Midterm 1 PSYCH 308

Convenience Sample

A sample of individuals based on who is directly available, which can skew research results.

Descriptive Methods

Research methods that explain descriptive statements about populations.

Observational Studies

Research method where behaviors are observed to form hypotheses about actions.

Archival Studies

Research examining existing data that has already been collected.

Experience Sampling

Conducting surveys over a set time period to track momentary variations in behaviors.

Correlational Research

Research measuring two or more variables to see if there is a relationship between them.

Correlation Coefficient (Parson's r)

A numerical index that ranges from -1 to +1 to indicate the strength and direction of a relationship between variables.

Cross-Sectional Study

Research conducted at one time point to assess a population at that moment.

Experimental Design

Research method to determine if one variable causes an effect on another, controlling other factors.

External Validity

The extent to which research findings can be generalized to other situations.

P-Value

The likelihood that the observed data would occur by random chance if the null hypothesis is true.

P-Hacking

The practice of manipulating data analysis results to achieve statistically significant p-values.

HARK (Hypothesize After Results are Known)

Creating a hypothesis after results are collected, which can distort findings.

Cognitive Dissonance

A psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and behaviors.

Stereotype Threat

The risk of confirming negative stereotypes about one's group, which can affect performance.

Self-Serving Bias

Attributing personal successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Explicit Stereotypes

Conscious beliefs about attributes that are characteristic of members of particular groups.

Thin Slicing

Making quick inferences about the characteristics of a person or situation based on limited information.

Self-Enhancement

The motivation to maintain a positive self-view, often through exaggerating positive traits.

Self-Improvement

The motivation to recognize flaws and work towards personal betterment.

WEIRD Problem

The overrepresentation of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations in psychological research.

Realistic Group Conflict Theory

Theory that argues prejudice and discrimination arise from competition for limited resources.

Contact Hypothesis

Theory that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can reduce prejudice.

Cultural Differences in Attribution

The variation in attributions made for behavior depending on a cultural context.

Actor-Observer Effect

The tendency to attribute one's own actions to external factors while attributing others' actions to internal factors.

Sociometer Theory

A theory that posits self-esteem is a gauge of the degree of social acceptance or rejection one feels.

Looking-Glass Self

The concept that we develop our self-concept based on how we believe others perceive us.

Social psychology

Study the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of individuals in social situations. Use quantitative approach to answer questions about people, behaviours, and social settings.

Social psych theme #1 - person vs situation

• The intuitive idea is that we believe in personality traits to determine a person’s capability

• We assume people show cross-situational consistency

• The way you act in one situation is the same in another, however, that is not always the case

Results of Milgram’s experiment

• 80% continued past 150-volt shock

• 62.5% continued past 450-volt shock (max level)

• 360 volts was the average shock level, the amount when people left 

Fundamental attribution error

People overestimate the importance of dispositions and underestimate the importance of the situation.

Evolutionary explanations

Through natural selection, individuals who survived were more likely to pass on their genes. Behaviour is linked to evolutionary environments.

Sociocultural explanations

• Human cultures create norms, values, preferences, etc. that are socially constructed

• Social institutions

• Behaviours is dependent on culturally, subjective views of the world

Naturalistic fallacy

The way things are is the way they should be.

Social constructionism

People make ideas or concepts out of consensus, not simply out of observing reality.

Descriptive methods

Methods that explain very descriptive statements.

Levels of strength in correlational study

• 0.1 - 0.3 = weak correlation

• 0.3 - 0.5 = moderate

•  X > 0.5 = strong correlation

Mediation

• Additional variable that intervenes in a correlational relationship. It explains why the IV and DV are related.

• Tells us when or for whom something works

Moderation

• One variable changes the association between two other variables.

• It tells us why or how something works

Eurocentric View

• Foundation of psychology is the individual self

• People as separate units

• Goal: autonomy, self-interest

• Hierarchies are normal and justified

• Material world is the most important, no spiritual world

• Time is linear

North American Indigenous view

• Foundation of psychology is collective

• Goal: collective interest, relationships

• Hierarchies are unnatural; egalitarianism

• Material and spiritual world co-exist, cannot seperate them

• Time is cyclical

Challenge the White

• A paper to destigmatize the norm that White folks, and viewpoints, are the norms for psychology 

• Study shows white samples are treated as neutral 

  • When articles write about participants, they set the norm as White people

  • When articles study people who are not White, they put their name in the articles

Active self-concept

Depends on where you are, different traits are brought out based on the context.

Q-sort

• Stack of cards with traits written on them

  • Sort the cards into meaningful groups that describe different parts of the self

  • I.e. Work me, home me, and school me. Shows different aspects of yourself.

Self-complexity

Many aspects of our self are not shared across different situations.

Someone with LOW self complexity

They have a consistent, stable personality across different situations.

Someone with HIGH self complexity

When you hold different personality traits depending on the situations, little overlap with one another.

Study shows that people with HSC react to stressors ____ than people with LSC

less

LSC feels ______ to positive events, because when something happens that is good it will bleed into other aspects of your life, HSC has _____ on the positive events

more positive, less emphasis

Traits low in observability

Hard to see in individuals like self-esteem and anxiety.

Traits high in observability

Talking ability, friendliness.

High evaluative traits

• Creativeness

• Intelligence

We know ourselves ____ but it depends on the trait

really well

Independent self

Stable characteristics that stay across situations, such like personality traits, attitudes, etc.

Interdependent self

Roles, relationships, group membership 

Self-esteem

• How positively or negatively do you evaluate yourself overall 

  • Salience - quality of being noticeable, important or prominent

  • Global - total evaluation of yourself

Self-verification theory

We don’t want these beliefs about ourselves to be inaccurate.

Self esteem maintenance model

• Explains social comparison

• Direction of comparison - up vs down

• Closeness of target - friends vs stranger

Comaparison ____ SE but reflection _____ it

decreases, increases

Self-enhancement pros

• HSE predicts initiative, resilience, buffer for negative events

• LSE is risk factor for depression, anxiety, and drug abuse

Self-enhancement cons

• Harder to accept criticism

• Overconfidence, not motivated to self-improvement

• Use aggression to put others down

• Narcissism and inflated egos

Cognition

Act of thinking and it is motivated.

Cognition may be motivated by:

• Feeling good about ourselves

• Feeling like you’re right

• Feeling competent

• Feeling like the world is fair

Motivation for accuracy in cognition

• Spend long time thinking before making a decision

• Consider all sides of an issue

• Avoid cognitive heuristics

• Occurs when people know someone else will evaluate your answer

Overjustification

When you can justify your behaviour, especially when you are going against your morals.

Motivated cognition is most likely to happen when:

• When motivation is strong due to situational and individual differences

• When information is ambiguous

• Heuristics - intuitive shortcuts that work well in most situations

Attribution

How do judge others and ourselves?

Salience of the person

• Easier for us to pay attention to the person vs the situation that may have changed the behaviour

  • I.e. notice when a guy gets up on the bus / we might not notice that he is getting up because he stop comes next

  • In reality, we do not know the constraints on the behaviour 

Dispositional inferenve more automativ

Situational factors take more time to come to terms with.

Motivational explanation

• Makes more sense if we believe we live in a just world

• People perform behaviour that is attached to their personality trait

Cultural explanation

• West believes that behaviour is primarily caused by the individual

• The collectivist perspective shows us that behaviour can be shaped by our context