Social Psychology: Key Concepts, Methods, and Social Perception

Social Psychology

The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.

Social Influence

The phenomenon at the heart of this field; it is the process by which the real or imagined presence of others affects an individual's thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Individual Differences

The aspects of people's personalities that make them different from others.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person's behaviour stems from internal, dispositional factors (personality) and to underestimate the powerful role of situational factors.

Correlational Method

Systematically measures two or more variables to assess the relationship between them.

Correlation Coefficient

Ranges from -1.00 to +1.00, quantifying the relationship between variables.

Positive Correlation

Means increases in one variable are associated with increases in the other (values >0 to +1.00).

Negative Correlation

Means increases in one variable are associated with decreases in the other (values <0 to -1.00).

Experimental Method

The method used to determine causal relations; it requires the researcher to manipulate variables and randomly assign participants.

Independent Variable (IV)

The variable the researcher changes or manipulates to see if it has a causal effect.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The variable the researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the IV; it is hypothesized to depend on the IV.

Internal Validity

The degree to which an experiment accurately establishes a causal relationship between variables.

Factors Threatening Internal Validity

Differences in participants' personalities or backgrounds (extraneous variables).

Random Assignment to Condition

The process of giving all participants an equal chance of being in any condition, necessary for minimizing confounding variables and maximizing internal validity.

External Validity

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

Generalizability Across Situations

The ability to generalize findings to real-life situations.

Generalizability Across People

The ability to generalize findings to broader populations.

Psychological Realism

The extent to which the psychological processes triggered in the experiment are similar to those in everyday life.

The Basic Dilemma of the Social Psychologist

The unavoidable trade-off between achieving high internal validity (control) and high external validity (generalizability).

Lab Experiments

Experiments that have high internal validity (maximum control) but often low external validity (artificial situation).

Field Experiments

Experiments conducted in natural settings, ensuring high external validity, but suffering lower internal validity due to less control over extraneous variables.

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves and the social world, specifically concerning how we select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions.

Schemas

A mental structure used to organize knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects.

Effects of Schemas

Schemas influence what we notice (as filters screening information), think about (interpretation, especially in ambiguous situations), and remember (memory reconstruction favors schema-consistent information).

Stereotypes

Generalizations where identical, often negative, characteristics are assigned to virtually all group members regardless of variation.

Functions of Schemas

Organizing knowledge, making sense of the world by relating new experiences to past ones, and filling in knowledge gaps.

Importance of Schemas

Schemas are especially important when encountering ambiguous information or situations, helping people interpret what is happening quickly.

Schemas as a Guide to Memory

Schemas guide memory by allowing for selective memory searches, where we recall past behaviours consistent with a goal or self-concept.

Accessibility

The likelihood a schema or concept is at the forefront of the mind and thus used in judgment.

Chronic Accessibility

Accessibility due to past experience.

Temporary Accessibility

Accessibility due to current goals.

Priming

is when a recent experience (like reading a related article) temporarily makes a schema accessible, influencing the interpretation of a new, unrelated event.

Perseverance Effect

is the persistence of initial beliefs even after they have been logically discredited by conflicting evidence.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

occurs when an expectation about a person influences one's behavior toward them, causing the person to behave in a way that confirms the initial expectation.

Judgmental Heuristics

are mental shortcuts used to make judgments quickly and efficiently.

Advantages of Judgmental Heuristics

are that they are efficient and usually lead to good decisions in a reasonable amount of time.

Limitations of Judgmental Heuristics

are that they do not guarantee accuracy and can lead to faulty judgments.

Availability Heuristic

is basing a judgment on the ease with which information comes to mind ('If I can think of it, it must be important').

Faulty Judgments from Availability Heuristic

may occur because the easiest information to recall (e.g., highly publicized events) may not be typical of the overall statistical reality.

Representativeness Heuristic

is classifying something based on how similar it is to a typical case (stereotype).

Base Rate Information

is the data on the frequency of members in different categories in the population.

Underuse of Base Rate Information

occurs because people focus too much on how well the specific information matches their stereotype (representativeness) while neglecting crucial statistical likelihoods.

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

is a process where an individual uses a number or value (the anchor) as a starting point, then adjusts the final answer away from it.

Consequences of Anchoring and Adjustment

usually result in not adjusting the answer sufficiently away from the initial anchor.

Controlled Thinking

is thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.

Ironic Processing

occurs when the conscious attempt to avoid a thought results in that thought becoming more frequent.

Successful Thought Suppression

relies on a two-part process: 1. Intentional Operating Process (conscious, effortful attempt to replace the thought); 2. Ironic Monitoring Process (automatic, unconscious search for the unwanted thought).

