Chapter 3: Social Psychology By David Myers

priming

activating particular associations in memory

embodied cognition

the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments

belief perseverance

persistence of one's intial conceptions, such as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explantion of why the belief might be true survivers

misinformation effect

incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it

controlled processing

"Explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious

automatic processing

"implicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious

overconfidence phenomenon

the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of one's belief

conformation bias

a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions

heuristic

a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgements

representativeness heuristic

the tendency to presume, sometimes despote contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member

availability heuristic

a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace

counterfactual thinking

imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but did not

illusionary correlation

perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists

illusion of control

perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are

regression toward the average

the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average

misattribution

mistaken atrributing a behavior to the wrong source

attribution theory

the theory of how people explain other's behavior--for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations

dispositional attribution

attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits

situational attribution

attributing behavior to the environment

spontaneous trait inference

an effortsless, automatic imference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior

fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior

self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

behavorial comformation

a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations