Glossary
(See related pages)
acceptance Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.
actor-observer difference We observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves; in some experiments this has led to differing explanations for behavior.
adaptation-level phenomenon The tendency to adapt to a given level of stimulation and thus to notice and react to changes from that level.
aggression Physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm. In laboratory experiments, this might mean delivering electric shocks or saying something likely to hurt another's feelings.
altruism A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests; see also helping norms.
androgynous From andro (man) + gyn (woman)—thus mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics.
arbitration Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies both sides and imposes a settlement.
attitude A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often rooted in one's beliefs, and exhibited in one's feelings and intended behavior); see also prejudice.
attitude inoculation Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that they will have refutations available when stronger attacks come.
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 credibility in persuasion.
attribution theory The theory of how people explain others' behavior; for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations.
authoritarian personality A personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status.
autokinetic phenomenon Self (auto) motion (kinetic). The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.
automatic processing "Implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponding to "intuition."
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.
bargaining Seeking an agreement to a conflict through direct negotiation between parties.
behavioral confirmation A type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.
behavioral medicine An interdisciplinary field that integrates and applies behavioral and medical knowledge about health and disease.
belief perseverance Persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.
benevolent sexism A seemingly favorable attitude that puts women on a pedestal but sometimes conveys an assumption that women need men's protection.
bio-psycho-social The interplay of biological, psychological, and social influences.
blindsight The visual detection and response to the environment but, because of brain damage, without any conscious perception.
brainwashing Coercive persuasion that aims to change beliefs; see also compliance.
bystander effect The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders.
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.
central route to persuasion Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.
channel of communication The way the message is delivered-whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way.
clinical psychology The study, assessment, and treatment of people with psychological difficulties.
co-actors Co-participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity. code-switching. coercion and conformity.
cognitive dissonance Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. For example, dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favoring one alternative despite reasons favoring another.
cohesiveness A "we feeling"; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction for one another factor in groupthink.
collectivism Giving priority to the goals of one's groups (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.
companionate love The affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined.
complementarity The popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two people, for each to complete what is missing in the other.
compliance Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing; see also brainwashing; foot-in-the-door phenomenon.
confederate An accomplice of the experimenter.
confidence see overconfidence confiding, benefit to health.
confirmation bias A tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
conflict A perceived incompatibility of actions or goals beliefs and judgments.
conformity A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.
consensus In attribution theory, the extent to which others act similarly to the person whose behavior is being explained attribution theory.
consistency In attribution theory, the extent to which someone acts similarly on different occasions.
control condition The condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.
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 didn't.
credibility Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy in cult indoctrination.
credible source A source that is hard to discount.
cross-race bias A phenomenon in which eyewitnesses tend to be more accurate when identifying members of their own race than members of other races.
cult (also called new religious movement) A group typically characterized by (1) distinctive ritual and beliefs related to its devotion to a god or a person, (2) isolation from the surrounding "evil" culture, and (3) a charismatic leader. (A sect, by contrast, is a spinoff from a major religion).
culture The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
debriefing In social psychology, the postexperimental 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 study's methods and purposes.
defensive pessimism The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action.
deindividuation Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.
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.
depressive realism The tendency of mildly depressed people to make accurate rather than self-serving judgments, attributions, and predictions.
disclosure reciprocity The tendency for one person's intimacy of self-disclosure to match that of a conversational partner.
discrimination Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members.
dismissive attachment An avoidant relationship style marked by distrust of others.
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 person's disposition and traits.
distinctiveness In attribution theory, the specificity of the person's behavior to a particular situation.
door-in-the-face technique A strategy for gaining a concession in which, after someone first turns down a large request (the door-in-the-face), the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request.
dual attitudes 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 habits.
egoism A motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase one's own welfare. The opposite of altruism, which aims to increase another's welfare effects of.
elevation A feeling of warmth and expansion that may provoke chills, tears, and throat clenching. Such elevation often inspires people to become more self-giving.
empathy The vicarious experience of another's feelings; putting oneself in another's shoes enabling relationship.
equal-status contact Contact on an equal basis. Just as a relationship between people of unequal status breeds attitudes consistent with their relationship, so do relationships between those of equal status. Thus, to reduce prejudice, interracial contact should be between persons equal in status.
equity A condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it. Note: Equitable outcomes needn't always be equal outcomes.