Counterfactual Thinking

Mentally changing some aspect of the past to imagine what might have been ('thinking about what might have been').

Social Perception

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

Nonverbal Behaviour

Communication without words (e.g., facial expressions, tone, posture, gaze). Its functions include expressing emotions, conveying attitudes, communicating personality traits, and serving as substitutes for verbal messages (as with Emblems).

Encoded

Expressed or emitted nonverbally.

Decoded

Interpreted.

Display Rules

Culturally determined rules about which emotions are appropriate to show.

Affect Blend

One part of the face registers one emotion while another registers a different one.

Eye Contact/Gaze

Direct contact valued in North America, but disrespectful in some Asian cultures.

Personal Space

Low-contact cultures like North America vs. high-contact cultures like the Middle East.

Emblems

Gestures with clear verbal translations that differ in meaning globally (e.g., the 'OK' sign).

Implicit Personality Theory

A type of schema involving people's ideas about which personality traits go together (e.g., kind implies generous).

Cues to Deception

Include subtle verbal cues (fewer self-references, more negative emotion words) and nonverbal cues (less facial pleasantness, more nervousness).

Attribution Theory

Focuses on how we infer the causes of our own and others' behavior.

Internal Attribution

Cause due to the person's disposition, personality, attitude.

External Attribution

Cause due to the situation or environment.

Kelley's Covariation Model

Describes how we systematically examine multiple instances of behavior to determine if the cause is internal or external.

Consensus Information

Do other people behave this way?

Distinctiveness Information

Does this person behave this way in other situations/stimuli?

Consistency Information

Does this person usually behave this way in this situation?

Attribution Types

Internal: Low Consensus, Low Distinctiveness; External (Situation/Target): High Consensus, High Distinctiveness; External (Circumstance): Low Consistency.

Correspondence Bias

The tendency to infer a person's behavior corresponds with their disposition.

Perceptual Salience

Refers to information that is the focus of attention.

Two-Step Process of Attribution

1) making an automatic internal attribution; 2) adjusting this initial attribution by considering the situation.

Self-Serving Attributions

Explanations where we take credit for successes and blame failures on external/situational factors.

Motivational Bias

The need to protect and maintain self-esteem.

Defensive Attributions

Motivated explanations that help people avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality.

Unrealistic Optimism

Believing good things are more likely to happen to us than average, and bad things less likely.

Belief in a Just World

A belief that people get what they deserve (good to good people, bad to bad people).

Blaming the Victim

A negative consequence of the Belief in a Just World where we conclude victims must have done something to provoke or deserve their misfortune.

Culture and Attributions

Culture affects which attributions are preferred; Westerners are more likely to exhibit the FAE.

Self-Awareness Theory

States that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate their current behavior against their internal standards and values.

Causal Theories

Theories (often culturally learned) about what predicts their moods or feelings.

Self-Perception Theory

States that when attitudes or feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer them by observing our own behavior and the situation in which it occurs.

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to do an activity because it is enjoyable.

Extrinsic Motivation

Doing the activity for external pressures or benefits.

Overjustification Effect

Occurs when an external reward replaces intrinsic motivation, causing people to attribute their behaviour to the reward and underestimate their enjoyment.

Spotlight Effect

The belief that the social spotlight shines more brightly on oneself than it really does.

Illusion of Transparency

The belief that others have greater access to our internal states than they actually do.

Self-Regulatory Resource Model

Holds that self-control is a limited resource, like a muscle that gets tired.

Basking in Reflected Glory

The tendency to associate ourselves with the successes of others.

Implicit Egotism

The unconscious tendency to gravitate toward people, places, and things that resemble the self.

Ego Depletion

The phenomenon where self-control fails when people are stressed, tired, or otherwise mentally depleted.

Self-Effacement

The tendency to attribute success externally and failure internally.

Telling More Than We Can Know

The phenomenon where people offer explanations for their feelings or preferences that go beyond what they can actually know.

Name Letter Effect

The tendency to like letters that appear in one's own name.

Social Spotlight

The perception that others are paying more attention to our appearance or actions than they actually are.

Vivid Awareness

The intense awareness of one's own feelings that leads to the illusion of transparency.

Behavioral Observation

The process of using one's own behavior as a source of self-knowledge.

External Rewards

Incentives that can lead to extrinsic motivation.

Dieters Breaking Diets

An example of ego depletion where individuals fail to maintain self-control when mentally depleted.

Cultural Learning

The process through which individuals learn theories about mood and feelings from their culture.

Situational Causes

Factors in the environment that influence behavior, often considered by collectivist cultures.