PSYC 104 midterm Flashcards
Regression
Finding a relationship and also taking into account other variables
Basic Research
Asking a question for a question’s sake, no goal beyond understanding the phenomenon
Applied research
Asking questions to accomplish a goal in real life, conducting research that can be directly helpful in the real world
Archival research
Using records to look for insights or patterns in behavior
Observational research
Watching people in their own environment, noting behaviors systematically, interviewing people
Survey
Written questions or interviews that follow a protocol
Conceptual definition
he abstract idea a psychologist wants to measure
Operational definition
How a psychologist measures a concept in a study
Correlational study
Understanding relationships between variables
Experimental study
Evidence causality. Experimental + control condition, random assignment
Natural experiment
No random assignment, real world makes its own experiment
Independent variable
The variable that is assigned or pre-existing
Dependent variable
The variable that is hypothesized to change due to the independent variable
Covariates
Other variables measured that are not of primary interest but may contribute to effect being studied
Validity
Are your results meaningful?
External validity
Do the results generalize to the population you are trying to study?
Internal validity
Are you manipulating ONLY the variable you want to manipulate?
What leads to less internal validity?
Random assignment fails/Selection bias, Differential attrition, Experimenter bias
Measurement reliability
Does the measure have similar results if taken by the same person at different times?
Do the items within the measure correlate with one
another?
Self-perceptions
Self-knowledge
Self-schemas
Beliefs a person has about themselves in general and in specific situations
based on past experience (Broader ideas of self)
Reflected self-appraisals
evaluated oneself based on how the individuals think others perceive them (How we think we’re perceived)
Working self-concept
Evaluating oneself in a particular situation (we feel like we are different in different situations)
Social Comparison Theory
People compare themselves to others
Upward comparisons
Comparing oneself to a person who is perceived as better
Downward comparisons
Comparing oneself to a person who is perceived as not as good
Affect Self-esteem
The overall positive or negative perception one has of themselves
Contingencies of self worth
theory that self-esteem is based on the successes and failures one has in the
domains most important to them
Sociometer hypothesis
theory that self-esteem is based on one’s beliefs about how others appraise them measured if one is included or excluded by others
Self-esteem
Self-report varies by culture, self-report varies by age
Self-regulation
Changing or controlling behavior to achieve a goal
Self-discrepancy theory
A person has 3 selves: Actual self, ideal self, ought self
Actual self
the self one believes they are
Ideal self
the self a person wants to be
Ought self
the self concerned with obligations and demands
The ideal and ought self motivate a person to ___________
Self-regulate.
When these selves are at odds a person may feel agitated, anxious, and guilt
Promotion focus
Focus on positive outcomes
Prevention focus
Focus on avoiding negative outcomes
Self-presentation
Presenting oneself as the person they want people to believe they are
Self-monitoring
monitoring one’s behavior and adapting it to fit the situation
Self-handicapping
Engaging in self-destructive behavior in order to save face in public (eg: partying the night before a final)
How people form evaluations:
Automatic processing and controlled processing
Automatic processing
quick, efficient, uncontrollable/unconscious
Controlled processing
slower, deliberate, conscious
Pluralistic ignorance
Believing a behavior is indicative of a group norm based on observing others’ behaviors, however, unbeknownst to the person, the group members are behaving contrary to their personal beliefs
self-fulfilling prophecies
unknowingly behaving in a way that results in the outcome you expected
Fake news
It is hard to correct information after we learn it. Enhanced refutation can help take down misinformation
Spin framing
highlighting specific information to influence opinions or describing information in ways that
influence opinions
Positive/negative framing
Highlighting either positive or negative info to influence behavior
Temporal framing
When the information is presented as important
Construal level theory
events/situations in the distance (temporally or otherwise) are thought about in more abstract ways and events/situations that are closer are thought of more concretely
Primacy effect
Information presented first is more influential
Recency effect
Information presented last is more influential
Confirmation bias
Seeking out information that is in agreement with your beliefs; Information contrary to one’s biases is subject to more
scrutiny
Overconfidence bias
Having confidence in one’s judgements and decisions than the accuracy of their judgements and decisions
warrant
Forecasting
One’s overestimation of future emotion about a future event
Top-down processing
Theory-driven processing
Bottom-up processing
Data driven processing
Priming
Setting a person up to respond more quickly or strongly to certain stimuli by exposing them to another related
stimulus first
Subliminal priming
preconsciously priming a person with a stimuli, recently controversial because of replicability issues
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts that are meant to make decisions and judgements quickly and efficiently
Availability heuristic
basing one’s judgement/decision of the probability or likelihood of something based on what comes to mind most
easily
Representative heuristic
basing one’s judgement/decision of the probability or likelihood of someone/thing based on prototypes held about that person/thing, often ignoring base-rate
information
illusionary correlation
perceiving a relation between two things when there is not
Features of control
Intent and Consciousness
Intent
▪ making a choice among various options
▪ making the hard choice among various options
▪ paying attention to examples of thought or
choice a person wants
Consciousness
Thoughts, emotional experiences, body sensations that can compete with the external world
Covariation principle
Theory of how a person determines if a behavior is due to the individual or the situation (i.e., everyone does it)
▪ The determination is based on how much a behavior “covaries” from the behavior of others
3 Concepts of the covariation principle
Consensus, distinctiveness, consistency
Consensus
Comparing across PEOPLE
- Is everyone doing it?
