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These were typed up to use on my social psychology tests; unfortunately we only got up to chapter 9, so there are still more. I noticed that Google did not have a lot of these definitions so I figured, since I already typed them up, I might as well make them accessible to everyone. The book that these were taken out of is: The 5th Edition Social Psychology book my Aronson, Wilson, & Akert
Chapters 1, 2 & 3 - Social Psych Chap 123 keywords.xls
Accessibility
The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people's minds and are therefore likely to be used when we are making judgments about the social world.
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
A mental shortcut whereby people use a number or value as a starting point and then adjust insufficiently from this anchor.
Applied Research
Studies designed to solve a particular social problem.
Archival Analysis
A form of the observational method in which the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture (e.g., diaries, novels, magazines, and newspapers)
Automatic Thinking
Thinking that is non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless.
Availability Heuristic
a mental rule of thumb whereby people base a judgment on the ease with which they can bring something to mind.
Base Rate Information
information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population
Basic Research
Studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave as they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity.
Behaviorism
A school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment - that is, how positive and negative events in the environment are associated with specific behaviors
Construal
The way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world.
Controlled Thinking
Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.
Correlation Coefficient
A statistical technique that assesses how well you can predict one variable from another- for example, how well you can predict people's weight from their height.
Creational Method
The technique whereby two ore more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them (i.e., how much one can be predicted from the other) is assessed
Counterfactual Thinking
Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been.
Cover Story
A description of the purpose of a study, given to participants, that is different from its true purpose, used to maintain psychological realism.
Cross-Culture Research
Research conducted with members of different cultures, to see whether the psychological processes of interest are present in both cultures or whether they are specific to the culture in which people were raised.
Debriefing
Explaining to participants, at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired.
Deception
Misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire.
Dependent Variable
The variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the independent variable; the researcher hypothesizes that the dependent variable will depend on the level of the independent variable.
Ethnography
The method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions they might have.
Experimental Method
The method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on people's responses)
External Validity
The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people.
Field Experiments
Experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.
Gestalt Psychology
A school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people's minds, rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object.
Hindsight Bias
The tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted an outcome after knowing that it occurred.
independent Variable
The variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable.
Individual Differences
The aspects of peoples personalities that make them different from other people
Informed Consent
Agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment, which has been explained in advance.
Interjudge Reliability
The level of agreement between two or more people who independently observe and code a set of data; by showing that two or more judges independently come up with the same observations, researchers ensure that the observations are not the subjective, distorted impressions of one individual.
Internal Validity
Making sure that nothing besides the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all extraneous variables and by randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions.
Judgmental Heuristics
Mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently.
Meta-Analysis
A statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable.
Mundane Realism
The extent to which an experiment is similar to real-life situations.
Observational Method
The technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behaviors.
Overconfidence Barrier
The fact that people usually have to much confidence in the accuracy of their judgments.
Participant Observation
A form of the observational method in which the observer interacts with the people being observed but tries not to alter the situation in any way.
Perseverance Effect
The finding that people's beliefs about themselves and the social world persist even after the evidence supporting these beliefs is discredited.
Priming
The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept.
Probability Level (p-value)
A number calculated with statistical techniques that tells researchers how likely it is that the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not because of the independent variable or variables; the convention in science3, including social psychology, is to consider results significant (trustworthy) if the probability level is less than 5 in 100 that the results might be due to chance factors and not the independent variables studies.
Psychological Realism
The extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life; psychological realism can be high in an experiment even if mundane realism is low.
Random Assignment
to Condition A process ensuring that all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment; through random assignment, researchers can be relatively certain that differences in the participants' personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions.
Random Selection
A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
Replication
Repeating a study, often with different subject populations or in different settings
Representativeness Heuristic
A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case.
Schemas
Mental Structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember.
Self-Esteem
People's evaluations of their own self-worth - that is, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The case whereby people (1) have an expectation about what another person is like, which (2) influences how they act toward that person, which (3) causes that person to behave consistently with people's original expectations, making the expectations come true.
Social Cognition
How people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions.
Social Influence
The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior
Social Psychology
The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influence by the real or imagined presence of other people.
Surveys
Research in which a representative sample of people are asked (often anonymously) questions about their attitudes or behavior.
Thought Suppression
The attempt to avoid thinking about something we would prefer to forget.
Chapters 4, 5, & 6 - Social Psych Chap 456 keywords.xls
Actor/Observer Difference
The tendency to see other people's behavior as dispositionally caused but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one's own behavior.
Affect Blend
A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion.
Attribution Theory
A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior.
