Social Psychology IU chapters 1,2,3, and 4 – Flashcards
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Social Psychology
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the scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by there real or the imagine presence of other people
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Social influence
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the effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors
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Individual differences
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the aspects of people's personalities that make them different from other people
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fundamental attribution error
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the tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors
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behaviorism
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a school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment
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Construal
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the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world
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Gestalt Psychology
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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
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self esteem
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People's evaluations of their own self-worth- that is, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent
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social cognition
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how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions
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hindsight bias
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the tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted an outcome after knowing that it occurred.
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observational method
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the technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behavior
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ethnography
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the method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived motions they might have
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Interjudge reliability
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the level of agreement between two or more people who independently observe and code a set of data; by showing that two or more judges independently come up with the same observations, researchers ensure that the observations are not the subjective, distorted impressions of one individual
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archival analysis
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a from of the observational method in which the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture
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correlational method
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the technique whereby two or more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them is assessed
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correlation coefficient
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a statistical technique that assess how well you can predict one variable from another- for example, how well you can predict people's weight from their height
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surveys
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research in what a representative sample of people are asked questions about their attitudes or behavior
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random selection
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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 for the sample
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experimental method
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the method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable.
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independent variable
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the variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable
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dependent variable
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the variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the independent variable
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random assignment to condition
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a process ensuring that all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment
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p-value (probability level)
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a number calculated with statistical techniques that tells researchers how likely it is the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not by the independent variable or variables
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internal validity
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making sure that nothing besides the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; controlling all extraneous variables
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external validity
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the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people
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psychological realism
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the extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life
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cover story
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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
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field experiments
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experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the lab
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replications
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repeating a study
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meta-analysis
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a statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable
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basic research
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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
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applied research
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studies designed to solve a particular social problem
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cross-cultural research
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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
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evolutionary theory
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a concept developed by charles darwin to explain the ways in which animals adapt to their environments
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natural selection
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the process by which heritable traits that promote survival in a particular environment are passed along to future generations
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evolutionary psychology
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the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection
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informed consent
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agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the environment, which has been explained in advance
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deception
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misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire
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IRB
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an institution that reviews all the psychological research at that institution and decides whether it meets ethical guidelines
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Debriefing
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explaining to participants at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired
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social cognition
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how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions.
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automatic thinking
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thinking that is non conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless
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schemas
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mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subject and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember
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accessibility
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the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people's minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world.
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priming
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the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept
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self-fulfilling prophecy
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the case wherein people have an expectation about what other person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently with people's original expectations, making the expectations come true
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judgmental heuristics
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mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently
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availability heuristic
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a mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring something to mind
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representativeness heuristic
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a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case
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base rate information
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information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population
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analytic thinking style
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a type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context
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holistic thinking style
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a type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to each other
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controlled thinking
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thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful
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counterfactual thinking
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mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imaging what might have been
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overconfidence barrier
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the fact that people usually have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgements
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social perception
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the study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people
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nonverbal communication
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the way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words; nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch, and gaze.
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Encode
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to express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back
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Decode
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to interpret the meaning of nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on back was an expression of condensation and not kindness.
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Affect Blend
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a facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion.
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Display rules
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Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display
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Emblems
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nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations- such as the OK sign
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implicit personality theory
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a type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together; for example, many people believe that someone who is kind is generous as well.
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attribution theory
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a description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior.
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internal attribution
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the inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality
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external attribution
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the inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation
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covariation model
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a theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs.
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consensus information
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information about the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does
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distinctiveness information
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information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli
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consistency information
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information about the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances
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perceptual salience
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the seeming importance of information that is the focus of people's attention
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two step process of attribution
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analyzing another person's behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution
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self serving attributions
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explanations for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one's failures that blame external situational factors.
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defensive attributions
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explanations for behavior that avoid feelings of vulnerability and morality
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bias blind spot
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the tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking that we are
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belief in a just world
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a form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people
