Term
| Strength of Correlational Research |
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Definition
• The great strength of correlational research is that it tends to occur in real world settings where we can examine factors. (Pg. 20)
o e.g. Race, gender, and social status (factors we cannot manipulate in the laboratory).
• The disadvantage lies in the ambiguity of the results. (Pg. 20)
• Knowing that two variables change together (correlate) enables us to predict one when we know the other, but correlation does not specify cause and effect. (Pg. 20) |
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Term
| Response Bias/ Demand characteristics in surveys |
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Definition
• The way you frame/phrase questions will give you certain responses. Order, response, and wording effects response, manipulating it.
o Response options - Joop van der plight asked voters what percentage of Britain's nuclear energy they wished came from nuclear power, the average was 41%. They asked other voters what percentage they wished came from (1) nuclear, (2) coal, and (3) other sources. The average preference for nuclear power was 21% among these respondents. (Pg. 22)
o Order of Questions - Americans' support for civil unions of gays and lesbians rises if they are first asked their opinion of gay marriage, compared with which civil unions seem a more moderate alternative. (Pg. 22)
o Wording of Questions - One poll found that 23% of Americans thought their government was spending too much money "on assistance to the poor." Yet 53% thought the government was spending too much "on welfare." Also, more people favor cutting "foreign aid" and increasing |
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Term
| Lab Research and External Validity |
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Definition
• Lab research is low in external validity. External validity is the ability to generalize results from the study
o And ex. used was if someone interested in emotion. And they did a study on confusion but only with confusion related to problem solving puzzles.Don't ask on anything like doing their taxes, or at work, or any real life situations. They just give them puzzles to figure out and study confusion through that. It might be well done but it only studies one emotion and you want a theory on all of them. And its only on one little part of confusion with playing with a puzzle So it does not have a lot of external validity . ( from first wimba lecture 48 min.)
o Another is medical researchers who wanted to study the anger of how they are being treated by doctors. And the confusion regarding whats going to happen to them. And also sad about results that they get. Or maybe happiness when results turnout well. Those are examples of big real life things. So this study will have high external validity because it can generalize more things that actually occur in our lives. Real psychological situation. (First wimba lecture at 50 minutes) |
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Term
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Definition
• The hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or an animal perceives they have no control over repeated bad events.
o The study of the dogs who would try to get out of their kennels; only to be shocked. After repeated sessions, the shocks were no longer delivered; but the dogs didn't try to get out even if they were "free". |
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Term
| Adaptive aspects of self-serving bias (Both) |
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Definition
• The tendency to perceive ourselves favorably. We adapt to this by taking credit and feeling good when something positive happens, but when something bad happens we tend to blame others and feel cheated.
• When good things happen, high-more than low-self-esteem people tend to savor and sustain the good feelings.
• Self -serving bias helps protect perople from depression. Nondepressed people usually exhibit self-serving bias
• Self-serving bias helps buffer stress
• Bonnano (2005) assessed emotional resiliency of workers who escaped the World Trade Center and found that those who displayed self-enhancing tendencies were the most resilient. |
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Term
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Definition
• Protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure.
• Handicaps protect both self-esteem and public image by allowing us to attribute failures to something temporary or external.
• Berglas & Jones (1978) conducted an experiment concerning drugs and intellectual performance. Duke University students answered difficult questions and then was told their scores were the best to date.They were then offered a choice between 2 drugs: one will aid intellectual performance and the other will inhibit it. Most students chose the drug that would disrupt their thinking, thus providing an excuse for anticipated poorer performance. (pg 70-71) |
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Term
| Attribution and negative or unexpected events |
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Definition
• Unhappy couples typically give distress-maintaining explanations for negative acts ("She was late because she doesn't care about me"). Happy couples more often externalize ("She was late because of traffic"). (Pg.99)
• Misattribution- mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.
• Occurs more likely when men are in positions of power. May misinterpret submissive or friendly behavior for sexual interests.
• This explains the greater sexual assertiveness exhibited by men and the tendency for men to justify rape by arguing that the victim consented or implied consent.
• Attribution Theory- Analyzes how WE explain people's behavior
• Internal/ Dispositional attribution- behavior is caused by a person's disposition (natural mental or emotional outlook) and traits
• External/ Situational attribution- behavior is caused by the environment or to physical & social circumstance.
• People are more inclined to attribute behavior to stable personality; others attribute behavior to situations. |
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Term
| The overconfidence phenomenon |
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Definition
| • The tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs. (If needed, there are experiments on Pg. 86) |
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Term
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Definition
the perception of a relationship where none exists, or the perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists. (Pg. 94)
o Research: Ward and Jenkins showed people the results of a hypothetical 50-day cloud-seeding experiment.
• They told the participants which of the days the clouds had been seeded and which days it rained. The info was just a mixture of results.
• However, participants became convinced; in conformity with their ideas about the effects of cloud-seeding-that they actually had observed a relationship between cloud seeding and rain. |
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Term
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Definition
the perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are. (Pg. 94)
o Research: Langer demonstrated this with gambling.
• Compared with those given an assigned lottery number, people who chose their own number demander 4 times as much money when asked if they would sell their ticket.
• When playing a game of chance against an awkward and nervous person, they bet significantly more than playing against a confident person.
• Dice players throw softly for low numbers and hard for high numbers
• Gamblers attribute wins to their skill and lossed to flukes when it is actually just a game of chance.
• Regression toward the average is another way by which an illusion of control may arise (the statistical tendency for extreme scores or behavior to return toward one's average). (Pg. 95)
o Because exam scores fluctuate partly by chance, most students who get extremely high scores on an exam will get lower scores on the next one. Their second score is more likely to regress toward their own average than to go even higher. (Pg. 95) |
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Term
| Research in Foot in the Door Technique |
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Definition
• Researchers posed as drive-safely volunteers and asked Californians to permit the installation of huge, poorly lettered "Drive Carefully" signs in their front yards. (Pg. 130)
o Only 17% consented. Others were first confronted with a small request: would they put up a small "Be a safe driver" window sign? Nearly all agreed.
o When approached two weeks later to allow the large, ugly signs; 76% consented.
• Pliner found 46% of Toronto suburbanites were willing to give to the Canadian Cancer Society when approached directly. Others were twice as likely to donate when first asked to wear a pin about the drive the day before.
• Lipsitz report that ending blood drive reminder calls with, "We'll count on seeing you then, OK?(pause for response)" increased the show up rate from 62 to 81%. (Pg. 131)
• In Internet chatrooms, Markey requested help. Help increased from 2 to 16% by including a smaller prior request.
• Cialdini found that saying "even a penny will help", will help people to donate more. (Pg. 460) |
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Term
| Reducing Cognitive Dissonance |
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Definition
• Cognitive - Occurs when our behavior and our attitudes do not match.
o e.g. People who quit smoking for health risks but then start smoking again. How will they reduce dissonance between their attitude ("I don't like smoking") and their behavior ("I am smoking again").
• Changing attitudes
o e.g. "I don't really need to quit; I like smoking."
• Adding cognitions - add more consonant thoughts.
o e.g. "Smoking relaxes me and keeps my weight down, which benefits my health."
• Altering the importance of the discrepancy
o e.g. "It's more important to stay relaxed and slim than to worry about maybe getting cancer 30 years from now."
• Reducing perceived choice
o e.g. "I have no choice but to smoke. I have so much stress in my life, and it is one of the only ways to calm my nerves."
• Changing behavior - change behavior so it no longer conflicts with their behavior.
o e.g. "I'm going to stop smoking again." |
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Term
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Definition
• 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. (Pg. 141)
• We infer our emotions by observing our bodies and behavior. (Pg. 141)
o e.g. A growling bear confronts a woman. She tenses, her heartbeat increases, adrenaline flows, and she runs away. Observing all of this, she then experiences fear. (Pg. 141)
• When we make inferences about other people we attribute their behavior to their traits, attitudes or environmental forces. We make similar inferences when we observe our own behavior. |
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Term
| Overjustification effect and praise |
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Definition
• Overjustification effect - the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing.
• Rewards and praise that inform people of their achievements - that make them feel "Im very good at this" - boost intrinsic motivation. Rewards that seek to controk people and lead them to belive it was the reawrd tghat caused their effort - "I did it for the money" - dominish the intrinsic appeal of an enjoyable task. (Pg. 145) |
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Term
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Definition
• 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. (Pg. 229)
• If a credible person's message is persuasive, its impact may fade as its source is forgotten or dissociated from the message.
