behaviorism

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