Chapter 1 Terms and Questions Flashcards
What did Professor Norman Triplett find in 1897?
In the first published experiment in social psychology, he found a concept called social facilitation: people perform better in the presence of others.
Max Ringlemann discovered what concept in 1880?
Social loafing: people do not work as hard if they’re working with others.
Social psychology is:
The scientific study of how people affect and are affected by others.
The earliest social psychological experiments were conducted in the late 1800s by researchers researchers such as Max Ringelmann and Norman Triplett. What was the topic of these early studies?
The presence of others on individual performance.
According to Gordon Allport, what was the most central concept in social psychology?
Attitudes.
According to Kurt Lewin’s formula, behavior is a function of what two variables?
Person and situation.
In the 1950s and 1960s, psychology was divided between what two camps?
Behaviorist and psychoanalytical camps.
Behaviorism is:
A theoretical approach that seeks to explain behavior in terms of learning principles, without reference to inner states, thoughts, or feelings.
Freudian psychoanalysis is:
A theoretical approach that seeks to explain behavior by looking at the deep unconscious forces inside a person.
ABC Triad
Affect (how people feel inside), Behavior (what people do), Cognition (what people think about)
Anthropology
Study of human culture
Economics
Study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services
History
Study of past events
Unconscious forces are to reinforcement histories as ____ is to ____
psychoanalysis; behaviorism
What research methodology do most social psychologists use?
Experimental studies
What are the components of the ABC triad?
Affect, Behavior, Cognition
What is the primary approach that social psychologists use to uncover the truth about human social behavior?
Scientific method
Political Science
Study of political organizations, institutions, and especially governments.
Sociology
Study of human societies and the groups that form these societies.
Psychology
The study of human behavior
Biological psychology (physiological psychology, neuroscience)
Study of what happens in the brain, nervous system, and other aspects of the body.
Clinical psychology
Study of behavior disorders and other forms of mental illness, and how to treat them.
Cognitive psychology
Study of thought processes, such as how memory works and what events people notice.
Developmental psychology
Study of how people change across their lives, from conception and birth to old age and death.
Personality psychology
Study of important differences between individuals, as well as inner processes.
A social psychologist is usually interested in studying the ____.
individual
Social psychology has most heavily borrowed methodological tools from what other psychology branch?
Cognitive.
A researcher is interested in studying how the annual divorce rate changes as a function of the unemployment rate. this researcher is probably a(n) ___.
political scientist
“Abnormal” behavior is to “normal” behavior as ____ psychology is to ____ psychology
clinical; social
Philosophy
“Love of wisdom”, the pursuit of knowledge about fundamental matters such as life, death, meaning, reality, and truth
Applied research
Focuses on solving particular practical problems.
Basic research
Focuses on a general understanding of basic principles that can be applied to many different problems.
Who said that he spent his entire life studying social psychology because he had a “basic curiosity about people”?
Edward E. Jones
What term when translated means “love of wisdom”?
Philosophy
What are the main factors that separates philosophy from psychology?
Both the length of time the disciplines have been around, and the methods used to study problems.
Which of the following researchers would be classified as a “basic researcher”?
A. Dr. trash studies why people litter
B. Dr. conflict studies aggression between siblings
C. Dr. brain studies memory processes
D. Dr. Love studies how people choose dating partners
C.
Hindsight bias or “knew it all along” phenomenon
The tendency, after an event has occurred, to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen the outcome.
Five basic steps of the scientific method:
- A researcher states a problem to study
- The researcher formulates a testable hypothesis as a tentative solution
- A study is designed to test the hypothesis and collect data
- A test is made of the hypothesis by confronting it with the data
- The researcher reports the study results to the scientific community
Theories
Unobservable constructs that are linked together in some logical way
Hypothesis
An idea about the possible nature of reality; a prediction tested in a study
Within-subjects design
Participants are exposed to all levels of the independent variable
Between-subjects design
Participants are exposed to only one level of the independent variable
Independent variable
The manipulated variable that is assumed to cause changes in the dependent variable
Dependent variable
The variable in a study that represents the result of the events and processes
Operational definitions
Observable operations, procedures, and measurements that are based on the independent and dependent variables
Accomplice
A person who is secretly working for the reasearcher
Construct validity of the cause
The extent to which the independent variable is a valid representation of the theoretical stimulus
Construct validity of the effect
The extent to which the dependent variable is a valid representation of the theoretical response
Experiment
A study in which the researcher manipulates an IV and randomly assigns people to groups (levels of the independent variable)
Random assignment
Procedure whereby each study participant has an equal chance of being in each treatment group
Quasi-experiment
A type of study in which the researcher can manipulate an IV but cannot randomly assign participants to conditions
Internal validity
The extent to which the changes in the IV caused changes in the DV
Confounding
Occurs when two of the effects of variables cannot be separated
Stimulus sampling
Using more than one exemplar of a stimulus
Institution Review Board (IRB)
A committee that makes sure that a research study is conducted in university settings is ethical
Consent form
A document that participants receive before a study begins; the form contains enough information about the study procedures, including any potential harm they (or others) might experience, so participants can decide if they want to participate
Demand characteristics
Any clues in a study that suggest to the participants what the researcher’s hypothesis is
Deception studies
Research studies that withhold information from participants or intentionally mislead them about the purpose of the study
Debriefing
An oral or written statement participants receive at the end of a psychological study, which (1) fully informs participants about the study and answers any questions they have, and (2) reduces or eliminated any stress or harm the participant experienced by being in the study
Reactance
An unpleasant emotional response that people often experience when someone is trying to restrict their freedom
Field experiment
An experiment conducted in a real-world setting
Experimental realism
The extent to which study participants get so caught up in the procedures that they forget they are in an experiment
Mundane realism
Refers to whether the setting of an experiment physically resembles the real world
External validity
The extent to which the findings from a study can be generalized to other people, settings, and time periods
Correlational approach
A nonexperimental method in which the researcher merely observes whether variables are associated or related
Correlation
The statistical relationship or association between two variables
Correlation coefficient (r)
The statistical relationship or association between two variables (ranges from +1.0 to -1.0)
Meta-analysis
A quantitative literature review that combines the statistical results (e.g., correlation coefficients) from all studies conducted on a topic
Random sample
A sample wherein each person in the population has an equal chance of being selected
Population
The total number of people under consideration
Margin of error
A statistic measurement of the amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results, the larger the sample is, the smaller the margin of error
Reliability
A measure that gives consistent results
Validity
Refers to whether a measure actually measures what it purports to measure
Replication
Repeating a study to see if the effect is reliable
Replication crisis
A methodological crisis in which scientists have found that many scientific studies conducted in the past do not replicate, or if they do the effects are smaller in size
HARKing (Hypothesizing After the Results are Known)
When a hypothesis is formulated after the data is collected and analyzed, but presented as if it was formulated before the data was collected
Open science
A movement to make the results from scientific studies openly accessible to all people
What concept allows science to be self-correcting over time?
Replication
Most social psychological studies use participants from which continent?
North America
What type of participants do most social psychologists use in their studies?
College students
Compared to adults in the general population, college students ____.
Have less crystallized self-concepts
