Copy of `A Social Psychology Glossary`

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A Social Psychology Glossary Category: Sciences > Psychology Date & country: 14/01/2009, USA Words: 240

Inferential statistics
Mathematical analyses that move beyond mere description of research data to make inferences about the larger population from which the sample was drawn.

Information campaigns
Attempts to persuade people to alter their lifestyles in more healthful directions through the use of the mass media and other communication channels.

Information dependence
Dependence upon others for information about the world that reduces uncertainty.

Informational social influence
Conformity, compliance, or obedience due to a desire to gain information (information dependence).

Informed consent
A procedure by which people freely choose to participate in a study only after they are told about the activities they will perform.

Ingratiation
Saying positive things about someone in order to get them to like you.

Ingroup
A group to which a person belongs and that forms a part of his or her social identity.

Ingroup bias
The tendency to give more favorable evaluations and greater rewards to ingroup members than to outgroup members.

Instrumental aggression
The intentional use of harmful behavior so that one can achieve some other goal.

Instrumental conditioning
A form of learning in which a behavior becomes more or less probable, depending on it consequences. Rewards increase the probability that the behavior will be repeated, whereas punishment or no reward reduces the probability.

Interactionism
An important perspective in social psychology that emphasizes the combined effects of both the person and the situation on human behavior.

Internal attribution
An attribution that locates the cause of an event to factors internal to the person, such as personality traits, moods, attitudes, abilities, or effort.

Interpersonal attraction
A person's desire to approach another individual.

Intimacy
Sharing that which is inmost with others.

Intimidation
Arousing fear and gaining power by convincing others that one is dangerous.

Jealousy
The negative emotional reaction experienced when a relationship that is important to a person's self-concept is threatened by a real or imagined rival.

Jigsaw classroom
A cooperative group-learning technique designed to reduce prejudice and raise self-esteem.

Just-world belief
A belief that the world is a fair and equitable place, with people getting what they deserve in life.

Kin selection
A theory that people will exhibit preferences for helping blood relatives because this will increase the odds that their genes will be transmitted to subsequent generations.

Laboratory experiment
An experiment conducted in a carefully controlled environment that simulates real-life settings.

Leader
The person who exerts the most influence on group behavior and beliefs.

Loneliness
Having a smaller or less satisfactory network of social and intimate relationships than one desires.

Low-ball technique
A two-step compliance strategy in which the influencer secures agreement with a request by understating its true cost.

Masculinity
Possession of instrumental personality traits.

Master status
A socially defined position occupied by a person in society that is very important in shaping his or her self-concept and life choices.

Matching hypothesis
The proposition that people are attracted to others who are similar to them in particular characteristics, such as attitudes and physical attractiveness.

Mere exposure effect
The tendency to develop more positive feelings toward objects and individuals the more we are exposed to them.

Meta-analysis
A statistical technique to combine information from many empirical studies on a topic to objectively estimate the reliability and overall size of the effect.

Microexpressions
Fleeting facial signals lasting only a few tenths of a second.

Mindlessness
Responding without thinking about the behavior and its implications.

Misattribution of arousal
A situation in which the explanation of the physiological symptoms of arousal is switched from the real source to another one.

Modesty
Underrepresenting one's positive traits, contributions, or accomplishments.

Need for cognition
An individual preference for and tendency to engage in effortful cognitive activities.

Negative state relief model
A theory suggesting that for those in a bad mood, helping others may be a way to lift their own spirits if the perceived benefits for helping are high and the costs are low.

Negativity bias
The tendency for negative traits to be weighted more heavily than positive traits in impression formation.

Nonverbal behavior
Communicating feelings and intentions without words.

Norm
An expected standard of behavior and belief established and enforced by a group.

Norm of social justice
A social norm stating that we should help only when we believe that others deserve our assistance.

Norm of social responsibility
A social norm stating that we should help when others are in need and dependent on us.

Normative social influence
Conformity, compliance, or obedience due to a desire to gain rewards or avoid punishments (outcome dependence).

Obedience
The performance of an action in response to a direct order.

Observational learning
Learning by watching the actions of others and noting that subsequent rewards they receive.

Old-fashioned racism
Blatantly negative stereotypes based upon White racial superiority, coupled with open opposition to racial equality.

Optimistic explanatory style
A habitual tendency to attribute negative events to external, unstable, and specific causes, and positive events to internal, stable, and global causes.

Outcome dependence
Dependence upon others for positive outcomes or rewards (also know as normative dependence).

Outgroup
Any group with which a person does not share membership.

Outgroup homogeneity effect
Perception of outgroup members as being more similar to one another than are members of one's ingroup.

Passionate love
A state of intense longing for union with another.

Peripheral route to persuasion
Persuasion that occurs when people do not think carefully about a communication and instead are influenced by cues that are irrelevant to the content or quality of the communication.

