PSYC 2600: Exam 1 + 2 Study Guide

Social Psychology

how peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (the influence of other people on us)

Social Influence

Attempts by one person to change another person’s behavior. Is not always deliberate.

Evolutionary Psychology

explaining behavior in terms of genetic factors or biology

Personality psychology

focusing on people’s individual differences

Construal

How people perceive and interpret the world

Two Central Motives of Construals

To feel good about self and to be accurate

Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency to explain behavior in terms of personality and not the situation at hand. Tends to oversimplify the problem and blame the victim. Tendency to make more internal attributions than external.

Behaviorism

In order to understand human behavior, one must only consider reinforcing properties of an environment. When a behavior is followed by a reward, it will continue and when a behavior is followed by a punishment, it will stop.

Gestalt Psychology

People should study the subjective way in which an object appears in a person’s mind as opposed to their objective qualities.

Naive Realism

When people think they are seeing what “really is” and underestimating how much they are interpreting what they are seeing.

Self-Esteem

When a person sees himself as good, competent, and decent. People want to maintain a positive picture of themselves.

Hindsight Bias

After something has already happened, people exaggerate how much they could have predicted it before.

Observational Method

When a researcher observes people and records measures or impressions of behavior with goal being to describe what a particular person’s behavior is like.

Ethnography

Observing a culture from the inside.

Archival Analysis

Examining documents/artifacts of a culture (diaries, suicide notes, music lyrics, credit card records, etc.)

Limits of Observational Method

Does not show WHY something happened and certain behaviors occur privately and rarely.

Correlational Method

Two variables are measured and their relationship is assessed. Proves correlation NOT causation.

Correlation Coefficient (r)

Statistic that assesses how well one variable can be predicted from another. Ranges from 1 to -1 with positive being high association, negative being low association, and 0 being no association.

Surveys

A representative sample of people are asked questions about their attitude or behavior. Allows researchers to judge behaviors that are hard to observe.

Random Selection

A way to ensure that the sample represents the population by giving everyone an equal chance of being selected. Allows for generalization across people/populations.

Limits of the correlational method

Failing to sample randomly will void results and correlation does not equal causation.

Experimental Method

Researcher orchestrates an event so that people experience it in one of two ways. Ideal method because it allows for most causal inferences.

Independent variable

The variable that is being studied/that the researcher changes to see if it has an effect on the other variable.

Dependent Variable

Variable that the researcher measures to see if it is affected by the independent variable.

Internal validity

When everything in an experiment is the same besides the independent variable. When internal validity is high, research can more confidently say that one variable caused the other.

Random Assignment to Condition

All participants have an equal chance in taking part in any condition of an experiment.

Probability Level (p-level)

Number that tells researcher the chance that the results occurred by chance and not because of the independent variable. Significant results (independent variable likely caused the change) when p-level < 5/100.

External Validity

The extent to which the study can be generalized to other situations and people.

Psychological Realism

The extent to which the psychological process triggered in an experiment is similar to those of everyday life.

Cover Story

A disguised version of the studies true purpose to increase psychological realism.

Field Experiments

Studying behavior outside of a lab or in a natural setting. Increases external validity.

Basic Dilemma of Social Psychology

Trade-off between internal and external validity. Solved by doing a lab experiment first then a field experiment to gain internal and external validity.

Replications

Conducting studies in different settings with different populations. Serves as an ultimate test of external validity to see how applicable the results of a study are.

Meta-Analysis

Statistical technique the averages the results of 2+ studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable. Helpful when more than one study has been done on the same topic —> test of reliability of each study.

Basic Research

Finding out why people do what they do just out of curiosity, not intending to answer a certain question.

Applied Research

Geared toward solving a particular problem. Basic research is often foundation of applied research.

Cross-Cultural Research

Studying the effects of culture on the social psychological process.

Open science movement

Movement to make research more open/available to other scientists and the public.

Informed Consent

Researcher explains experiment and asks for participants’ permission. Solves ethical dilemma, but is not always possible.

Deception

Misleading participants about the true purpose of the study, often to make sure they behave naturally and results are not bias.

Debriefing

Explaining the true purpose of the experiment to participants after the study ends.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Any institution that wants federal funding for research/experiments must have this board review research before it is conducted. Made up of one scientist, one non-scientist, and one person who is not affiliated with the institution.

Social Cognition

The way people think about themselves and the social world. How people acquire and use information to make judgements and decisions.

Automatic Thinking

Thought that is unconscious, involuntary, and unintentional.

Automatic analyses

Based on past experiences, part of automatic thinking.

Schemas

Mental structures that organize our knowledge of the social world. The more ambiguous a situation is, the more we will use schemas to fill in the gaps.

Accessibility

If schemas are at the forefront of our minds, we will be more likely to use them when making judgements. Accessible due to past experiences, related to current goals, or recent experiences.

Priming

Recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema/concept. Thoughts must be accessible and applicable to act as primes.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

People have an expectation about what someone else will be like, which influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations, which makes those expectations true.

Judgmental heuristics

Mental shortcuts used to make judgements more quickly/easily

Availability heuristics

Basing a judgement on the ease with which you can bring it to mind

Representativeness Heuristic

Classifying someone based on how similar they are to a typical case

Base Rate Information

Information about the relative frequency of members of different categories in a population. People tend to use representativeness over base rate.

