SP week 1-2

Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing)

A method of self-enhancement that involves affiliating with an ingroup when that group has been successful.

self-recognition

see self awareness

Comparison group

A group of participants in an experiment who receive either no treatment or an alternative treatment (see control group).

Schema

A cognitive and memory structure for organizing the world.

Entitlement

A short-term impression management tactic where a person takes credit for positive events he or she was not a part of.

Other-enhancement

A short-term impression management tactic where people compliment another person and seem to admire them to increase liking and attraction and gain social influence.

Opinion conformity

A short-term impression management tactic where people endorse the opinion of others to increase liking and attraction and gain social influence.

Self-enhancements

A short-term impression management technique where people imply that their actual accomplishments are more significant than they first appear to be.

Reverse scoring

A technique used to encourage careful reading of each item on a scale by wording questions negatively as well as positively, which reverses the direction of the scoring.

Self-schema

A way to think about how the self-concept is formed whereby memory structures that summarize and organize our beliefs about self-relevant information create a cognitive framework within which individuals interpret the events of their lives.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

An indirect way to measure the strength of particular beliefs or constructs by analyzing reaction times. Faster reaction times suggest a strong mental connection.

Actual self

An individual's current self-concept, including strengths and weaknesses.

Self-compassion

An orientation to care for oneself.

Positive illusions

Beliefs that depart from reality in ways that help us to remain optimistic, especially in relation to the belief we can control our own lives more than we can, the tendency to have an unrealistically optimistic view of the future, and the desire to discover meaning in critical life events.

Self-serving cognitive biases

Cognitive distortions that enhance people's self-concept by making them perceive that they are a little better than they actually are.

W.I.D.E. (D)

Direction. The direction of our social comparison influences our self-concept. Comparing myself to better tennis players is an upward social comparison (that makes me feel worse) and comparing to worse players is a downward social comparison (that makes me feel better). Downward social comparisons tend to enhance our self-concept (Burleson, Leach, & Harrington, 2005; Gibbons et al., 2002; Guimond et al., 2007; Major, Sciacchitano, & Crocker, 1993).

Subjective age

How old individuals feel compared to their chronological age.

Implicit methodologies

Indirect ways of measuring topics that may be skewed by social desirability bias, which produce more reliable, valid responses than direct, explicit, self-report approaches to collecting data (see Implicit Association Test).

Self-monitor

Individuals' ability to notice and adjust their own behavior in an attempt to fit in.

Self-insight:

Individuals' ability to self-observe and evaluate their own behavior

Collective self-esteem

Individuals' evaluation of the worth of the social groups of which they are a member

Self-esteem

Individuals' subjective, personal evaluation of their self-concept, including judgments made about self-worth.

father of social psychology

Kurt Lewin

Optimal margin theory

Psychological theory that proposes a slight to moderate range of healthy distortions of reality improves psychological and physiological well-being.

Social identity theory

Psychological theory that proposes that our self-concept is composed of two parts: a personal identity that is based on personal characteristics and a social identity that is based on social role characteristics

Conspicuous consumption

Publicly displaying the use of expensive products in an attempt to impress others.

falsification

Sir Karl Popper testing whether a hypothesis can be disproved. a skeptical approach taken to determine accuracy of an idea based on eliminating all other possibilities

Self-expansion theory

The idea that all humans have a basic motivation to grow, improve, and enhance our self-concept, specifically through close social relationships.

Ideal self

The person an individual wants to be in the future, including maximized strengths and minimized weaknesses.

Ought self

The person that individuals think others expect them to be. This changes depending on the reference group.

Self-presentation theory

The tendency to adjust the self and perform in slightly different ways for varying others to gain social influence. aka impression management

Self-discrepancy

When a mismatch exists between an individual's actual, ideal, and ought selves.

Independent self-construal

When an individual's ideal self is largely based on internal, personal qualities.

interdependent self-construal

When an individual's ideal self is largely based on social qualities, especially relationships with others.

Inclusion of the Other in the Self (IOS) scale

a scale used to measure psychological inclusion of others in the self-concept where people circle one of many pairs of circles with increasing overlap between "self" and "other" to indicate how much their self-concept includes a specified other person.

Upward social comparison

When individuals compare themselves to someone who is better than they are, often to improve on a particular skill.

father of psychology

Wilhelm Wundt

self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

mirror self-recognition test

a scientific paradigm where a mark is placed on an animal's forehead and it is placed in front of a mirror. the animal is assumed to have self-recognition if it touches the mark on its forehead

false dichotomy

a situation presented as two opposing and mutually exclusive options when both options may work together such as the role of nature and nurture in determining human behavior

clinical or counseling psychologist

a subfield of psychology that helps people who have maladaptive or problematic thoughts or behaviors

random assignment to groups

a technique in which every participant in an experiment has equal probability of being assigned to each group. External variables are likely to be evenly distributed.

double-blind experiment

a tool used by psychologists to reduce bias where neither the participans are in the control group or experimental group. reduces likelihood of hopes/expectations influencing outcomes

single-blind experiment

a tool used by psychologists to reduce bias where the participants do not know whether they are in the control group or the experimental group. reduces likelihood of hopes/expectations influencing outcomes

Social psychology is concerned with social thinking, social influence, and social ______.

behavior

Social psychologists are compelled to study culture and advance ______ in research studies so that outcomes can be applied to a variety of people.

diversity

Narcissism

excessive self-love based on unwarranted belief in one's specialness relative to others.

A single-blind experiment isolates a causal variable by considering the experimenter's biases.

false

Social psychologists use falsification to prove that their theory is correct.

false

self-discrepancy theory

holds that we have three simultaneous selves: 1) actual self: way we see ourselves as we currently are 2) ideal self: person we would like to be 3) ought self: our representation of the way others think we should be - the closer these 3 are to one another, the higher our self-esteem or self-worth will be

A social psychologist conducts an experiment to determine if watching reality television affects the quality of parenting. The experiment helps to establish an answer to which big question?

how do media outlets shape our thoughts and behavior?

W.I.D.E. guide to social comparison

identifies four factors relevant to our subjective processing of what we see around us

nature

influences on our thoughts and behaviors that come from biology or physiology, such as genetics, hormones, or brain differences

nurture

influences on our thoughts and behaviors that come from our life circumstances, how we were raised, experiences we've had, and our environment in general

Which term describes the combination of several influences on behaviors?

interactions

Causal variables

movement in one variable causes movement in the other

Social psychology differs from clinical psychology because social psychology focuses on ______.

normal behaviors seen in everyone

A group of medical students are trained by their supervisor during their first year of residency to detach from their patients with a cool and distant demeanor. During their second year of training, they are assigned to a new supervisor who models engaging and connecting with patients. The residents begin to interact in a more friendly and compassionate way with patients. This exemplifies that which of the following influences behavior?

other people

Social psychologists start with environment to predict behavior and use ______ to get more specific.

personality

Phineas Gage

railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function

A social psychologist who is trying to understand the meaning of someone's behavior should consider the ______.

situation and the individual's personal perspective

the regional self

social identity based on where you are from

three big areas of social psych

social- thinking influence behavior

comparative social psychology

species-level comparisons of social behavior usually used to determine the uniqueness of human behavior

action research

the application of scientific principles to social problem solving in the real world

interactions

the combination of several influences on an outcomes such as the influence of both personality and environment on behavior

Self-efficacy

the degree to which individuals believe that they are capable of completing a specific task or achieving a particular goal.

Cultural self-efficacy

the perception of one's own capability to mobilize motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action necessary in situations characterized by diversity.

self-concept

the personal summary of who we believe we are, including our assessment of our positive and negative qualities, our relationships to others, and our beliefs and opinions

social psychology

the scientific study of how people influence each other's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

positive psychology

the scientific study of human strengths, virtues, positive emotions, and achievements

anthropology

the study of culture and human behavior over time

sociology

the study of human society and social behavior at the group level

Self-perception theory

the theory that individuals form their self-concept by observing their own behavior and trying to infer their own motivations, attitudes, values, and core traits.

self-awareness

the understanding that we are a separate entity from other people and objects in our world; a state of being conscious of our own existence

social comparison theory

the use of social comparisons to construct the self-concept when no other objective standard is available.

Downward social comparison

when individuals compare themselves to someone who is worse than they are, often to help them feel better about themselves.

10 big questions in social psychology

which is more influential- personality or environment nature vs nurture basically good vs basically bad how do people decide whether to maintain romantic relationship? what are the benefits and drawbacks of living in groups? how much are thoughts and behaviors influence by culture? stereotypes/prejudices (why exist/persist) how do media outlets shape our thoughts and behaviors think logically or intuitively? are humans special?

social norms

your perception of what most people around you are doing or thinking

W.I.D.E. (E)

• Esteem. Protecting our self-esteem influences our self-concept. The losing tennis player may say to her opponent, "You played extremely well today," implying that her opponent had to play his or her best to beat her

W.I.D.E. (I)

• Interpretation. How we interpret social comparisons influences our self-concept. Moving into a group home with sick elderly neighbors could be processed in two very different ways (Michinov, 2007): (1) "Thank goodness that I'm not that ill," or (2) "Very soon, I also could be just as needy"

W.I.D.E. (W)

• Who. We evaluate our abilities automatically (Gilbert, Giesler, & Morris, 1995) by comparing ourselves to similar others (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999). Tennis players who are about my ability level or a little better give me the most useful social comparison feedback.