Distinctiveness
Comparing across SITUATIONS
- Do they do this in different situations?
Consistency
Comparing across TIME POINTS in the SAME SITUATION
- Have they always done this in this specific situation?
Situational
Meets the 3 concepts of the covariation principle
Dispositional
Does not meet the 3 concepts of the covariation principle
Discounting principle
Tendency to downplay the particular cause of an outcome because there are other potential causes
Augmenting principle
Tendency to favor a particular cause of an outcome because there are other factors would typically result in the opposite outcome
Counterfactual thinking
Imaging an outcome if things had happened differently/under different circumstances; can lead to emotional amplification
Emotional amplification
increase of emotion because one can imagine a different outcome
from the outcome that occurred (connected to counterfactual thinking)
Self-serving attribution bias
Tendency to credit success and good events to oneself and failures and bad events to external factors; can help maintain self esteem
Fundamental Attribution error (FAE)
Tendency to underestimate situational factors in another’s behavior + Tendency overestimate the dispositional factors in
another’s behavior (Usually in the case of other people’s behavior)
Salience
People capture our attention more than other external factors
Just world hypothesis
belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get
Actor-Observer bias
▪ Bias is different for the actor vs. the observer
▪ If the person is the doing the behavior, the person is inclined to make a situational attribution
▪ If the person is observing the behavior, the person is
inclined to make a dispositional attribution
Impersonal Causality
unintentional behaviors, events
Personal causality
Intentional behaviors
Malle’s framework of Folk explanations
People use folk explanations to explain intention
▪ These explanations contribute to attributions for intentional behavior
▪ Reasons → Intentions → Intentional behaviors
Emotion
Responses to one’s construal of a situation, combines bodily reaction and cognitions, short lasting
Mood
Sustained, long-lasting feelings/emotions
James-Lange Theory
Emotions come from a bodily response to a stimuli
Cannon-Bard Theory
Stimuli trigger bodily reaction AND emotion simultaneously
Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
emotions come from a LABELED bodily response to stimuli
Mandler Generation of Emotion Theory
emotions come from a stimulus causing a discrepancy between what happens and what one expected, this leads to arousal, which is labeled and leads to an emotion
Focal emotions
most commonly expressed emotions in a particular culture
Ideal emotions
highly valued emotions in a particular culture
Display rules
culturally-specific norms about how and when to express emotion and who you can express an
emotion to
Independent cultures
Tend to support expressing emotions of excitement, value uniqueness and personal accomplishments
Interdependent cultures
Tend o support expressing calmness and contentedness, Community
Why are emotions important for social relationships?
Knowing how a person feels allows for others to act in accordance
▪ One’s own feelings can lead to actions to maintain
social relationships
Oxytocin
Facilitates relationships by altering emotions; Promotes empathy, generosity, commitment, and cooperation; but can intensify outgroup bias
Broaden and Build hypothesis
Positive emotions help us think about things more broadly, building social relationships and our
understanding of the world while negative emotions narrow our thoughts
Immune Neglect
a tendency to underestimate one’s resiliency to and overestimate the reduction of personal well-being from life’s problems
Focalism
putting more focus on one life event or factor without sufficiently considering other life events or factors that will contribute to one’s
happiness
Duration neglect
a tendency to disregard the length of time one feels an emotion (positive or negative) in one’s memory of the experience