Personal distress
An unpleasant state of arousal in which people are preoccupied with their own emotions of anxiety, fear, or helplessness upon viewing a victim's plight.

Persuasion
The process of consciously attempting to change attitudes through the transmission of some message.

Physical attractiveness stereotype
The belief that physically attractive individuals possess socially desirable personality traits and lead happier lives than less attractive persons.

Placebo effect
A situation where people experience some change or improvement from an empty, fake, or ineffectual treatment.

Pornography
The combination of sexual material with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior.

Positivity bias
The tendency for people to evaluate individual human beings more positively than groups or impersonal objects.

Prejudice
A negative attitude directed toward people simply because they are members of a specific social group.

Primacy effect
The tendency for the first information received to carry more weight than later information on one's overall impression.

Private self-awareness
A psychological state in which one is aware of one's hidden private self-aspects.

Private self-consciousness
The tendency to be aware of the covert, private aspects of the self.

Prosocial behavior
Voluntary behavior that is carried out to benefit another person.

Proximity
The location of people relative to one another.

Public self-awareness
A psychological state in which one is aware of one's public self-aspects.

Public self-consciousness
The tendency to be aware of the publicly displayed aspects of the self.

Punishment
Adverse stimuli offered following a given behavior that decreases the probability that the behavior will be repeated.

Random assignment
Placement of research participants into experimental conditions in a manner which guarantees that all have an equal chance of being exposed to each level of the independent variable.

Rape myth
The false belief that deep down, women enjoy forcible sex and find it sexually exciting.

Realistic conflict theory
The theory that intergroup conflict develops from competition for limited resources.

Recency effect
The tendency for the last information received to carry greater weight than earlier information.

Reciprocal helping
(Also know as reciprocal altruism.) A sociobiological principle stating that people expect that anyone helping another will have that favor returned at some future time.

Reciprocity norm
The expectation that one should return a favor or good deed.

Reference group
A group to which people orient themselves, using its standards to judge themselves and the world.

Reflected appraisal
Perception of how others perceive us and evaluate us.

Reinforcement
Stimuli offered following a given behavior that increases the probability that the behavior will be repeated.

Representativeness heuristic
The tendency to judge the category membership of people based on how closely they match the 'typical' or 'average' member of that category.

Schemas
Organized systems of beliefs about some stimulus object, which are built up from experience and which selectively guide the processing of new information.

Secure attachment style
An expectation about social relationships characterized by trust, a lack of concern with being abandoned, and a feeling of being valued and well liked.

Self
A symbol-using individual who can reflect upon his/her own behavior.

Self-affirmation theory
A theory predicting that people will often cope with specific threats to their self-esteem by reminding themselves of other unrelated but cherished aspects of their self-concept.

Self-awareness
A psychological state in which one takes oneself as an object of attention.

Self-concept
The sum total of a person's thoughts and feelings that defines the self as an object.

Self-consciousness
The habitual tendency to engage in self-awareness.

Self-disclosure
The revealing of personal information about oneself to other people.

Self-discrepancy theory
A theory that people experience specific negative emotions when they perceive a discrepancy between their self-concept and various self-guides.

Self-efficacy theory
A theory that motivation is determined both by the belief that one is capable of successfully performing some behavior, and by the belief that performing the behavior will lead to certain outcomes.

Self-enhancement
The process of seeking out and interpreting situations so as to attain a positive view of oneself.

Self-esteem
A person's evaluation of his or her self-concept.

Self-evaluation maintenance model
A theory predicting under what conditions people are likely to react to the success of others with either pride or jealousy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy
The process by which someone's expectations about a person or group leads to the fulfillment of those expectations.

Self-handicapping
Actions that people take to sabotage their performance and enhance their opportunity to excuse anticipated failure.

Self-monitoring
The tendency to use cues from other people's self-presentations in controlling one's own self-presentations.

Self-perception theory
The theory that we often infer our internal states, such as our attitudes, by observing our behavior.

Self-promotion
Conveying positive information about the self either through one's behavior or by telling others about one's positive assets and accomplishments.

Self-schemas
The many beliefs people have about themselves that constitute the 'ingredients' of the self-concept.

Self-serving bias
The tendency to assign an internal locus of causality for our positive outcomes and an external locus for our negative outcomes.

Self-verification
The process of seeking out and interpreting situations so as to confirm one's self-concept Sex The biological status of being male or female.

Sex differences
Biologically based differences between males and females.

Sexism
Any attitude, action or institutional structure that subordinates a person because of his or her sex.

Sexual harassment
Unwelcome physical or verbal sexual overtures that create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive social environment.

Sexual orientation
One's sexual attraction toward members of either one's own sex of the other sex.

Sleeper effect
The delayed effectiveness of a persuasive message from a noncredible source.