Social Psych Final

Social Influence

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

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behavior is due to internal factors and underestimate the role of situational factors

Gestalt Psychology

A school of psychology stressing the important of studying the subjective way an object appears in people’s minds rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object

Naive realism

The conviction that how we see things reflects objective reality

Construal

The subjective way individuals perceive, interpret, and comprehend the world

Social Cognition

The study of how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions

Hindsight Bias

The tendency for people to exaggerate, after knowing that something occured, how much they could have predicted it before it occured

Observational Method

The technique where a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behavior

Correlational Method

The technique where 2 or more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them is assessed

Surveys

Research in which a representative sample of people are asked about their attitudes or behaviors

Random selection

A way of ensuring a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone an equal chance of being selected

Experimental method

the technique in which the experimenter randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable

Internal Validity

Keeping everything but the IV the same in an experiment

Random assignment to condition

When participants in an experiment are randomly places in groups to eliminate bias from individual characteristics

External validity

The extent to which the results of an experiment can be generalized to other situations and other people

Field Experiments

Experiments conducted in a natural setting instead of a laboratory

Basic dilemna of the social psychologist

The tradeoff between internal and external validity in conducting research

Replication

Repeating a study, often with different people in a different setting

Deception

Lying to participants about the true nature of the experiment. OK if there is no other way and debriefing is soon after

Automatic Thinking

Thinking that is unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless

Schemas

A cognitive structure or mental framework that organizes information about social norms, people, and situations, acting as a shortcut to help individuals interpret the social world efficiently

Accessibility

The extent to which schemas are at the forefront of people’s minds and therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world

Priming

The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or goal

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The case in which someone has an expectation about what another person is like, causing that person to behave consistently with those expectations, making those expectations come true

Judgemental Heuristics

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently

Availability Heuristic

A mental rule of thumb where people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring something to mind

Representativeness Heuristic

A mental shortcut where people classify something by how similar it is to a typical case

Controlled Thinking

Thinking that is conscious, voluntary, intentional, and effortful

Counterfactual Thinking

Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been

Planning Fallacy

The tendency for people to be optimistic about how soon they will complete a project, even when they have failed to get similar projects done on time in the past

Anchoring

A judgement strategy where one adjusts their answer based on a starting value

Internal Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the person (attitude, personality)

External attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation they are in (assuming other people would behave the same way in that situation)

Three ways of assigning attribution

Consensus (The extent to which other people respond the same way to the same stimulus), Distinctiveness (Does this person’s behavior occur only in this situation), Consistency (Does the person usually behave like this in this situation)

Perceptual Salience

The seeming importance of whatever is the focus of someone’s attention

Self-serving Attributions

Explanations for one’s succes that credit internal factors and explanations for one’s failures that credit external factors

Bias Blind Spot

The tendency to think others are more susceptible to attributional errors than we are

Self-concept

The overall set of beliefs people have about their internal attributes

Introspection

The process where people look inwards and examine their thought feeling and motives (triggers self-awareness)

Self-awareness theory

The idea that when people focus attention on themselves, they compare their behavior to internal standards and values

Self-perception theory

The theory that when our attitudes or behvaiors are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs

Two-factor theory of emotion

The two-step process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an explanation for it

Misattribution of arousal

The process where people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do

Intrinsic motivation

The desire to partake in an activity because you enjoy it or find it interesting

External motivation

The desire to partake in an activity because of external rewards or pressures

Overjustification effect

The tendency for people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the effect of intrinsic reasons

Social comparison theory

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

Self-control

The ability to subdue immediate desires to achieve long-term goals

Implementation Intentions

People’s specific plans about when, where, and how they will fulfill a goal and avoid temptations

Impression management

The attempt to get other people to see you the way you want to be seen

Ingratiation

The process wehre people flatter, praise, and make themselves likeable to another person, generally of higher status

Self-handicapping

The strategy where people create obstacles or excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task they can avoid blaming themselves

Attitudes

Our evaluations of people, objects, or ideas

Cognitively based attitude

An attitude based primarily on people’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object

Affectively based attitude

At attitude based more on people’s feelings and values

Behaviorally based attitude

An attitude based on observations of how one behaves towards the target object

Explicit attitudes

Attitudes we consciously endorse and can easily report

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness

Attitude Accessibility

The strength of association between an attitude object and people’s evaluation of that object, measured by how fast people can report how they feel about the object

Theory of Planned Behavior

The idea that people’s intentions are the best predictors of their deliberate behaviors, which are determined by their attitudes towards specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

Subjective norms

People’s beliefs about how people they care about will view the behavior in question

Perceived behavioral control

The ease with which people believe they can perform the behavior

Yale attitude change approach (3 ways to increas persuasion)

Who (credible speakers, attractive speakers)

What (messages seemingly not designed to influence, two-sided arguments, primacy and recency effect)

To whom (distracted audience persuaded easier)

Sleeper effect

Over time, people will remember the content of the message more than the speaker, so a message from a low-credibility source can become more persuasive as time passes

The elaboration likelihood model

A model describing two ways in which persuasive communications can change attitudes - central and peripherally

Central route to persuasion

When people are focused on the message and think about its logical components - happens when they are motivated (personal relevance) and able to listen

Peripheral rout to persuasion

When people are persuaded by superficial characteristics like the length of the message or who is delivering it. Happens when they are lacking motivation or ability to listen

Fear-arousing communication

Works if people are given both something to elicit the fear and a way to reduce it

Attitude Inoculation

Making people immune to attempts to change their attitude by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position

Reactance theory

When people feel their freedom in performing a behavior is threatened they may respond by performing the prohibited behavior

Ben Franklin Effect

Performing a favor for someone increases your liking of them