Analytic thinking style

People focus on the properties of objects without focusing on the context. Prominent in Western cultures.

Holistic thinking style

People focus on the overall context and how objects relate to each other. Prominent in East Asian cultures.

Controlled Thinking

Thought that is conscious, voluntary, intentional, and effortful. People can turn it on and off at free will.

Counterfactual thinking

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

Upward counterfactual thinking

Thinking about something that’s better than what you actually have. Often causes unhappiness as you are focused on what could have been instead of what you have.

Downward Counterfactual thinking

Thinking about something that’s worse than what you actually have. Positive way of thinking.

Planning Fallacy

People are 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.

Social Perception

How we form impressions of other people and how we draw inferences about them.

Nonverbal Communication

Intentional or unintentional communication without words, including facial expressions, tones, and gestures.

Encode

Expressing emotions through facial expressions. We generally encode new/surprising and self-relevant information.

Decode

Interpreting emotions from others facial expressions. Basic facial expressions are universal – anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, sadness.

Affect blends

One part of the face registers one emotion while another part registers a different emotion, making decoding more difficult.

Display rules

Particular to each culture. Dictates what kinds of emotions people are supposed to show. In the East, it is more common to cover up facial expressions than in the West (also applicable to eye contact and personal space).

Emblmes

Clear, well-understood gestures that vary culturally, includes thumbs-up, middle finger, etc.

Thin-Slicing

Social perception based on brief snippets of behavior. Explains importance of first impressions.

Primary Effect

What we first learn about a person colors how we see the information we learn next. When someone’s positive traits are named before their negative traits, we are more likely to have a more positive overall view of the person.

Belief Perseverance

Standing by original conclusions even though subsequent information suggests we shouldn’t.

Attrtibution Theory

How we infer the causes of other people’s behavior

Internal Attribution

The cause of someone’s behavior is something about them (their personality, disposition, attitude, etc.) More likely in individualistic/Western cultures.

External Attribution

The cause of someones behavior is something in the situation they are in. More likely in collectivist/Eastern cultures.

Covariation model

Examining behavior from different times and situations in order to find out what causes it.

Consensus information

Different person, same situation. When high, people make external attributions.

Distinctiveness Information

Same person, different situation. When high, people make external attributions.

Consistency Information

Same person, same situation. Necessary in order to make any kind of attribution. When high, people make internal attributions.

Perceptual Salience

The information that catches someone’s attention. We pay attention to/think about other people and assume they alone cause their behavior (as opposed to the situaiton)

Two-Step Attribution Process

1. Make an internal attribution

2. Try to adjust that attribution by considering the situation that that person was in

Requires more effort/attention and we only do so if we sit down and think, are motivated to make an accurate judgement, or are suspicious about the behavior.

Self-serving Attributions

People credit their success to internal factors and failure to external factors. More common in Western cultures.

Belief in a just world

The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Can be problematic – there is some degree of randomness, and bad/good things don’t necessarily happen to bad/good people. More common in countries where wealth is more evenly distributed.

Bias Blind Spot

Thinking that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are

Self-Concept

Beliefs that people have about their own attributes. Develops as people age: from physical attributes to moral character. Morality is central to the self-concept.

Independent View of Self

Defining oneself in terms of one’s own thoughts/feelings. More common in Western cultures.

Interdependent View of Self

Defining oneself in terms of relationships with others. Recognizing that one’s behavior is often a result of the influence of others and connectedness more valued than independence. More common in Eastern cultures.

Self-knowledge

The way we understand who we are

Introspection

Looking inward, examining the information that only we know about our own thoughts/feelings. Amazing skill, but not always perfect – unpleasant feelings/behaviors can be hidden from our consciousness

Self-awareness theory

When we are focused on ourselves, we compare our current behavior to our standard/values. Becoming outside and objective judges of ourselves. Disparity between actions and internal standards causes change in behavior to fit moral standard or uncomfortability if actions don’t change.

Casual Theories

People develop their own theories about why they acted a certain way and then use these theories to explain their behavior. Does not usually yield the correct answer.

Self-perception theories

When our feelings are uncertain, we infer them by observing our behavior in the situation in which the feeling occurs.

Two-factor theory of emotion

How we understand our emotions.

1. Experience physical arousal

2. Try to find an appropriate label/explanation for it

Misattribution of Arousal

People make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do.

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because you like it

Extrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because you are being rewarded for it

Overjustification Effect

People assume they’re more motivated by extrinsic motivators than intrinsic motivators. Rewarding people can make them lose their initial intrinsic motivation, if they have any.

Task-Contingent Rewards

Rewards for completing a task, no matter the performance

Performance-Contingent Rewards

Rewards for doing a task well. Less likely to decrease interest in task, but backfires when people feel too monitored/evaluated.

Fixed Mindset

The idea that people have a set amount of ability that can’t change

Growth Mindset

The idea that achievement is a result of hard work, trying new things, seeking input from other

Social Comparison Theory

People learn about their own abilities by comparison to others. Engage in social comparison where there is no clear standard measure.