eros Passionate love.
ethnocentric Believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups.
evaluation apprehension Concern for how others are evaluating us.
evolutionary psychology The study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection behavior.
experimental realism The degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants.
experimental research Studies that seek clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant).
experimenter bias The tendency of research participants to live up to what they believe experimenters expect of them.
explanatory style One's habitual way of explaining life events. A negative, pessimistic, depressive explanatory style attributes failure to stable, global, and internal causes.
explanatory style therapy A cognitive therapy that helps people reverse their negative beliefs about themselves and their futures.
explicit attitudes Consciously controlled attitudes.
external locus of control The belief that chance or outside forces determine one's fate.
false consensus effect The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.
false uniqueness effect The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.
fearful attachment An avoidant relationship style marked by fear of rejection.
field research Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.
flow An involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills.
foot-in-the-door phenomenon The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request cult indoctrination.
framing The way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence people's decisions and expressed opinions.
free riders People who benefit from the group but give little in return.
frustration-aggression theory The theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress.
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).
gender In psychology, the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female.
gender role A set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females adaptation.
GRIT Acronym for "graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction"—a strategy designed to de-escalate international tensions.
group Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as "us".
group polarization Group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group.
group-serving bias Explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group).
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." Irving Janis (1971), .
health psychology The study of the psychological roots of health and illness. Provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine.
heuristic A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.
hindsight bias The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.
hostile aggression Aggression driven by anger and performed as an end in itself. (also called affective aggression).
hostile sexism Antagonistic attitudes towardwomen,.
hypothesis A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events.
illusion of control Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are.
illusion of invulnerability An excessive optimism that blinds people to warnings of danger.
illusion of transparency The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others.
illusion of unanimity During groupthink, the overestimating of group members' consensus.
illusory correlation Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.
immune neglect The human tendency to neglect 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.
implicit association test (IAT) An instrument that uses reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts, indicating their implicit attitudes.
implicit attitudes Automatic, unconscious attitudes.
implicit egotism The tendency to like what we associate with ourselves, such as the letters in our name.
independent self Defining the self apart from others.
independent variable The experimental factor that a researcher manipulates.
individualism The concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.
informational influence Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.
informed consent An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.
ingratiation The use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain another's favor.
ingroup "Us"—a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity.
ingroup bias The tendency to favor one's own group cause of conflict.
instinctive behavior An innate, unlearned behavior pattern exhibited by all members of a species.
instrumental aggression Aggression that is a means to some other end.
insufficient justification Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient."–139.
integrative agreements Win-win agreements that reconcile both parties' interests to their mutual benefit.
interaction A relationship in which the effect of one factor (such as biology) depends on another factor (such as environment) of biology and culture.
interdependent self Defining the self in terms of relationships with others.
internal locus of control The belief that one controls one's own destiny.
just-world phenomenon The tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
kin selection The idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes.
leadership The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group.
learned helplessness The hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or an animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.
linguistic intergroup bias The tendency to communicate positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviors in general, trait terms (and to describe negative ingroup and positive outgroup behaviors in more limited, specific terms).
locus of control The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts and actions or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.
low-ball technique A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.
ludus Uncommitted game-playing love.
matching phenomenon The tendency for men and women to choose as partners those who are a "good match" in attractiveness and other traits.
materialism In its economic meaning, refers to prioritizing the accumulation of money and material possessions, often involving conspicuous consumption.
mediation An attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a conflict by facilitating communication and offering suggestions.
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.
mindguarding A phenomenon that feeds groupthink when some members protect the group from information that would call into question the effectiveness or morality of its decisions.
minority slowness effect A tendency for people with minority views to express them less quickly than do people in the majority.
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 one's memory of the event after receiving misleading information about it.
moral exclusion The perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within which one applies moral values and rules of fairness. Moral inclusion is regarding others as within one's circle of moral concern.
mug-shot-induced bias An effect by which exposure to mug shots of a suspect increases the likelihood that the witness will later choose that suspect in a lineup.
mundane realism Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations.
natural selection The evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations.
need for cognition The motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as "The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me" and disagreement with items such as "I only think as hard as I have to."
