FULL Unit 1 Psych

Good samaritans

If seminarians were in a hurry, less would help

Fundamental attribution error

Failure to recognize importance of situational influence and overemphasize traits on behavior

Gestalt psychology

people perceive objects unconsciously and interpret

Stereotypes

schemas applied to people or individuals - beliefs about certain groups

Automatic processing

fast, difficult to control, default thinking

Controlled processing

slow, under control, happens when you need to make a deep decision

Theory of mind

ability to understand others beliefs, mental states, intentions

Construals

how people process and remember social information

social cognition

the encoding, storage, retrieval and processing of information in the brain which relate to other people

bias

tendency to put disproportionally more weight in favor/against

Snap judgement

people tend to make inferences about motives and personality based on little info.

Pluralistic ignorance

misperception of a group norm that results from observing people who are acting at variance with their private beliefs

Self-fulfilling prophecy

have an expectation about what another person is like which influences how they act toward that person

Primacy effects

info. presented first has strong influence on later judgements

Recency effects

info. presented last has strong influence

Framing effects

the influence on judgement resulting from how info is presented

Spin framing

changing the way something is framed/phrased to look favorable/unfavorable

Temporal framing

how actions/events are framed within time perspective

Construal level theory

distant actions thought about simply, closer in time you think about it specifically

Confirmation bias

the tendency to test a proposition by searching for evidence that would support it

Top-down processing

based on judgements and decisions you previously know

Bottom up processing

based on your senses first, then you judge

Schemas

shortcuts/mental concepts

Heuristics

mental operation commonly used to make quick/efficient judgements and decisions

Fluency

the feeling of ease associated with processing info.

Representative heuristic

tendency to compare thing to prototypes

Availability heuristic

if something comes to mind, you think it’s common.

Attribution theory

set of concepts explain how people assign causes of behavior and everyday events

Counterfactual thoughts

thoughts of what might have, could have, should have happened if only something had been done differently

Emotional amplification

emotional reactions to counterfactual thinking increase depending on how easy it is to imagine alternative

Casual attribution

linking an event or behavior to a cause to explain the behavior

Situational attribution

when consensus, distinctiveness, consistency are high

Dispositional attribution

when consensus and distinctiveness are low but consistency is high

Discounting principle

less weight is given to a particular cause of behavior if there are alternative causes present

self-serving attributional bias

the tendency to attribute failures to external causes and successes to internal cues

fundamental attribution error

the tendency to attribute a persons behavior to personality while ignoring situational causes

Hindsight bias

tendency to be overconfident about whether they could’ve predicted outcome. “i knew that would happen”

Observational research

observing social situations without manipulating

Archival research

analyzing documented behaviors - newspapers, reports, records

Convenience samples

participants selected from easily available group - bias

Random sampling

anyone can be selected to participate

Correlational research

measures to see relationship - whether there is a correlation, no manipulation

Experimental research

controls and manipulates events, investigates cause and effect

Internal validity

degree of confidence that independent variable could have produced results

External validity

focuses whether results can be generalized

Reliability

degree to which measurements are consistent

Validity

degree to which what you are measuring is what you want to measure

Informed consent

people are willing to participate after learning all aspects

Self-schema

organized set of beliefs about oneself that shapes how we perceive info

Self-reference effect

people remember info more easily when they relate to themselves

Self-construal

how individuals define themselves in relation to others

Upward comparison

when you want to improve, compare to those who are better

Downward comparison

when you want to feel good, you compare to those who are worse

Trait self-esteem

stable characteristics that reflect longterm self worth

State self-esteem

temporary self-worth that changes based on situation

Self-enchancement

people desire to maintain increase and protect self-esteem

Better than average effect

most westerners think they are better than average on most personality traits/abilities

Self-verification theory

people strive for accurate/beliefs about self

Self-discrepancy theory

people want to reduce discrepancies between actual self and ideal self

Self-handicapping

endency to engage in self-defeating behavior to prevent others from assuming a poor performance was due to a lack of ability - we want to protect ourselves