Definition Forward Flashcards
Social Psychology
The scientific study of the way that peoples thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
Construal
The way in which people percieve comprehend and interpert the social world
Gestalt Psychology
School of Psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people minds rather than the objective physical atributes of the object
Social Cognition
How people think about themselves and the social world, more specific, how people select interpret remember and use social information
Theory
An organized set of principles that can be used to explain an observed phenomenon
Hypothesis
A testable statment or idea about the relationship between two or more variables
Operational Definition
The percice specification about how variables are measured or manipulated
Ethnography
The method where researchres attempt to understand a group or culture by observubg ut from inside without inposing any preconcieved notions they might have
Archival Analysis
A form of observational: researcher examines accumulated documents or archines of a culture
-diaries, pots, novels, magazines
Correlational Method
They measure 2 or more vaiables to acess the relation between them (how much can one predict the other)
Random Selection
A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representitive of a population by giving everyone an equal change of being selected for the sample
Experimental Method
The method where the researcher randomly assigns participants to a diffrent condition and ensures these conditions are identical except for the indepedant variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on peoples responces)
Internal Validity
Ensuring that nothing other than the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all of the extraneous variables and by randomly assigning participants to conditions
External Validity
The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people
Mundane Realism
the extent to which an experiment is similar to real-life situation
Psychological Realism:
the extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological realism that occur in everyday life. This can be high in an experiment even when mundane realism is low
Meta Analysis
a statistical technique that averages the results of 2 or more studies to see if the effect of an independant variable is reliable
Field Experiment
Experiments conducted in natural settings rather then in the lab
Basic Research
Studies that are designed to find the best answer as to why people behave the way that they do and that are conducted purely for intellectual curiosity
Applied Research
Studies designed to solve a particular social problem building a theory of behaviour is usually secondary to solving the specific problem
Automatic Thinking
Thinking that is unconcious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless
Schemas
mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice think about and remember.
Accessibility
The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of peoples minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world
Priming
the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait or concept
Self-Fufilling prophecy
The case wherby people have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which in turn causes that person to behave consistently with their original expectation
Judgement Heuristics
Mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and effectively
Availability Heuristics
A mental shortcut in which a person base a judgment on the wase with which they can bring something to mind
Representative Heuristics
A mental Shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to the typical case
Base Rate Information
Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population
Controlled Thinking
Thinking that is conscious intentional voluntary and effortful
Counterfactual Thinking
Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been
Thought Suppression
The attempt to avoid thinking about something a person would prefer to forget
Overconfidence Barrier
The barrier that results when people have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgements, peoples judgements are usually not as correct as they think they are.
Analytic Thinking Style
A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context, this type of thinking is common in Western cultures
Holistic Thinking Style
A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to one another, this type of thinking is common in East Asia cultures
