Introduction to Social Psychology – Lecture 1

Vocabulary flashcards covering core terms and concepts from the first lecture on Social Psychology, including definitions of the discipline, research methodology, cognitive biases, and ethical practices.

Social Psychology

Scientific study of how individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Gordon Allport’s Definition

Using the scientific method to explore how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by others’ presence.

Culture

Shared behaviors, ideas, and values transmitted across generations that shape social behavior and thought.

Social Role Models

People whose behavior and feedback influence what we think and do by providing examples to emulate or avoid.

Selective Perception

Tendency to notice and remember information that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring conflicting data.

Selective Recall

Remembering information that supports our views more easily than information that contradicts them.

Cognitive Processes

Mental activities (e.g., attention, memory, reasoning) that shape interpretation of social information.

Implicit Processes

Non-conscious mental operations that influence judgments and behavior without deliberate awareness.

Intuition

Fast, automatic thinking that relies on heuristics and emotions; useful but error-prone.

Heuristic

Mental shortcut that speeds decision making at the cost of possible inaccuracies.

Value Judgments

Culturally taught beliefs about what is good, bad, desirable, or undesirable.

Environmental Variables

Physical factors (e.g., temperature, pollution) that can alter human behavior and thought.

Evolutionary Psychology

Approach proposing that many social behaviors are rooted in adaptations that enhanced ancestral survival.

Arm-Chair Philosophy

Forming explanations about human behavior through casual reflection rather than systematic science.

Scientific Method

Systematic process of defining a problem, gathering data, and testing explanations through empirical research.

Basic Science

Research aimed at confirming or disconfirming theories without immediate practical application.

Applied Science

Research conducted to solve real-world problems or improve everyday life.

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms existing beliefs.

Hindsight Bias

Illusion that an outcome was predictable only after knowing the result (“I-knew-it-all-along”).

Falsifiability

Quality of a hypothesis that allows it to be disproven by evidence.

Parsimony

Principle that the best explanation uses the fewest assumptions necessary.

Attribution

Process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior (including our own).

Systematic Observation

Careful, structured recording of behavior to obtain objective data.

Theory

Integrated set of principles that explains and predicts observed events.

Hypothesis

Specific, testable prediction derived from a theory.

Correlational Method

Research strategy that assesses associations between variables without manipulating them.

Direction of Correlation

Indicates whether variables move together (positive) or in opposite directions (negative).

Strength of Correlation

Extent to which two variables are consistently related, ranging from weak to strong.

Direction of Causality Problem

Uncertainty about whether variable A causes B or B causes A in correlational studies.

Third Variable Problem

Possibility that an unmeasured variable (confound) causes an observed correlation between A and B.

Experimental Method

Research design involving manipulation of an independent variable and control of other factors to establish causality.

Independent Variable (IV)

Factor deliberately manipulated by the researcher to observe its effect.

Dependent Variable (DV)

Outcome measured to assess the impact of the independent variable.

Control Group

Participants who do not receive the experimental treatment, serving as a baseline for comparison.

Random Assignment

Process of giving all participants an equal chance of being placed in any experimental condition to equalize groups.

Operational Definition

Precise specification of how a variable is measured or manipulated in a study.

Social Desirability Bias

Participants’ tendency to respond in ways that make them look favorable to others.

Experimenter Bias (Demand Characteristics)

Unintentional cues from researchers that influence participants’ behavior toward expected results.

Blind / Double-Blind Study

Design in which participants (single-blind) or both participants and experimenters (double-blind) are unaware of condition assignments to reduce bias.

Random Sample

Subset of a population in which every member has an equal chance of selection, enhancing representativeness.

Informed Consent

Ethical requirement that participants receive enough information to decide whether to take part in research.

Debriefing

Post-study explanation of the research purpose, procedures, and any deceptions used.

Archival Data Analysis

Research method that investigates existing records or documents to test hypotheses.

Systematic Measurement

Use of consistent, precise tools or procedures to collect data objectively.