Social Cognition Key Terms Flashcards
Adaptively Relevant Environment
The ecological circumstances under which a trait evolved. For humans social life largely evolved in small groups, largely related individuals, with complex language and tool use
Attribution
The attempt to explain behaviour through reasons- ascription of intentionality
Cognitive dissonance
The tension caused by simultaneously holding inconsistent beliefs
Consistency
An individual who behaves the same way in given situations
Consensus
Broad agreement between people about the others explanations of behaviour
Control
What the experimental condition (IV) is measured against
Correspondence bias
A development of the F.A.E emphasising “Tendency to draw inferences about a person’s unique and enduring dispositions from behaviours that can be entirely explained by the situations in which they occur
Distinctiveness
Behaving the same way in different situations
Dependent variable
What is measured in the experiment
Hedonic treadmill
The tendency for people to return to baseline levels of happiness following an adjustment to a major life event - good or bad
Independent variable
Features of an experiment that are manipulated by the experimenter
