PSY 102 Midterm 1 Flashcards
What is Social Psychology?
the scientific attempt to explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings
Hindsight bias
people exaggerate how much they could have predicted an outcome after it already happened
theories
system of statements that explain and predict observed events
hypothesis
educated guess
prediction
statement about the outcome of a particular event or experiment
correlational research design
assess strength and direction of association between 2 or more variables
problem with correlation
3rd variable problems: something else was causing the correlation
What can correlations tell us?
- rule out other explanations if measured
- generalize findings outside of a laboratory
- complex longitudinal designs can provide evidence for cause and effect directions
True experiment has…
- control group
- manipulation of independent variables
- random assignment
operationalization
conceptual, measurable variable
limits to experimentation
- construct validity
- external validity
Behavioral variables
response to stimuli or events (choices, reaction time, etc. )
Archival variable
data that is collected prior to the study (i.e. performance, criminal offenses in a given area, etc.)
self report variables
self reported emotions, questionnaires
Physiological variables
nervous system, brain activity
Descriptive statistics
the pattern observed from the data you collected (demographics of a sample,
inferential statistics
generalizability of pattern to more of the population (inferences about general population)
social priming
example of autonomic cognition - how you can influence situational activation without our awareness
False-positive psychology
making decisions to alter the outcome of your collected data
* remove outliers
* recruit more participants
* test for interaction effects
AKA HARKing !
Publication bias
only significant effects are published
Injunctive social norms vs Descriptive social norms
- Injunctive: norms of what you should do
- descriptive: what people are actually doing
Preregistration
protects against confirmation bias by forcing people to publish their expected findings
schema
mental structures that organize and interpret information
self concept
overarching idea we have about who we are
* personality traits
* physical characteristics
* abilities