Social Psych test 1

self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

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.

self-serving attributions

a form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors.

self-concept

a person's answers to the question, "who am I?"

self-esteem

a person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.

interaction

a relationship in which the effect of one factor (such as biology) depends on another factor (such as environment).

self-awareness

a self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions.

self-efficacy

a sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one's sense of self-worth. A bombardier might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.

gender role

a set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females.

confirmation bias

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

hypothesis

a testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events.

heuristic

a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.

behavioral confirmation

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

priming

activating particular associations in memory.

spontaneous trait inference

an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior.

informed consent

an ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.

theory

an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events.

social neuroscience

an integration of biological and social perspectives that explores the neural and psychological bases of of social and emotional behaviors

situational attribution

attributing behavior to the environment.

dispositional attribution

attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits.

self-monitoring

being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance to create the desired impression.

self-schema

beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

interdependent self

construing one's identity in relation to others.

demand characteristics

cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected.

experimental realism

degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants.

mundane realism

degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

dual attitudes

differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.

social comparison

evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.

group-serving bias

explaining away out group members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group).

androgynous

from andro (man) + gyn (woman)-thus mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics.

collectivism

giving priority to the goals of one's groups (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.

possible selves

images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.

counterfactual thinking

imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn't.

gender

in psychology, the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female.

deception

in research, an effect by which participants are misinformed or misled about the study's methods and purposes.

debriefing

in social psychology, the post experimental explanation of a study to its participants. Debriefing usually discloses any deception and often queries participants regarding their understandings and feelings.

misinformation effect

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

misattribution

mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.

illusory 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.

belief perseverance

persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's beliefs is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.

aggression

physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone. In laboratory experiments, this might mean delivering electric shocks or saying something likely to hurt another's feelings.

self-handicapping

protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure.

field research

research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.

social representations

socially shared beliefs-widely held ideas and values, including our assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.

norms

standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior.

experimental research

studies that seek clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant).

random sample

survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.

self-presentation

the act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals.

spotlight effect

the belief that others are paying more attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are.

personal space

the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our familiarity with whoever is near us.

individualism

the concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions, shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

natural selection

the evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations.

independent variable

the experimental factor that a researcher manipulates.

locus of control

the extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.

immune neglect

the human tendency to underestimate the speed and the strength of the "psychological immune system," which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.

illusion of transparency

the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others.

random assignment

the process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition. (helps us infer cause and effect)

social psychology

the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another

learned helplessness

the sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.

regression toward the average

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

evolutionary psychology

the study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection.

correlational research

the study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables.

fundamental attribution theory

the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (also called corresponding bias)

overconfidence phenomenon

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

hindsight bias

the tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I knew it all along phenomenon.

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.

self-serving bias

the tendency to perceive oneself favorably.

representativeness heuristic

the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling a typical member.

planning fallacy

the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task.

false uniqueness effect

the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.

attribution theory

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

dependent variable

the variable being measured, so called because it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.

empathy

the vicarious experience of another's feelings; putting oneself in another's shoes.

framing

the way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence people's decisions and expressed opinions.

controlled processing

"explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.

automatic processing

"implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponds to "intuition."