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).
normative influence Conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance.
norms Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do— what is normal).
obedience Acting in accord with a direct order or command.
ostracism Acts of excluding or ignoring someone.
outgroup "Them"-a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their ingroup.
outgroup homogeneity effect Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. Thus, "they are alike; we are diverse."
overconfidence phenomenon The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs.
overjustification effect The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.
own-race bias The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race.
passionate love A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate lovers are absorbed in each other, feel ecstatic at attaining their partner's love, and are disconsolate on losing it.
peace A condition marked by low levels of hostility and aggression and by mutually beneficial relationships.
peripheral route to persuasion Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.
personal identity A sense of one's personal.
personal space The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our familiarity with whoever is near us.
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.
placebo effect Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent.
planning fallacy Underestimating the time and expense of a project or an endeavor.
pluralistic ignorance A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding.
possible selves Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.
prejudice A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members.
premenstrual dysphoric disorder A severe form of PMS (premenstrual syndrome).
preoccupied attachment Attachments marked by a sense of one's own unworthiness and anxiety, ambivalence, and possessiveness.
primacy effect Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence.
priming Activating particular associations in memory.
prosocial behavior Positive, constructive, helpful social behavior; the opposite of antisocial behavior.
proximity Geographical nearness. Proximity (more precisely, "functional distance").
psychological immune system People's strategies for rationalizing, discounting, forgiving, and limiting emotional trauma.
racism (1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race.
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 sample Survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.
rationalization A defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.
reactance A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.
realistic group conflict theory The theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources.
recency effect Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects.
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 one's average.
relative deprivation The perception that one is less well-off than others with whom one compares oneself.
replication The repeating of an experiment to assess the reliability of the initial findings.
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.
reward theory of attraction The theory that we like those whose behavior is rewarding to us or whom we associate with rewarding events.
role A set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave. self-concept. theory.
rosy retrospection Recalling mildly pleasant events more favorably than the actual experience of them.
schema A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
secure attachment Attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy.
self-affirmation theory A theory that (a) people often experience a self-image threat, after engaging in an undesirable behavior; and that (b) they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people's self-concept in one domain and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain.
self-awareness A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions deindividuation in groups.
self-concept A person's answers to the question "Who am I?."
self-disclosure Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.
self-efficacy A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, one's sense of self-worth. A bombardier might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.
self-esteem A person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.
self-fulfilling prophecy A belief that leads to its own fulfillment; behavioral confirmation.
self-handicapping Protecting one's 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 one's performance to create the desired impression.
self-perception theory The theory that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us, by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs.
self-presentation The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals.
self-reference effect The tendency to process efficiently and remember well information related to oneself.
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.
self-serving bias The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.
self-verification Seeking, eliciting, and recalling feedback that confirms one's beliefs about himself or herself.
sexism (1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex.
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 capital The mutual support and cooperation enabled by a social network.
social cognition How and what we think about one another.
social comparison Evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others attractiveness.
social dilemma An ironic situation in which individuals' rationally pursuing their individual interests leads to collective harm.
social dominance orientation A motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups.
social-exchange theory The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs.
social facilitation (1) Original meaning: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present. (2) Current meaning: the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others.
social identity The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships.
social leadership Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.
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 integration of biological and social perspectives that.
social psychology The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another common sense.
social representations Socially shared beliefs—widely held ideas and values, including our 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 scripts Culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations.
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 Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons.
spontaneous trait inference An automatic tendency to associate with people the traits that they impute to others.
spotlight effect The belief that others are paying more attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are.
stereotype A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information consequence of prejudice.
stereotype threat A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one's reputation into one's self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects.
stigma consciousness A person's expectation of being victimized by prejudice or discrimination.
storge Friendship love.
subgrouping Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group.
subliminal stimuli Stimuli with intensity below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
subtyping Accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule."
superordinate goal A shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort; a goal that overrides people's differences from one another.
task leadership Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals.
terror management According to "terror management theory." people's 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.
Tragedy of the Commons The "commons" is any shared resource, including air, water, energy sources, and food supplies. The tragedy occurs when individuals consume more than their share, with the cost of their doing so dispersed among all, causing the ultimate collapse—the tragedy—of the commons.
transformational leadership Leadership that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.
two-factor theory of emotion Arousal x its label – emotion.
two-step flow of communication The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.
Type A personality Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.
Type B personality Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people.
women-are-wonderful effect A favorable stereotype of women that includes the view that women are more understanding, kind, and helpful than men.
