Social Psychology Unit 1 Flashcards
Social Representations
A society’s widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and cultural ideology. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.
Hindsight Bias
The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen how something turned out (“I knew it all along”)
Field Research
Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory
Correlational Study
The study of naturally occurring relationships among variables.
Experimental Research
Studies that seek clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (IVs) while controlling others.
Random Sampling
Survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.
Framing
The way a question or an issue is posed; can influence people’s decisions and expressed opinions.
Random Assignment
The process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition.
Mundane Realism
Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations.
Experimental Realism
Degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants.
Demand Characteristics
Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected.
Spotlight Effect
The belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are.
Illusion of Transparancy
The illusion tat our concealed emotions leak out and can easily be read by others.
Self-Concept
What we know and believe about ourselves.
Self-Schema
Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.
Possible Selves
Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.
Social Comparison
Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.
Independent Self
Construing one’s identity as an autonomous self (individualistic cultures)
Interdependent Self
Construing one’s identity in relation to others (collectivist cultures)
Planning Fallacy
The tendency to under-estimate how long it will take to complete a task.
Impact Bias
Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.
Immune Neglect
The human tendency to underestimate the speed and the strength of the “psychological immune system” which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.
Dual Attitude System
Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion. Implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habit.
Self-Esteem
A person’s overall self-evaluation sense of self-worth.
Terror Management Theory
Proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural world views and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.
Self-Efficacy
A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem.
Locus of Control
The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.
Learned Helplessness
The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.