PSY 3310 Social Psychology Vocabulary Study Set

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards mapping key terms and definitions across Chapters 1 to 6 of Social Psychology.

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by other people and by social situations and contexts.

Person × Situation × Context

The principle that behavior is rarely explained well by either the person or the situation alone, requiring examination of how individual characteristics interact with relationships, groups, situations, and broader contexts.

Levels of Analysis

The framework stating that the same behavior can be examined through different complementary lenses, including culture/environment, relationships/groups, thoughts/feelings/perceptions, observable behavior, physiology/biology, and genetics/chemistry-DNA.

Need to Belong

A strong motivation to form and maintain meaningful social relationships.

Stereotype

A belief or generalization about people based on their group membership.

Prejudice

An evaluative feeling or attitude toward someone based on group membership.

Discrimination

Behavior toward someone based on their membership in a social group.

Social Influence

Ways actual, anticipated, or imagined others—and social situations—affect our attitudes and behavior.

Social Cognition

How people perceive, interpret, remember, and use information about themselves, other people, and social situations to make judgments and predictions.

Social Attribution

An explanation constructed to infer why another person or oneself behaved as they did.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overemphasize personal characteristics and underestimate situational influences when explaining other people's behavior.

Operationalization

The process of turning an abstract construct into something observable or measurable.

Measurement Validity

How well a measure actually represents the psychological construct it is intended to measure.

Independent Variable (IV)

In an experiment, the variable that the researcher manipulates.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The outcome variable that the researcher measures in an experiment.

Participant Variable

A characteristic participants already possess—such as background or residence status—that the researcher does not assign.

Field Experiment

An experiment involving intentional manipulation of a variable by researchers in a real-world setting.

Naturalistic Observation

A research method where researchers observe behavior in its natural setting without manipulating variables.

Experience Sampling

A research method in which participants provide repeated reports during everyday life to assess experiences as they occur in real time.

Implicit / Nonconscious Measures

Measures such as reaction-time tasks designed to assess relatively automatic associations rather than relying only on explicit self-report.

Archival Research

Analysis of existing records, statistics, or datasets rather than collecting entirely new data.

Confederate

A person who appears to be another participant in a study but is actually working with the researcher.

Social Facilitation

The phenomenon where performance on some simple or well-practiced tasks improves in the presence of other people.

WEIRD Samples

Research samples disproportionately drawn from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations, which can limit generalizability.

Random Assignment

A procedure that determines who gets which experimental condition by chance, strengthening causal inference by reducing systematic pre-existing group differences.

Random Sampling

A procedure that selects participants from a target population by chance, helping to support generalizability.

Reflexivity

The capacity of the self to reflect back on itself, allowing the "I" to observe, evaluate, and work on the "Me".

The "I"

The active knower or subject doing the reflecting in self-awareness.

The "Me"

The self as known or object, representing the content of self-knowledge being observed or described.

Social Actor

The lens of self-understanding focused on traits, social roles, performances, and reputation to answer "What am I like?"

Motivated Agent

The intentional, future-oriented self organized around goals, values, plans, and personally meaningful projects to answer "What do I want?"

Autobiographical Author

The self as storyteller that interprets personal experience and links past, present, and future into a meaningful account to answer "How did I become me?"

Narrative Identity

An internalized, evolving life story that reconstructs the past and anticipates the future to provide continuity, meaning, and purpose.

Autobiographical Reasoning

Drawing identity-relevant conclusions from personal experiences, such as explaining how an event shaped present values, goals, or ways of acting.

Redemptive Narrative

A culturally prominent story structure that frames movement from suffering or difficulty toward an improved state.

Schema

An organized mental representation or knowledge structure that guides expectations and interpretation.

Script / Event Schema

A mental schema for the typical sequence of events in a familiar situation.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that simplifies complex decision-making processes.

Representativeness Heuristic

A judgment shortcut where category membership is decided based on similarity to a prototype, often while ignoring base rates.

Base Rates

The actual frequencies or probabilities of categories in a population.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut where frequency or likelihood is judged by how easily examples come to mind.

Planning Fallacy

Underestimating how long a task will take, often by focusing on an idealized plan while omitting predictable steps and delays.

