Psych 121 Midterm 1

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Norms (social)

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rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit cultural conventions

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role

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a given social position that is governed by a set of norms for proper behaviour

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culture

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a program of shared rules that govern the behaviour of people in a community or society, and a set of values, beliefs, and customs shared by most members of the community

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entrapment

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a gradual process in which individuals escalate their commitment to a course of action to justify their investment of time, money, or effort

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social cognition

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an area in social psychology concerned with social influences on thought, memory, perception, and beliefs

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attribution theory

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the theory that people are motivated to explain their own and other people's behaviour by attributing causes of that behaviour to a situation or a disposition

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fundamental attribution error

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the tendency, in explaining other people's behaviour, to overestimate personality factors and underestimate the influence of the situation

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just-world hypothesis

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the notion that the world is fair and that justice is served, that bad people are punished and good people are rewarded

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cognitive dissonnance

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a state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds 2 cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent or when a person's belief is incongruent with his or her behaviour

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familiarity effect

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the tendency of people to feel more positive toward a person, item, product, or other stimulus the more familiar they are with it

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validity effect

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the tendency of people to believe that a statement is true or valid simply because it has been repeated many times

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groupthink

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the tendency for all members of a group to think alike for the sake of harmony and to suppress disagreement

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diffusion of responsibility

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in groups, the tendency of members to avoid taking action because they assume that others will

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deindividuation

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in groups or crowds, the loss of awareness of one's own individuality

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social identity

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the part of a person's self-concept that is based on his or her identification with a nation, religious or political group, occupation, or other social affiliation

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ethnic identity

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a person's identification with a racial or ethnic group

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acculturation

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the process by which members of minority groups come to identify with and feel part of the mainstream culture

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ethnocentrism

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the belief that one's own ethnic group, nation, or religion is superior to all others

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stereotype

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a summary impression of a group, in which a person believes that all members of the group share a common trait or traits (positive, negative, or neutral)

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prejudice

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a strong, unreasonable dislike or hatred of a group, based on a negative stereotype

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theory

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an organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of phenomena and their interrelations

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hypothesis

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a statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relations among events or variables and are empirically tested

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operational definition

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a precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process or phenomena being defined

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principle of falsiability

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the principle that a scientific theory must make predictions that are specific enough to explore the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation; that is, the theory must predict not only what will happen but also what will not happen

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confirmation bias

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the tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one's own belief

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representative sample

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a group of individuals, selected from a population for study, which matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex

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descriptive methods

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methods that yield descriptions of behaviour but not necessarily causal explanations

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case study

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a detailed description of a particular individual being studied or treated

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observational study

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a study in which the researcher carefully and systematically observes and records behaviour without interfering with the behaviour; it may involve either naturalistic or laboratory observation

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psychological tests

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procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interests, abilities, and values

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standardize

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in test construction, to develop uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test

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norms

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in test construction, established standards of performance

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reliability

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in test construction, the consistency of scores derived from a test, from 1 time and place to another

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validity

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the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure

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surveys

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questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions

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volunteer bias

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a shortcoming of findings derived from a sample or volunteers instead of a representative sample; the volunteers may differ from those who did not volunteer

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correlational study

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a descriptive study that looks for a consistent relation between 2 phenomena

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correlation

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a measure of how strongly 2 variables are related to one another

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variables

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characteristics of behaviour or experience that can be measured or described by a numeric scale

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positive correlation

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an association between increases in one variable and increases in another - or between decreases in one and in another

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negative correlation

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an association between increases in one variables and decreases in another

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coefficient of correlation

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a measure of correlation that ranges in value: -1.00 to +1.00

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experiment

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a controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another

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independent variable

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a variable that an experimenter manipulates

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dependent variable

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a variable that an experimenter predicts will be affected by manipulators of the independent variable

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control condition

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in an experiment, a comparison condition in which participants are not exposed to the same treatment as in the experimental condition

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random assignment

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a procedure for assigning people to experimental and control groups in which each individual has the same probability as any other of being assigned to a given group

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placebo

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an inactive substance or fake treatment used as a control in an experiment or given by a medical practitioner to a patient

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single-blind study

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an experiment in which participants do not know whether they are in an experimental or a control group

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experimenter effects

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unintended changes in study participants' behaviour due to cues inadvertently given by the experimenter

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double-blind study

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an experiment in which neither the people being studied nor the individuals running the study know who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group until after the results are tallied

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field research

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descriptive or experimental research conducted in a natural setting outside the laboratory

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descriptive statistics

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statistical procedures that organize and summarize research data

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arithmetic mean

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an average that is calculated by adding up a set of quantities and dividing the sum by the total number or quantities in the set

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standard deviation

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a commonly used measure of variability that indicates the average difference between scores in a distribution and their mean

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inferential statistics

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statistical procedures that allow researchers to draw inferences about how statistically meaningful a study's results are

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significance tests

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statistical tests that show how likely it is that a study's results occurred merely by chance

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cross-sectional study

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a study in which people (or animals) of different ages are compared at a given time

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longitudinal study

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a study in which people (or animals) are followed and periodically reassessed over a period of time

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effect size

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the amount of variance among scores in a study accounted for by the independent variable

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meta-analysis

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a procedure for combining and analyzing data from many studies; it determined how much of the variance in scores across all studies can be explained by a particular variable

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informed consent

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the doctrine that anyone who participates in human research must do so voluntarily and must know enough about the study to make an intelligent decision about whether to take part

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empirical

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relying on or derived from observation, experimentation, or measurement

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psychology

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the discipline concerned with behaviour and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism's physical state, mental state, and external environment

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psychobabble

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pseudoscience and quackery, covered by a veneer of psychological and scientific sounding language

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critical thinking

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the ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgments on the basis of well-supported reasons and evidence, rather than emotions or anecdote

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Occam's Razor

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the principle of choosing the solution that accounts for the most evidence while making the fewest unverified assumptions

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phrenology

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the now discredited theory that different brain areas account for specific character and personality traits, which can be "read" from bumps on the skull

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structuralism

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an early psychological approach that emphasized the analysis of immediate experience into basic elements

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functionalism

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an early psychological approach that emphasized the function of purpose of behaviour and consciousness

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psychoanalysis

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a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud, that emphasized unconscious motives and conflicts

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biological perspective

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a psychological approach that emphasizes bodily events and changes associated with actions, feelings, and thoughts

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evolutionary psychology

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a field of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behaviour

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learning perspecive

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a psychological approach that emphasizes how the environment and experience affect a person's or animal's actions; it includes behaviourism and social cognitive learning theories

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behaviourism

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an approach to psychology that emphasizes the study of observable behaviour and the role of the environment as a detriment of behaviour

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cognitive perspective

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a psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behaviour

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psychodynamic perspective

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a psychological approach that emphasizes unconscious dynamics within the individual, such as inner forces, conflicts, or the movement of institutitional energy

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sociocultural perspective

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a psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behaviour

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humanist psychology

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a psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth and the achievement of human potential, rather than the scientific understanding and assessment of behaviour

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feminist psychology

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a psychological approach that analyzes the influence of social inequities on gender relations and on the behaviours of the two sexes