Study Aid

Social Psychology Glossary

Compiled by Donovan Suh from the texts Social Psychology
and Exploring Social Psychology by David G. Myers.





Social Psychology
Professor Scott Plous
Wesleyan University









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Social Psychology Glossary

This glossary defines many of the key terms used in class lectures and assigned readings.


A

Altruism - A motive to increase anothers welfare without conscious regard for ones self-
interests.

Availability Heuristic - A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of
their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume
it to be commonplace.

Attractiveness - Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator
(often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective
preference.

Attribution Theory - The theory of how people explain others behaviorfor example, by
attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to
external situations.

Automatic Processing - Implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without
awareness; roughly corresponds to intuition.


B

Behavioral Confirmation - A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby peoples social
expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.

Belief Perseverance - Persistence of ones initial conceptions, such as when the basis for
ones belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.

Bystander Effect - The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are
other bystanders.


C

Catharsis - Emotional release. The catharsis view of aggression is that aggressive drive is
reduced when one releases aggressive energy, either by acting aggressively or by
fantasizing aggression.
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Central Route to Persuasion - Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and
respond with favorable thoughts.

Collectivism - Giving priority to the goals of ones group (often ones extended family or
work group) and defining ones identity accordingly.

Complementarity - The popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two
people, for each to complete what is missing in the other.

Confirmation Bias - A tendency to search for information that confirms ones
preconceptions.

Conflict - A perceived incompatibility of actions or goals.

Conformity - A change in behavior or belief to accord with others.

Controlled Processing - Explicit thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.

Correlational Research - The study of the naturally occurring relationships among
variables.

Counterfactual Thinking - Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have
happened, but didnt.

Credibility - Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and
trustworthy.

Crowding - A subjective feeling that there is not enough space per person.

Culture - The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group
of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.


D

Debriefing - In social psychology, the post-experimental explanation of a study to its
participants. Debriefing usually discloses any deception and often queries participants
regarding their understandings and feelings.

Deception - In research, an effect by which participants are misinformed or misled about
the studys methods and purposes.

Deindividuation - Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group
situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.

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Defensive Pessimism - The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing ones
anxiety to motivate effective action.

Demand Characteristics - Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is
expected.

Dependent Variable - The variable being measured, so called because it may depend on
manipulations of the independent variable.

Displacement - The redirection of aggression to a target other than the source of the
frustration. Generally, the new target is a safer or more socially acceptable target.

Dispositional Attribution - Attributing behavior to the persons disposition and traits.

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.


E

Embodied Cognition - The mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive
preferences and social judgments.

Experimental Realism - Degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its
participants.

Experimental Research - Studies that seek clues to causeeffect relationships by
manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others
(holding them constant).


F

False Consensus Effect - The tendency to overestimate the commonality of ones
opinions and ones undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.

False Uniqueness Effect - The tendency to underestimate the commonality of ones
abilities and ones desirable or successful behaviors.

Field Research - Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.

Framing - The way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence peoples
decisions and expressed opinions.
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Free Riders - People who benefit from the group but give little in return.

Frustration - The blocking of goal-directed behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error - The tendency for observers to underestimate situational
influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others behavior. (Also called
correspondence bias because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition.)


G

Groupthink - The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking
becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of
alternative courses of action.

Group Polarization - Group-produced enhancement of members preexisting tendencies;
a strengthening of the members average tendency, not a split within the group.


H

Heuristic - A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.

Hindsight Bias - The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, ones ability to
have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along
phenomenon

Hypothesis - A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between
events.


I

Illusion of Control - Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to ones control or as
more controllable than they are.

Illusion of Transparency - The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be
easily read by others.

Illusory Correlation - Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a
stronger relationship than actually exists.

%
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.

Impact Bias - Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.

Independent Self - Construing ones identity as an autonomous self.

Independent Variable - The experimental factor that a researcher manipulates.

Individualism - The concept of giving priority to ones own goals over group goals and
defining ones identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Informed Consent - An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told
enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.

Interdependent Self - Construing ones identity in relation to others.


L

Learned Helplessness - The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human
or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.

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.


M

Matching Phenomenon - The tendency for men and women to choose as partners those
who are a good match in attractiveness and other traits.

Mere-Exposure Effect - The tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more
positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them.

Mirror-Image Perceptions - Reciprocal views of each other often held by parties in
conflict; for example, each may view itself as moral and peace-loving and the other as
evil and aggressive.

Misattribution - Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.

Misinformation Effect - Incorporating misinformation into ones memory of the event,
after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it.

&
Mundane Realism - Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday
situations.


N

Need to Belong - A motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing,
positive interactions.

Non-Zero-Sum Games - Games in which outcomes need not sum to zero. With
cooperation, both can win; with competition, both can lose. (Also called mixed-motive
situations.)


O

Obedience - Acting in accord with a direct order.

Overconfidence Phenomenon - The tendency to be more confident than correctto
overestimate the accuracy of ones beliefs.


P

Peripheral Route to Persuasion - Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues,
such as a speakers attractiveness.

Persuasion - The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or
behaviors.

Physical-Attractiveness Stereotype - The presumption that physically attractive people
possess other socially desirable traits as well: What is beautiful is good.

Planning fallacy - The tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a
task.

Possible Selves - Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.

Priming - Activating particular associations in memory.

Proximity - Geographical nearness. Proximity (more precisely, functional distance)
powerfully predicts liking.


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R

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.
(Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and random sampling in
surveys. Random assignment helps us infer cause and effect. Random sampling helps us
generalize to a population.)

Random Sampling - Survey procedure in which every person in the population being
studied has an equal chance of inclusion.

Reciprocity Norm - An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped
them.

Regression Toward the Average - The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme
behavior to return toward ones average.

Representativeness Heuristic - The tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary
odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling
(representing) a typical member.


S

Self-Concept - What we know and believe about ourselves.

Self-Esteem - A persons overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Self-Handicapping - Protecting ones self-image with behaviors that create a handy
excuse for later failure.

Self-Monitoring - Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and
adjusting ones performance to create the desired impression.

Self-Presentation - The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create
a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to ones ideals.

Self-Schema - Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant
information.

Self-Serving Attributions - A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive
outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors.

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Self-Serving Bias - The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.

Self-Efficacy - A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-
esteem, which is ones sense of self-worth. A sharpshooter in the military might feel high
self-efficacy and low self-esteem.

Situational Attribution - Attributing behavior to the environment.

Sleeper Effect - A delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted
message becomes effective, as we remember the message but forget the reason for
discounting it.

Social Comparison - Evaluating ones opinions and abilities by comparing oneself to
others.

Social-Exchange Theory - The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to
maximize ones rewards and minimize ones costs.

Social Learning Theory - The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and
imitating and by being rewarded and punished.

Social Loafing - The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts
toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable.
Social Neuroscience - An interdisciplinary field that explores the neural bases of social
and emotional processes and behaviors, and how these processes and behaviors affect our
brain and biology.

Social Psychology - The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate
to one another.

Social Representations - A societys widely held ideas and values, including assumptions
and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.

Social-Responsibility Norm - An expectation that people will help those needing help.

Social Trap - A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing its
self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior. Examples include the
Prisoners Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons.

Spontaneous Trait Inference - An effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure
to someones behavior.

Spotlight Effect - The belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and
behavior than they really are.


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T

Terror Management Theory - Proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and
cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and
prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.

Theory - An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events.