Affective Forecasting

Predicting how one will feel after a future event.

Impact Bias

Overestimating how intense a future emotional response will be.

Durability Bias

Overestimating how long a future emotional response will last.

Motivated Skepticism

Scrutinizing or discounting evidence that conflicts with a preferred conclusion or desired belief.

Need for Closure

The desire for a firm answer on a topic quickly in order to reduce ambiguity and end uncertainty.

Chameleon Effect

The nonconscious, automatic mimicry of another person's gestures, posture, speech, or behavior.

Explicit Attitudes

Consciously reportable evaluations of a person, group, object, or issue.

Implicit Attitudes

Automatic concept-attribute associations inferred from indirect performance tasks (such as reaction times) rather than direct self-report.

Central Route to Persuasion

Persuasion through relevant information and arguments that are considered carefully; more likely when people are motivated and thinking about the message.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

Persuasion through superficial cues rather than careful evaluation of the argument, such as attractiveness, status, emotion, or celebrity.

Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs)

Automatic, predictable behavioral sequences triggered by specific environmental cues.

Trigger Features

Specific cues that can activate an automatic response or fixed action pattern.

Triad of Trust

The principle that persuasion becomes easier when the source seems authoritative, honest, and likable.

Norm of Reciprocity

The social expectation that receiving something creates pressure to return the favor.

Social Proof

Using what other people are doing as evidence of what is appropriate or correct.

Foot-in-the-Door

A compliance strategy where a small initial commitment is gained before following up with a larger request.

Gradually Escalating Commitments

A tactic in which a series of progressively larger requests are accepted more readily than one large request made immediately.

Rule of Scarcity

The principle that limited availability can increase perceived attractiveness or value.

Psychological Reactance

A psychological state of resistance that occurs when people feel their freedom of choice is being restricted.

Door-in-the-Face

A compliance technique involving an initial large request that is rejected, followed by a smaller target request.

That's-Not-All

A technique where an offer is improved with added benefits or discounts before the target person responds.

Sunk-Cost Trap

Continuing to invest in a situation due to resources already spent, even though those costs cannot be recovered.

Inoculation

Building resistance to persuasion by practicing responses to weaker persuasive attacks prior to facing stronger arguments.

Conformity

Changing attitudes or behavior to align with group norms or perceived social pressure.

Normative Influence

Conforming because of concern about what others think of us—seeking acceptance, approval, or avoiding rejection.

Informational Influence

Conforming because other people are seen as providing valid information about what is correct or appropriate.

Descriptive Norm

An individual's perception of what most people actually do in a given situation.

Obedience

Responding to a direct order or command from a person in authority.

Dispositional / Internal Attribution

Explaining behavior mainly in terms of the person, such as traits, motives, attitudes, effort, or ability.

Situational / External Attribution

Explaining behavior mainly in terms of circumstances, such as constraints, roles, incentives, demands, or unusual events.

Consensus

In Kelley's covariation model, asking whether other people respond similarly to the same stimulus.

Distinctiveness

In Kelley's covariation model, asking whether the person responds in this way mainly here, or across different stimuli and situations.

Consistency

In Kelley's covariation model, asking whether the person responds this way to the same stimulus across time and circumstances.

Perceptual Salience

The phenomenon where the actor is visually more noticeable than the surrounding situation, drawing primary focus to dispositional explanations.

Two-Step Attribution

The process of making a quick, automatic dispositional attribution first, followed by an effortful adjustment for situational context.

Self-Serving Attribution

A tendency to take internal credit for personal success while making external explanations for failure.

Attitude

An evaluation involving opinions, feelings, and beliefs about a person, group, object, or issue.

Intention

A plan or stated commitment to act in a specific way.

Behavior

The actual physical action performed by an individual.

Cognitive Dissonance

Psychological discomfort associated with meaningful inconsistency among relevant beliefs, attitudes, or behavior—especially when challenging self-identity.

Counterattitudinal Behavior

Acting in a way that directly conflicts with one's private attitude or belief.

External Justification

A clear situational reason or incentive that explains why a person engaged in a counterattitudinal behavior.

Internal Justification

Reducing cognitive dissonance by changing or reinterpreting one's own attitude when external justification is weak.