Terms just to know Flashcards
Hawthorne effect
People’s behavior changes simply by being observed
Rosenthal effect
AKA: Experimenter expectancies/bias; occurs to the cues or clues transmitted by the experimenter to the subjects that results in subjects confirming to the experimenter’s expectations.
Law of effect
Proposed by Thorndike, asserts that people will repeat an action that has had a previously pleasurable outcome
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
the language that people use actually shapes how they think
Law of parsimony / Occam’s razor
Developed by William of Ockham in the 14th century, it suggests that the best explanation for a phenomenon is the one that is simplest and requires the fewest assumptions
Reciprocity hypothesis (social psych?)
People tend to like others who like them
Matching hypothesis (social psych)
Proposes that people of approximately equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other
Similarity hypothesis (social psych)
Proposes that people similar to each other (e.g., age, race, religion) tend to form intimate relationships.
Zeigarnik effect
People are more likely to remember uncompleted tasks than completed tasks
Fundamental attribution error
A cognitive bias that causes people to overemphasize a person’s character or personality when explaining their behavior. It’s the tendency to underestimate the role of situational factors.
Self-serving bias
attributions people make about themselves when they succeed or fail: people typically attribute their own success to internal factors but attribute their own failures to external factors
Fundamental attribution error vs. self-serving bias: what is the key difference?
Fundamental attribution error focuses on how we perceive others, while self-serving bias focuses on how we perceive ourselves.
When judging others, the fundamental attribution error leads us to overemphasize internal factors, while self-serving bias leads us to overemphasize internal factors for our successes and external factors for our failures.
Yerkes-Dodson Law
a principle that states that performance increases with arousal, but only up to a certain point: ideally, anxiety should be low to moderate for the best performance
Weber’s Law
States that the just noticeable difference in stimulus intensity is a constant proportion of the initial stimulus intensity
For example, you might not notice the difference between a 2.0 kg weight and a 2.1 kg weight, but you might notice the difference between a 5.0 kg weight and a 5.1 kg weight.
Weber’s law can explain why it’s harder to detect a difference in a full bowl than an empty bowl, or why small price changes might not be noticed by consumers.
Fechner’s Law
States that physical stimulus changes are logarithmically related to their psychological sensations
