social psych test 1

Question 1

What is social psychology?

Answer 1

the scientific study of the way people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Question 2

social influence

Answer 2

The effect of the words, actions, or mere presence of other people on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors

Question 3

Social Psychology vs common sense

Answer 3

Common sense = folk wisdom
- Social psychologists predict behavior by forming hypotheses and testing them scientifically

Question 4

Social Psychology vs philosophy

Answer 4

Address many of the same questions
- Social psychology explores them scientifically

Question 5

what is the difference between social psychology and other social sciences?

Answer 5

level of analysis.

Question 6

Personality Psychology

Answer 6

Studies the characteristics that make individuals unique and different from each other

Question 7

Social Psychology vs Personality Psychology

Answer 7

Focuses on individual differences
- Ignores the powerful role played by social influence

Question 8

Social Psychology vs Cognitive Psychology

Answer 8

Focus on sequence of basic internal processes that underlie more complex behavior
- Ignores influence of others/society

Question 9

Sociology

Answer 9

Focuses on society at large

Question 10

Social psychology

Answer 10

Focuses on the individual in the context of a social situation

Question 11

Goal of social psychology

Answer 11

To identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture

Question 12

Goal of sociology

Answer 12

To identify why a particular society or group within a society produces behavior (e.g., aggression) in its members

Question 13

what is the major difference between the goal of sociology and social psychology?

Answer 13

Sociology looks toward society at large rather than the individual

Question 14

Max Wertheimer Gestalt theory

Answer 14

The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces

Question 15

who is the founding father of Social Psychology

Answer 15

Kurt Lewin
B = f(P, E); behavior is a function of the person and their environment
Applied Gestalt theory to social perceptions

Question 16

attributions

Answer 16

How we explain behavior
Person (dispositional) variables
Enduring traits (Personality)
Attitudes- Situational variables

Question 17

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 17

Over-estimation of the extent to which people’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors
under-estimation of the role of complex situational factors.

Question 18

When we underestimate the power of social influence…

Answer 18

we gain a feeling of false security.
- Increases personal vulnerability to possibly destructive social influence
- Lulls us into lowering our guard

Question 19

By failing to fully appreciate the power of the situation..

Answer 19

we tend to
- Oversimplify complex situations
- Decrease our understanding of the true causes
- Blame the victim when people are overpowered by social forces

Question 20

social psychology is ___ concerned with the objective nature of social situations and is ___ concerned with subjective

Answer 20

not
more

Question 21

construal

Answer 21

the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world

Question 22

social cognition

Answer 22

how people think about themselves and the social world. How they make sense of it. The need to be accurate.

Question 23

Social cognition motive

Answer 23

Takes into account how people think about the world
We try to gain accurate understandings so we can make effective judgments and decisions
But we typically act on the basis of incompletely and inaccurately interpreted information

Question 24

what are the goals of scientific research?

Answer 24

describe
predict
explain

Question 25

Observational method

Answer 25

The technique whereby a researcher observes people and records measurements or impressions of their behavior. describing social behavior -What is the nature of the phenomenon?

Question 26

correlational method

Answer 26

describing social behavior -What is the nature of the phenomenon?

Question 27

experimental method

Answer 27

the method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable answering causal questions -Is variable X a cause of variable Y?

Question 28

archival analysis

Answer 28

Can be used as an observational method of examining documents or archives of a culture.

Question 29

observational method limitations

Answer 29

Frequency with which behavior occurs, where behaviors occur •Confined to what is observed, that is -- -the people -the setting -the activity •Real world data is extremely messy!

Question 30

correlation

Answer 30

estimates the relationship between two variables. How much can one variable be known based on the other?

Question 31

direction

Answer 31

Whether a correlation is positive or negative

Question 32

magnitude of correlations

Answer 32

Ranges from -1.0 to +1.0 - 1.0 = perfect negative relationship 0.0 = no relationship +1.0 = perfect positive relationship The closer to 1 (in either direction) the stronger the correlation.

Question 33

survey research

Answer 33

the researcher directly approaches subjects and asks them questions. in the experimental method, the dependent variable...

Question 34

in the experimental method, random assignment...

Answer 34

the process of assigning participants to levels of your independent variable. Crucial to true experimental research

Question 35

basic research

Answer 35

studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave the way they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity.

Question 36

social cognition is...

Answer 36

how people select, interpret, and remember social information to judge and make decisions

Question 37

automatic thinking

Answer 37

thinking that is non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless - Count from 1-10

Question 38

controlled thinking

Answer 38

thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful - Count from 1-10 in alphabetical order...starting with eight.

Question 39

schemas

Answer 39

mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects.

Question 40

situation ambiguous

Answer 40

Warm/cold labels affected view of lecturer. - Humorous - Sociable - Considerate How did warm/cold label affect participation?

Question 41

situation unambiguous

Answer 41

lecturer extremely self-confident How did warm/cold labels affect view of lecturer? - Immodest? - Humorous?

Question 42

Information that is ____ with our schemas is easier to recall than information that is ____ with our schemas.

Answer 42

consistent inconsistent

Question 43

memory is reconstructive

Answer 43

We remember some information and what we do not catch or what we forget, our schemas "fill in" for us.

Question 44

accessibility

Answer 44

the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people's minds

Question 45

priming

Answer 45

is the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema

Question 46

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 46

People have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person and causes that person to behave consistently with people's original expectations

Question 47

Judgmental Heuristics

Answer 47

mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently

Question 48

Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 48

a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case

Question 49

base-rate fallacy

Answer 49

the tendency to ignore base-rate information

Question 50

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Answer 50

a mental shortcut whereby people use a number or a value as a starting point and then adjust insufficiently from this anchor

Question 51

False Consensus

Answer 51

The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors

Question 52

False Uniqueness

Answer 52

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.

Question 53

Controlled thinking

Answer 53

thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful. Requires energy and capacity.

Question 54

automatic believing

Answer 54

initial acceptance of information

Question 55

controlled believing

Answer 55

Assess truthfulness of accepted beliefs Unaccept if necessary

Question 56

Thought Suppression

Answer 56

the attempt to avoid thinking about something we would just as soon forget.

Question 57

what are the processes of thought suppression?

Answer 57

Monitoring Process - scans for unwanted thoughts Operating Process: - controlled, attempts to distract from unwanted thoughts

Question 58

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 58

mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been.

Question 59

Overconfidence Barrier

Answer 59

the finding that people usually have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgment - people's judgments are usually not as correct as they think.