Believe in a Just World
A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people.
Causal Theories
Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviors; often we learn such theories from our culture (e.g. "absence makes the heard grow fonder")
Cognitive Appraisal Theories of Emotion
Theories holding that emotions result from people's interpretations and explanations of events, even in the absence of physiological arousal.
Cognitive Dissonance
A drive or feeling of discomfort, originally defined as being caused by holding two or more inconsistent cognitions and subsequently defined as being caused by performing an action that is discrepant from one's customary, typically positive self-conception.
Consensus Information
Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does
Consistency Information
Information about the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances.
Correspondence Bias
The tendency to infer that people's behavior corresponds to (matches) their disposition (personality)
Counter attitudinal Advocacy
Stating an opinion or attitude that runs counter to one's private believe or attitude.
Covariation Model
A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs.
Decode
To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness.
Defensive Attributions
Explanations for behavior that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality
Display Rules
Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.
Distinctiveness Information
Information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli.
Downward Social Comparison
Comparing ourselves to people who are worse that we on a particular trait or ability.
Emblems
Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations, such as the "OK" sign.
Encode
To express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back
External Attribution
The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation.
External Justification
A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual (e.g. in order to receive a large reward or avoid a severe punishment)
Extrinsic Motivation
The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting.
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.
Implicit Personality Theory
A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together; for example, many people believe that someone who is kind is generous as well.
Impression Management
The attempt by people to get others to see them as they want to be seen.
Independent View of the Self
A way of defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people.
Ingratiation
The process whereby people flatter, praise, and generally try to make themselves likable to another person, often of higher status.
Insufficient Punishment
The dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals' devaluing the forbidden activity or object.
Interdependent View of the Self
A way of defining oneself in terms of one's relationships to other people; recognizing that one's behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others.
Internal Attribution
The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality
Internal Justification
The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (e.g. one's attitude or behavior)
Intrinsic Motivation
The desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures.
Introspection
The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives.
Justification of Effort
The tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain.
Lowballing
An unscrupulous strategy whereby a salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost, subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price; frequently, the customer will agree to make the purchase at the inflated price.
Misattribution of Arousal
The process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do.
Nonverbal Communication
The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words; nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch and gaze
Overjustification Effect
The tendency of people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which it was caused by intrinsic reasons.
Perceptual Salience
The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people's attention.
Performance-Contingent Rewards
Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task.
Post decision Dissonance
Dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternatives
Rationalization Trap
The potential for dissonance reduction to produce a succession of self-justifications that ultimately result in a chain of stupid immoral actions.
Reasons-Generated Attitude Change
Attitude change resulting form thinking about the reasons for one's attitudes; people assume their attitudes match the reasons that are plausible and easy to verbalize.
Self=perception Theory
The theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain our ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs.
Self-Affirmation Theory
The idea that people will reduce the impact of a dissonance-arousing threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence on some dimension unrelated to the threat.
Self-Awareness
The act of thinking about ourselves
Self-Awareness Theory
The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values.
Self-Concept
The content of the self; that is, our knowledge about who we are.
Self-Discrepancy Theory
The idea that people become distressed when their sense of their actual self differs from their ideal self.
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory
The idea that one's self-concept can be threatened by another individual's behavior and that the level of threat is determined by both the closeness of the other individual and the personal relevance of the behavior.
Self-Handicapping
The strategy whereby people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves.
Self-Justification
The tendency to justify one's actions in order to maintain one's self-esteem.
Self-Persuasion
A long-lasting form of attitude change that results from attempts at self-justification
Self-Reference Effect
The tendency for people to remember information better if they relate it to themselves.
Self-Schemas
Mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge about themselves and that influence what they notice, think about, and remember about themselves.
Self-Serving Attributions
Explanations for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one's failures that blame external, situational factors.
Self-Verification Theory
The idea that people have a need to seek confirmation of their self-concept, be it positive or negative, which in some circumstances can conflict with the desire to uphold a favorable view of oneself.
Social Comparison Theory
The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.
Social Perception
The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people
Social Role Theory
The theory that sex differences in social behavior are due to society's division o labor between the sexes; this division leads to differences in gender-role expectations and sex-typed skills, both of which are responsible for differences in men's and women's social behavior.
Spotlight Effect
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which our actions and appearance are salient to others.
Task-Contingent Rewards
Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done.
Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
The idea that emotional experience is the result of a two-step self-perception process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an appropriate explanation for it.
Two-Step Process of Attribution
Analyzing another person's behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution.
Unrealistic Optimism
A form of defensive attribution wherein people think that good things are more likely to happen to them than to their peers and that bad things are less likely to happen to them than to their peers and that bad things are less likely to happen to them than to their peers.
