Psych 221 Exam 1 Ch 1-4 terms

Self-Esteem

people’s evaluations of their own self-worth—that is, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent

Social cognition

how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, and remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions

Social psychology

the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Behaviorism

a school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment

Fundamental attribution error

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviors is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors

naive realism

the conviction that we perceive things “as they really are,” underestimating how much we are interpreting or “spinning” what we see

social influence

the effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors

Gestalt psychology

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

Evolutionary psychology

the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection

construal

the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world

surveys

research in which a representative sample of people are asked (often anonymously) questions about their attitudes or behaviors

Field experiments

experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory

Correlational method

the technique whereby two or more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them (ex: how much one can be predicted from the other) is assessed

ethnography

the method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions they might have

random selection

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

psychological realism

the extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

Experimental method

a method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on the people’s responses)

Institutional review board (IRB)

a group made up of at least one scientist, one nonscientist, and one member not affiliated with the institution that reviews all psychological research at the institution and decides whether it meets ethical guidelines; all research must be approved by the IRB before it is conducted

probability level

(p-value) a number calculated with statistical techniques that tell researchers how likely it is that the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not because of the independent variable or variables; the convention in science, including social psychology, is to consider results significant (trustworthy) if the probability level is less than 5 in 100 that the results might be due to chance factors and not the independent variables studied

basic dilemma of the social psychologist

the trade-off between internal and external validity in conducting research; it is very difficult to do one experiment that is both high in internal validity and generalizable to other situations and people

meta-analysis

a statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable

Hindsight bias

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

observational method

the technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behavior

dependent variable

The variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the independent variable; the researcher hypothesizes that the dependent variable will depend on the level of the independent variable

external validity

The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people

Archival analysis

a form of the observational method in which the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture (ex: diaries, novels, magazines, and newspapers)

cover story

a description of the purpose of a study, given to participants, that is different from its true purpose and is used to maintain psychological realism

replications

repeating a study, often with different subject populations or in different settings

random assignment to condition

A process ensuring that all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment; through random assignment, researchers can be relatively certain that differences in the participants’ personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions

Basic research

Studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave as they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity

Cross-cultural research

Research conducted with members of different cultures, to see whether the psychological processes of interest are present in both cultures or whether they are specific to the culture in which people were raised

internal validity

Making sure that nothing besides the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all extraneous variables and by randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions

deception

Misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire

correlation coefficient

A statistical technique that assesses how well you can predict one variable from another—for example, how well you can predict people’s weight from their height

independent variable

The variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable

informed consent

Agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment, which has been explained in advance

applied research

studies designed to solve a particular social problem

debriefing

explaining to participants, at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired

accessibility

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

planning fallacy

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

holistic thinking style

A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to each other; this type of thinking is common in East Asian cultures (e.g., China, Japan, and Korea)

representativeness heuristic

a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case

schemas

Mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember

availability heuristic

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

base rate information

information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population

automatic thinking

thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless

analytic thinking style

A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context; this type of thinking is common in Western cultures

counterfactual thinking

mentally changing some aspects of the past as a way of imagining what might have been

priming

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

self-fulfilling prophecy

The case wherein people have an expectation about what another person is like, which causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations, making the expectation come true

judgmental heuristics

mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently

controlled thinking

thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful

attribution theory

A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior

emblems

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture, usually having direct verbal translations, such as the thumbs-up sign

belief perseverance

The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider

self-serving attribution

Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors

primacy effect

When it comes to forming impressions, the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later

consistency information

The extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

perceptual salience

the seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention

encode

to express or emit nonverbal behaviors, such as smiling or patting someone on the back

two-step attribution process

Analyzing behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior

thin-slicing

Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person’s personality or skills based on an extremely brief sample of behavior

affect blends

Facial expressions in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion

External attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation they are in, with the assumption that most people would respond the same way in that situation

consensus information

The extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

display rules

Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display

Bias blind spot

The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking than we are

belief in a just world

A defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people

covariation model

A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we note the pattern between when the behavior occurs and the presence or absence of possible causal factors

nonverbal communication

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words, including via facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position, movement, touch, and gaze

distinctiveness information

The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking than we are

decode

To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness

social perception

The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people

internal attribution

The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality