Social Psychology 123

social psychology

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

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

culture

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

social representations

the tendency to ezaggerate after learning an outcome; one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out; also known as the "I knew it all along phenomenom"

hindsight bias

the study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables

correlational research

the way a question or an issue is posed

framing

the experimental factor that a researcher manipulates

independent variable

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

dependent variable

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

demand characteristics

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

spotlight effect

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

illusion of transparency

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

self-concept

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

self-schema

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

possible selves

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

social comparison

construing one's identity in relation to others

interdependent self

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

planning fallacy

overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

impact bias

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

immune neglect

differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciouscly controlled) attitudes toward the same object

dual attitudes

may change with education or persuasion

verbalized explicit attitudes

attitudes that change slowly, with practice that forms new habits

implicit attitudes

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

self-esteem

a sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one's sense of self-worth.

self-efficacy

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

locus of control

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

learned helplessness

the tendency to perceive oneself favorably

self-serving bias

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

self-serving attributions

the adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action

defensive pessimism

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

false consensus effect

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

false uniqueness effect

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

group-serving bias

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

self-handicapping

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

self-presentation

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

self-monitoring

activating particular associations in memory

priming

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

belief perseverance

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

misinformation effect

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

controlled processing

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

automatic processing

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

overconfidence phenomenon

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

confirmation bias

a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgements

heuristic

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

represenativeness 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

availability heuristic

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

counterfactual thinking

perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists

illusory correlation

perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are

illusion of control

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

regression toward the average

mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source

misattribution

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

attribution theory

attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits

dispositional attribution

attributing behavior to the environment

situational attribution

an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someon'es behavior

spontaneous trait inference

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

fundamental attribution error

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

self-awareness

a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

self-fulfilling prophecy

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

behavioral confirmation