Social Psychology Ch 1-3

Fundamental Attribution Error (Ch 1)

The tendency to explain our own and other people’s behaviors entirely in terms of personality traits (underestimating the power of social influence and the immediate situation)

Behaviorism (Ch 1)

Specifying objective properties of a situation and documenting subsequent behaviors that follow; behaviorism doesn’t care about any internal psychological states, only that our beliefs/actions are a product of our environment

Social Psychology (Ch 1)

The scientific study of how thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are influenced by the presence of other people, real or imagined

Construal (Ch 1)

One's interpretation, perception, or comprehension of the social situation

Gestalt Psychology (Ch 1)

school of thought in psychology that emphasizes understanding the human mind and behavior as a whole, rather than breaking it down into individual components; subjective experience of a phenomenon is more psychologically important than the objective reality of the phenomenon

Naive Realism (Ch 1)

The belief that one’s construals reflect objective reality

Social Cognition (Ch 1)

study of how people select, interpret, remember, and use info to make judgements and decisions

Hindsight Bias (Ch 2)

people exaggerate how much they could’ve predicted something occurring after it has occurred

Confirmation Bias (Ch 2)

searching for/processing information in ways consistent with pre-existing beliefs

Internal Validity (Ch 2)

the only thing affecting the DV is the IV

External Validity (Ch 2)

How well do results generalize to other situations/people?

Psychological Realism (Ch 2)

creating a scene that emulates real life enough to make it real within participants’ mind

Field Experiment (Ch 2)

experiment conducted in a natural setting as opposed to a laboratory

Where do our generated theories come from (2 options)? (Ch 2)

Personal observation or prior theories/research

What is the difference between meta-analysis and archival analysis? (Ch 2)

Archival analysis: examining accumulated data, files, documentation, archives of a culture

meta analysis: a statistical technique that averages results of 2+ studies (from other people) to see if effects of the independent variable is reliable

A positive correlation (Ch 2)

• In/decreases in one variable are associated with in/decreases on other

• 0 < r < (or =) 1

A negative correlation (Ch 2)

• Increases in one variable are associated with decreases on other

• 0 > r > (or =) -1

Main Limitation of the Correlational Method (Ch 2)

Correlation does NOT equal causation; correlation is real, but that does not mean causation of these variables

What is the difference between the electroencephalography (EEG) & the MRI? (Ch 2)

MRI: looking at structural function by pictures

EEG: looking at function by people’s brain waves

Observational Method (Ch 2)

Description: What is the nature of the phenomenon?

Correlational Method (Ch 2)

Prediction: From knowing variable X, can we predict Variable Y?

Experimental Method (Ch 2)

Causality: Is variable X a cause of variable Y?

Correlational Coefficient (Ch 2)

statistic assesses how well we can predict one variable from another (ex: predicting people’s weight from height)

Extraneous (Third) Variable (Ch 2)

A variable that accounts for the correlation between variables of interest

Random Assignment to Condition (Ch 2)

technique that allows experimenters to minimize differences among participants as cause of results

Random Selection (Ch 2)

random sample to get a group from the population

Random Assignment (Ch 2)

randomly assigning roles from that sample

Automatic Thinking (Ch 3)

Nonconscious, Effortless, Unintentional/involuntary

controlled thinking (ch 3)

thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful

Schema (Ch 3)

A mental structure that organizes one’s knowledge about the world

Schema Function (Ch 3)

organize info, direct attention, influence memory/processing

Potential Negatives of Schema (Ch 3)

can lead to misinterpretation, mislabeling, generalization, etc based on race, gender, ethnicity, personality etc

We use schema because they’re accessible in through what processes? (Ch 3)

Expertise, goal state, very recent experience

Cognitive dissonance (Ch 3)

when you have two thoughts that are conflicting, when you say one thing but have done another, it makes us humans feel mental discomfort, and motivates us to change our thoughts/behaviors to achieve consistency and reduce unease

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Ch 3)

Expectations (schemas) affect our behavior towards another in consistent ways, and the other person responds to our action, in a way that confirms our initial expectation (schema)

Judgemental Heuristics (Ch 3)

a mental “shortcut“ that allows judgements to be made quickly

Availability Heuristic (Ch 3)

Making a judgement based on how accessible (available) information is in memory, including recognizing patterns and making assumptions

Representativeness Heuristic (Ch 3)

Judging an attribute, event, or outcome based on how well it matches one’s schema/expectations

Self-fulfilling prophecy vs. Representativeness heuristic (Ch 3)

Representativeness heuristic is about putting people in a category vs prophecy goes further in changing my behavior, which subsequently changes your behavior and fulfills the prophecy

Anchoring/Adjustment (Ch 3)

A judgment strategy where one adjusts their answer based on a starting value/exemplar (anchor)

Counterfactual Thinking/Simulation Heuristic (Ch 3)

People simulate/imagine possible alternative outcomes to events by substituting normal antecedents for exceptional ones

Probability level (p-value)

an analysis of data in experimental science; results are significant (trustworthy) if probability level is <5 in 100 (0.05)

Who believed in focus on the individual, and that internal dynamic conflict between id ego and super ego is basis of psychology? (Ch 1)

Siegmund Freud

Who was a radical behavorist who believed in focusing only on external, environment factors as basis of psychology? (Ch 1)

B. F. Skinner

Who believes that behavior is a function of a person and their environment, which is the basis of social psychology? (Ch 1)

Kurt Lewin