Upward Social Comparison
Comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are on a particular trait or ability.
Chapters 6, 8, & 9 - Social Psych Chap 789 keywords
Affectively Based Attitude
An attitude based more on people's feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object
Attitude Accessibility
The strength of the association between an attitude object and a person's evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object.
Attitude Inoculations
Making people immune to attempts o change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position.
Attitudes
Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas
Behaviorally based Attitude
An attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object.
Central Rout to Persuasion
The case whereby people elaborate on a persuasive communication, listening carefully to and thinking about the arguments, as occurs when people have both the ability and the motivation to listen carefully to a communication.
Classical Conditioning
The phenomenon whereby a stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly paired with a natural stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus
Cognitively Based Attitude
An attitude based primarily on people's beliefs about the properties of an attitude object
Common Dilemma
A social dilemma in which everyone takes from a common pool of goods that will replenish itself if used in moderation but will disappear if overused.
Contagion
The rapid spread of emotions or behaviors through a crowd.
Contingency Theory of Leadership
The idea that leadership effectiveness depends both on how task-oriented or relationship=oriented the leader is and on the amount of control and influence the leader has over the group.
Deindividuation
The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a crowd, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts.
Descriptive Norms
People's perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
An explanation of the two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change: centrally, when people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication, and peripherally, when people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics (e.g., who gave the speech)
Explicit Attitudes
Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report.
Fear-Arousing Communications
Persuasive messages that attempt to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears
Great Person Theory
The idea that certain key personality traits make a person a good leader, regardless of the situation.
Group
Two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.
Group Cohesiveness
Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members.
Group Polarization
The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme that the initial inclinations of its members.
Groupthink
A kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important that considering the facts in realistic manner.
Heuristic-Systematic Model of Persuasion
An explanation of the two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change: either systematically processing the merits of the arguments or using mental shortcuts (heuristics), such as "Experts are always right".
Idiosyncrasy Credits
The tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms; if enough idiosyncrasy credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, behave defiantly without retribution from the group.
Implicit Attitudes
Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious.
Informational Social Influence
The influence of other people that leads us to conform because we see them as a source of information to guide our behavior; we conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action.
injunctive Norms
People's perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others.
integrative Solution
A solution to a conflict whereby the parties make trade-offs on issues according to their different interests; each side concedes the most on issues that are unimportant to it but important to the other side.
Mass Psychogenic Illness
The occurrence, in a group of people, of similar physical symptoms with no known physical cause.
Minority Influence
The case where a minority of group members influence the behavior or beliefs of the majority.
Need for Cognition
A personality variable reflecting the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities.
Negotiation
A form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict in which offers and counteroffers are made and a solution occurs only when both s parties agree.
Normative Social Influence
The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them; this type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors.
Operant Conditioning
The phenomenon whereby behaviors that people freely choose to perform increase or decrease in frequency, depending on whether they are followed by positive reinforcement or punishment.
Peripheral Rout to Persuasion
The case whereby people do not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by peripheral cues.
Persuasive Communication
Communication (e.g., a speech or television ad) advocating a particular side of an issue.
Private Acceptance
Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right.
Process Loss
Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving.
Public Compliance
Conforming to others people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or saying.
Public Goods Dilemma
A social Dilemma in which individuals must contribute to a common pool in order to maintain the public good.
Reactance Theory
The idea that when people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of reactance is aroused, which they can reduce by performing the threatened behavior.
Relationship-Oriented Leader
A leader who in concerned Primarily with workers' feelings and relationships.
Social Dilemma
A conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone.
Social Facilitation
The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.
Social Impact Theory
The idea that conforming to the social influence depends on the strength of the group's importance, its immediacy, and the number of people in the group.
Social Loafing
The tendency for people to do worse on simple tasks but better on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated.
Social Norms
The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members.
Social Roles
Shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave.
Stereotype Thread
The apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype.
Subliminal Messages
Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but may nevertheless influence people's judgments, attitudes, and behaviors.
Task-Oriented Leader
A leader who in concerned more with getting the job done that with workers' feelings and relationships.
Theory of Planned Behaviors
The idea that the best predictors of a person's planned, deliberate behaviors are the person's attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control
Tit-for-Tat Strategy
A means of encouraging cooperation y a first active cooperatively but then always responding the way your opponent did (cooperatively or competitively) on the previous trials.
Transitive Memory
The combined memory of two people that is more efficient that the memory of either individual.
Yale Attitude Change Approach
The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages, focusing on "who said what to whom" - the source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of the audience.
