Social Psychology Chap 1

Front 1

social psychology

Back 1

the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people

Front 2

theory

Back 2

scientific explanation that connects and organizes existing observations and suggests fruitful paths for future research

Front 3

socioculture perspective

Back 3

the theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes of social behavior in influences from larger social groups

Front 4

social norm

Back 4

a rule or expectation for appropriate social behavior

Front 5

culture

Back 5

the beliefs, customs, habits, and languages shared by the people living in a particular time and place

Front 6

evolutionary perspective

Back 6

a theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes of social bahavior in the physical and psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce

Front 7

natural selection

Back 7

process by which characteristics that help animals survive and reproduce are passed on to their offspring

Front 8

adaptation

Back 8

characteristic that is well designed to help an animal survive and reproduce in a particular environment

Front 9

social learning perspective

Back 9

a theoretical viewpoint that focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a person's social behavior

Front 10

social cognitive perspective

Back 10

theoretical viewpoint that focuses on the mental processes involved in paying attention to interpreting, and remembering social experiences

Front 11

person

Back 11

features or characteristics that carry into social situations

Front 12

situation

Back 12

environmental events or circumstances outside the person

Front 13

hypothesis

Back 13

a researcher's prediction about what he or she will find

Front 14

descriptive method

Back 14

procedure for measuring or recording behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in their natural state (including naturalistic observations, case studies, archival studies, surveys, and psychological tests

Front 15

experimental method

Back 15

procedure for uncovering casual processes by systematically manipulating some aspect of a situation

Front 16

naturalistic observation

Back 16

recording everyday behaviors as they unfold in their natural settings

Front 17

observer bias

Back 17

error introduced into measurement when an observer overemphasizes behaviors he or she expects to find and fails to notice behaviors he or she does not expect

Front 18

case study

Back 18

an intensive examination of an individual or group

Front 19

generalizability

Back 19

the extent to which the findings of a particular research study extend to other similar circumstances or cases

Front 20

archival method

Back 20

examination of systematic data originally collected for other purposes (such as marriage licenses or arrest records)

Front 21

survey method

Back 21

techinique in which the researcher asks people to report on their beliefs, feelings, or behaviors

Front 22

social desirability bias

Back 22

tendency for people to say what they believe is appropriate or acceptable

Front 23

representative sample

Back 23

a group of respondents having characteristics that match those of the larger population the researcher wants to describe

Front 24

psychological test

Back 24

instrument for assessing a person's abiities, cognitions, or motications

Front 25

reliability

Back 25

the consistency of the score yielded by a psychological test

Front 26

validity

Back 26

the extent to which a test measures what is designed to measure

Front 27

correlation

Back 27

extent to which two or more variables are associated with one another

Front 28

correlation coefficient

Back 28

a mathematical expression of the relationship between two variable

Front 29

experiment

Back 29

a research method in which the researcher sets out to systematically manipulate one source of influence while holding others constant

Front 30

independent variable

Back 30

variable manipulated by the experimenter

Front 31

dependent variable

Back 31

variable measured by the experimenter

Front 32

random assignment

Back 32

practive of assigning participants to treatments so each person has an equal chance of being in any condition

Front 33

internal validity

Back 33

the extent to which an experiment allows confident statements about cause and effect

Front 34

confound

Back 34

a variable that systematically changes along with the independent cariable, potentially leading to a mistaken conclusion about the effect of the independent variable

Front 35

external validity

Back 35

extent to which the results of an experiment can be generalized to other circumstances

Front 36

demand characteristic

Back 36

cue that makes participants aware of how the experimenter expects them to behave

Front 37

field experimentation

Back 37

the manipulation of independent variables using unknowing participants in natural settings