Social Psychology Lecture Vocabulary

Vocabulary terms, key concepts, studies, levels of analysis, and research methods derived directly from the provided Social Psychology lecture study guide.

Social Psychology

The branch of psychological science concerned with understanding how the presence of other people affects our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Need to Belong

The strong human motivation to form and maintain meaningful social relationships.

Cognitive Psychology

The major area of psychology concerned with thinking, memory, attention, judgment, and related mental processes.

Social/Personality Psychology

The major area of psychology focused on social behavior and individual differences in how people think and behave.

Developmental Psychology

The major area of psychology concerned with psychological change across development.

Clinical Psychology

The major area of psychology focused on the assessment and treatment of psychological difficulties.

I/O Psychology

Industrial/organizational psychology applied to workplaces and organizations.

Attraction

The processes involved in why people find other people appealing or are drawn toward them.

Capilano Bridge Study

A study demonstrating that people can confuse physiological arousal or anxiety caused by an environment with interpersonal attraction.

Attitude

A general positive or negative overall evaluation toward an object, person, group, idea, or situation.

In-group

A group that a person considers themselves part of ('us').

Out-group

A group that a person sees as separate from their own group ('them').

Culture of Honor

Research examining regional variations in aggression that showed Southern participants reacted more aggressively when bumped into and insulted.

Social Influence

The process through which people's thoughts or behavior are affected by other people.

Persuasion

Using positive events or information to influence others to do something.

Social Cognition

The process of interpreting social cues and using information about people and situations to understand the social world.

Level of Analysis: Culture

An explanatory level focusing on how cultural norms, values, and expectations shape behavior.

Level of Analysis: Relationships / Groups

An explanatory level examining how interactions, relationships, and group membership influence behavior.

Level of Analysis: Thoughts / Feelings / Perceptions

An explanatory level examining how people interpret situations and experience emotions.

Level of Analysis: Physiology

An explanatory level examining how bodily processes relate to behavior and psychological states.

Level of Analysis: Chemistry / DNA

An explanatory level examining biological and genetic mechanisms that contribute to behavior.

Observation

A research method involving examining behavior as it occurs in order to gather social psychological data.

Laboratory Research

Research conducted in an artificial setting with tight control over variables to help establish causal direction, though it may lack real-world validity.

Field Research

Research conducted in real-world settings that offers realistic context but lower internal control over variables.

Surveys

Easily administered research tools that measure self-reported information or relationships between variables, but cannot establish cause-and-effect.

Non-conscious Measures

Research techniques attempting to capture psychological processes that operate outside of deliberate or conscious self-report.

Archival Research

Research that utilizes pre-existing public or administrative records of actual behavior.

Replication

The repetition of a previously presented or published finding to determine if the results can be reproduced.

Peer Review

The evaluation process where scholars assess the quality and accuracy of research papers, which is not designed to catch fabricated data automatically.

Amy Cuddy

A researcher who championed power posing as a method to improve behavior, a finding that failed to replicate in subsequent studies.

Daryl Bem

A researcher who published a methodologically sound paper on precognition whose findings failed to reproduce upon replication.

Diederik Stapel

A researcher who falsified data, illustrating that peer review is not designed to catch deliberately fabricated data.

Brian Nosek

A researcher who initiated major systematic replication efforts to investigate reproducibility in psychology.

Direct Replication

An exact repetition of a study attempting to duplicate the original procedures and measures as closely as possible.

Conceptual Replication

A replication attempt that tests the same underlying hypothesis or concept using different methods, measures, materials, or procedures.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A non-conscious measure designed to detect automatic associations and demonstrate that stereotyping and prejudice can occur unintentionally.

Schema

A mental framework or organized knowledge structure used to rapidly process and interpret information about people, objects, and events.

Representativeness Heuristic

A cognitive shortcut where something is classified or judged based on how similar it is to a mental category or prototype.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut where judgments or probability estimates are based on how easily examples come to mind.

Affective Forecasting

The process of predicting one's future emotional reactions to upcoming events.

Impact Bias

A predictive bias involving overestimating the strength or intensity of how much a situation will affect us.

Durability Bias

A predictive bias involving overestimating how long the emotional impact of a situation will last.

Automatic Cognition

Mental processing that occurs rapidly, unintentionally, uncontrollably, and outside of deliberate conscious awareness.

Chameleon Effect

The unintentional mimicry of another person's behavior without conscious decision or awareness.

Priming

The activation of a mental concept, making associated concepts more accessible and influential on subsequent thoughts or behavior.

Implicit Attitudes

Relatively automatic associations or evaluations that influence behavior without deliberate awareness.

Explicit Measures

Research tools that rely on participants directly and consciously reporting their beliefs, feelings, or attitudes.

Mood-Congruent Memory

A memory process in which a person's current emotional state makes memories with a similar emotional tone easier to recall.

Motivated Skepticism

A cognitive bias where people evaluate evidence with heightened skepticism when it conflicts with personal goals or desired conclusions.

Social Disconnection and Stress

The finding that top life stressors (such as divorce or death of a spouse) center on social loss, demonstrating how central the need to belong is to human well-being.

Non-Replicated Priming Studies

Specific findings that failed to reproduce upon replication, such as concepts of aging causing participants to walk slower or drawing close dots increasing feelings of family closeness.

Planning Fallacy

A predictive bias in which people misjudge or underestimate how long a task will take to complete.

P-hacking

A questionable research practice involving manipulating data or analysis until a statistically significant result is obtained ('hacking your way to glory').

First Impressions

Rapid initial judgments of others that research shows can be surprisingly accurate for guessing certain characteristics.