Vocab Words For Chapter 15 Introducing Psychology

Front 1

aggression

Back 1

behavior whose purpose is to harm another

Front 2

frustration-aggression principle

Back 2

a principle stating that people aggress when their goals are thwarted

Front 3

cooperation

Back 3

behavior by two or more individuals that leads to mutual benefit

Front 4

altruism

Back 4

behavior that benefits another without benefiting oneself

Front 5

reciprocal altruism

Back 5

behavior that benefits another with the expectation that those benefits will be returned in the future

Front 6

group

Back 6

a collection of two or more people who believe they have something in common

Front 7

prejudice

Back 7

a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on his or her group membership

Front 8

discrimination

Back 8

positive or negative behavior toward another person based on his or her group membership

Front 9

deindividuation

Back 9

a phenomenon that occurs when immersion in a group causes people to become less aware of their individual values

Front 10

diffusion of responsibility

Back 10

the tendency for individuals to feel deminished responsibility for their actions when they are surrounded by others who are acting the same way

Front 11

group polarization

Back 11

the tendency for a group's initial leaning to get stronger over time

Front 12

mere exposure effect

Back 12

the tendency for liking to increase with the frequency of exposure

Front 13

social exchange

Back 13

the hypothesis that people remain in relationships only as long as they perceive a favorable ratio of costs to benefits

Front 14

equity

Back 14

a state of affairs in which the cost benefit ratios of two partners are roughly equal

Front 15

social influence

Back 15

the control of one person's behavior by another

Front 16

observational learning

Back 16

learning that occurs when one person observes another person being rewarded or punished

Front 17

norms

Back 17

a customary standard of behavior that is widely shared by members of a culture

Front 18

normative influence

Back 18

a phenomenon where by one person's behavior is influenced by another person's behavior because the latter provides information about what is appropriate

Front 19

norm of reciprocity

Back 19

the norm that people should benefit those who have benefited them

Front 20

door-in-the-face technique

Back 20

a strategy that uses reciprocating concessions to influence behavior

Front 21

conformity

Back 21

the tendency to do what others do simply because others are doing it

Front 22

obedience

Back 22

the tendency to do what authorities tell us to do simply because the tell us to do it

Front 23

attitude

Back 23

an enduring positive or negative evaluation of an object or event

Front 24

belief

Back 24

an enduring piece of knowlege about an object or event

Front 25

informational influence

Back 25

a phenonmenon whereby a person's behavior is influenced by another person's behavior because the latter provides information about what is good or true

Front 26

persuasion

Back 26

a phenomenon that occurs when a person's attitude or beliefs are influenced by a communication from another person

Front 27

systematic persuasion

Back 27

a change in attitude or beliefs that is brought about by appeals to reason

Front 28

heuristic persuasion

Back 28

a change in attitude or beliefs that is brought about by appeals to habit or emotion

Front 29

foot-in-the-door technique

Back 29

a strategy that uses a person's desire for consistency to influence that person's behavior

Front 30

cognitive dissonance

Back 30

an unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes the inconsistency of his or her actions, attitudes or beliefs

Front 31

social cognition

Back 31

the processes by which people come to understand others

Front 32

stereotyping

Back 32

the process by which people draw inferences about others based on their knowledge of the categories to which other belong

Front 33

perceptual confirmation

Back 33

a phenomenon that occurs when observers perceive what they expect to perceive

Front 34

self-fulfilling prophecy

Back 34

a phenomenon whereby observers bring about what they expect to perceive

Front 35

subtyping

Back 35

the process of creating a modification to a stereotype, rather than abandoning it altogether, when confronted with evidence that clearly disconfirms that stereotype evidence

Front 36

attribution

Back 36

an inference about the cause of a person's behavior

Front 37

correspondence bias

Back 37

the tendency to make a dispositional attribution even when a person's behavior was caused by the situation

Front 38

actor-observer effect

Back 38

the tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviors while making dispositional attributions for the identical behavior of others

Front 39

frequency distributions

Back 39

graphic representations of the measurement of a sample that are arranged by the number of times each measurement was observed

Front 40

normal distribution

Back 40

a frequency distribution in which most measurements are concentrated around the mean and fall off toward the tails, and the two sides of the distribution are symmetrical

Front 41

mode

Back 41

the value of the most frequently observed measurement

Front 42

mean

Back 42

the average value of all the measurements

Front 43

median

Back 43

the value that is greater than or equal to the values of half the measurements and less than or equal to half the values of the measurments

Front 44

range

Back 44

the value of the largest measurement minus the value of the smallest measurement

Front 45

correlation coefficient

Back 45

a measure of the direction and strength of a correlation, and it is symbolized by the letter r (as in "relationship")