Definition Forward

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

The scientific study of the way that peoples thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Question 2

Construal

Answer 2

The way in which people percieve comprehend and interpert the social world

Question 3

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 3

School of Psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people minds rather than the objective physical atributes of the object

Question 4

Social Cognition

Answer 4

How people think about themselves and the social world, more specific, how people select interpret remember and use social information

Question 5

Theory

Answer 5

An organized set of principles that can be used to explain an observed phenomenon

Question 6

Hypothesis

Answer 6

A testable statment or idea about the relationship between two or more variables

Question 7

Operational Definition

Answer 7

The percice specification about how variables are measured or manipulated

Question 8

Ethnography

Answer 8

The method where researchres attempt to understand a group or culture by observubg ut from inside without inposing any preconcieved notions they might have

Question 9

Archival Analysis

Answer 9

A form of observational: researcher examines accumulated documents or archines of a culture
-diaries, pots, novels, magazines

Question 10

Correlational Method

Answer 10

They measure 2 or more vaiables to acess the relation between them (how much can one predict the other)

Question 11

Random Selection

Answer 11

A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representitive of a population by giving everyone an equal change of being selected for the sample

Question 12

Experimental Method

Answer 12

The method where the researcher randomly assigns participants to a diffrent condition and ensures these conditions are identical except for the indepedant variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on peoples responces)

Question 13

Internal Validity

Answer 13

Ensuring that nothing other than the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all of the extraneous variables and by randomly assigning participants to conditions

Question 14

External Validity

Answer 14

The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people

Question 15

Mundane Realism

Answer 15

the extent to which an experiment is similar to real-life situation

Question 16

Psychological Realism:

Answer 16

the extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological realism that occur in everyday life. This can be high in an experiment even when mundane realism is low

Question 17

Meta Analysis

Answer 17

a statistical technique that averages the results of 2 or more studies to see if the effect of an independant variable is reliable

Question 18

Field Experiment

Answer 18

Experiments conducted in natural settings rather then in the lab

Question 19

Basic Research

Answer 19

Studies that are designed to find the best answer as to why people behave the way that they do and that are conducted purely for intellectual curiosity

Question 20

Applied Research

Answer 20

Studies designed to solve a particular social problem building a theory of behaviour is usually secondary to solving the specific problem

Question 21

Automatic Thinking

Answer 21

Thinking that is unconcious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless

Question 22

Schemas

Answer 22

mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects and that influence the information people notice think about and remember.

Question 23

Accessibility

Answer 23

The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of peoples minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judgements about the social world

Question 24

Priming

Answer 24

the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait or concept

Question 25

Self-Fufilling prophecy

Answer 25

The case wherby people have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which in turn causes that person to behave consistently with their original expectation

Question 26

Judgement Heuristics

Answer 26

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and effectively

Question 27

Availability Heuristics

Answer 27

A mental shortcut in which a person base a judgment on the wase with which they can bring something to mind

Question 28

Representative Heuristics

Answer 28

A mental Shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to the typical case

Question 29

Base Rate Information

Answer 29

Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population

Question 30

Controlled Thinking

Answer 30

Thinking that is conscious intentional voluntary and effortful

Question 31

Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 31

Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been

Question 32

Thought Suppression

Answer 32

The attempt to avoid thinking about something a person would prefer to forget

Question 33

Overconfidence Barrier

Answer 33

The barrier that results when people have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgements, peoples judgements are usually not as correct as they think they are.

Question 34

Analytic Thinking Style

Answer 34

A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context, this type of thinking is common in Western cultures

Question 35

Holistic Thinking Style

Answer 35

A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to one another, this type of thinking is common in East Asia cultures