• The impact of a non credible person may correspondingly increase over time if people remember the message better than the reason for discounting it. (Pg. 229) |
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Term
| Favorable stereotypes and benevolent discrimination |
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Definition
• Europeans have certain ideas about other Europeans. They see Germans as hardworking, the French as pleasure-loving, the British as cool and unexitable, the Italians as amorous, and the Dutch as reliable. (Pg. 303)
• During the 1980's, women who had the title of "Ms." were seen as more ambitious and assertive than those who were called "Miss" or "Mrs." Now that "Ms." is standard, the stereotype has shifted. It is actually married women who keep their own surnames that are seen as assertive and ambitious. (Pg. 303) |
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Term
| prejudice and status (including unequal) |
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Definition
• Unequal status breeds prejudice. Once these inequalities exist, prejudice helps justify the economic and social superiority of those who have wealth and power. (Pg. 311)
• Helen Mayer Hacker (1951) noted how stereotypes of blacks and women help rationalize the inferior status of each: Many people thought both groups were mentally slow, emotional and primitive, and "contended" with their subordinate role. Blacks were all right in their place, and women's place was in the home. (Pg. 311)
• We respect the competence of those high in status and like those who agreeably accept a lower status. (Pg. 312)
• Sidanius and Pratto say that the desire to be on top (hierarchically) makes people of high social dominace accept prejudice and support political positions that justify prejudice. (Pg. 312) |
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Term
| Prejudice and Awarenes (text) |
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Definition
• Prejudiced and stereotypic evaluations can occur outside people's awareness.
• Some studies briefly flash words or faces that "prime" stereotypes for some kind of group. Without their awareness, the college student's activated stereotypes may bias their behavior. For example, having been primed with images associated with African Americans, they may react with more hostility to an experimenter's annoying request. (Pg. 304) |
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Term
| Realistic group conflict theory |
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Definition
| • Limited resources can lead to conflict between groups who seek a common resource. This is the reason why discrimination and stereotypes can develop within a society. (Wikipedia... add more if you have it.) |
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Term
| Attitudes about conformity across cultures |
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Definition
• Compared with people in individualistic cultures, those in collectovist countries (where harmony is prized and conncections help define the self) are more responsive to others' influence. (Pg. 215)
• Whittaker and Meade repeated asch's conformity experiment (The one with the three lines p.194), and found 31% in Lebanon, 32% in Hong Kong, 34% in Brazil, but 51% conformed among the Bantu of Zimbabwe, a tribe with strong sanctions for nonconformity. (Pg. 215) |
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Term
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Definition
• Presence of experimenter affects obediance ( full obediance dropped to 21% when done by phone).
• Authority must be perceived at legitimate, especially if theyare backed by institutions. For example in Milgram's experiment, many particiapnts said that if it had not been for Yale's reputation, they would not have obeyed. (Pg. 199 - 201) |
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Term
| Encouragement of Participants in the Milgram Experiment |
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Definition
• Two men come to participate in the study of learning and memory. A Stern experimenter in a lab coat explains that the experiment requires one of them to teach a list of word pairs and the other to punish errors with shocks of increasing intensity. To make the participant keep giving shocks, the experimenter says four things:
1) "Please continue."
2) "The experiment requires that you continue."
3) "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
4) "You have no other choice; you must go on.
• 65% of the men progressed all the way to 450 volts." (Pgs. 195 - 196) |
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Term
| Early social facilitation research |
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Definition
• 1897, people wound up a fishing line faster when people were watching (people watching helps us to do better on tasks
• later social faciliatation was defined as any kind of change in performance when people are watching |
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Term
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Definition
• Zimbardo dressed NYC women in identical white coats and hoods (like the KKK). When asked to deliver shocks to a woman, the cloaked women pressed the button twice as long as did the women who were visible and wearing large name tags. (Pg. 273)
• Compared to face-to-face conversations, the anonymity offered by chat rooms etc. has been observed to foster more hostile, uninhibited behavior. (Pg. 273) |
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Term
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Definition
| the tendency for a group's decision to be riskier than an individual's decision. (Pg. 277) |
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Term
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Definition
a group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the member's average tendency, not a split within the group. (Pg. 277)
o James Stoner gave an example of a writer, Helen, who writes cheap westerns and wants to write a novel. The participants would individually have to choose at what success rate should Helen write the novel (10/10 is certain that the novel will be a success). They would be split off into groups to discuss and reach an agreement. |
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Term
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Definition
• Be impartial - Do not endorse any position
• Encourage critical evaluation; assign a "devil's advocate."
• Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite to air differences.
• Welcome critiques from outside experts and associates
• Before implementing, call a "second chance" meeting to air any lingering doubts. (Pg. 269) |
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Term
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Definition
• The tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them
o Acquiring through exposure; works for art, taste, music, humans, etc.
o Assigned seats in different increments, and there is a questionnaire at the end of the block of time as to who students know and how well. When they have been exposed to more than one or two assigned seats around different individuals, the students knew more students to higher degrees. |
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Term
| Hatfield et al's Freshman Dance study |
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Definition
| • Hatfield matched 752 first year college students for a dance. The researchers gave each student personality and aptitude tests but then matched the couples randomly. On the night of the dance, the couples interacted and then took a break to evaluate their dates. The more attractive a woman was, the more the man liked her and wanted to date her again. The more attractive the man was, the more the woman liked him and wanted to date him again. (Pg. 391) |
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Term
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Definition
• The contrast effect that makes average people feel homely in the company of beautiful people also makes sad people more conscious of their misery in the company of cheerful people. (pg.402)
• P. 397. Shown a picture of an average young woman, those who had just been watching Charlie's Angels rated her less attractive than those who hadn't. (Kenrick and Gutierres 1980) Laboratory experiments confirm this "contrast effect". To men who have recently been gazing at centerfolds, average women or even their own wives tend to seem less attractive. |
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Term
| Gottman's research on Healthy marriages |
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Definition
• Gottman observed 2,000 couples. He found that healthy marriages were marked by an ability to reconcile differences and to overbalance criticism with affection.
• In successful marriages, positive interactions (smiling, touching, laughing) outnumbered negative interactions (sarcasm, disapproval, insults) by atleast a fine-to-one ratio. |
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Term
| Brain activity and violent criminals |
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Definition
| • The prefrontal cortex was 14% less active than normal in murderers and 15% smaller in the antisocial men. (Pg. 347) |
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Term
| Hormonal influences on aggression |
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Definition
• Human aggressiveness correlates with testosterone. (Pg. 348)
• After people reach 25, their testosterone levels and rates of violent crime decrease together
• Testosterone levels tend to be higher among prisoners convicted of planned and unprovoked violent crimes than of nonviolent crimes.
• Those boys and adult men with high testosterone levels are more prone to delinquency, hard drug use, and aggressive responses to provocation.
• After handling a gun, testosterone levels increase.
• Low serotonin is often found among violence-prone children and adults. |
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Term
| Considerations of the aggressor according to the social learning theory (in relation to Family and Culture) |
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Definition
• Family
o Physically aggressive children tend to have had physically aggressive parents who disciplined them with screaming and beating.
o Family influence is higher in violence rates in families with absentee fathers.
• Culture
o Social environment outside the home provides models.
o In communities where "macho" images are admired, aggression is transfered through generations
o *Let me know if you think this is the wrong info. I got all of it from (Pg. 353) |
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Term
| Research findings on the results of playing video games |
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Definition
• Playing violent video games, more than playing nonviolent games increases arousal, aggressive thinking, aggressive feelings and behaviors, and decreased prosocial behavior
• After playing games such as Mortal Combat, university students became more likely to guess that a man whose car eas just rear ended would respond aggressively by using abusive language, kicking out the window or starting a fight. (Pg. 369)
• Frustration levels, heart rate and blood pressure rise.
• After violent game play, children and youth play more aggressively with their peers, get in more arguments with their teachers, and participate in more fights.
• Even for those who scored low in hostility, the percentage of heavy violent gamers who got into fights was 10 times the 4% involved in fights among their non gaming counterparts. Previously nonhostile kids become more likely to have fights.
• People become slower to help a person whimpering in the hallway outside and slower to offer help to peers. |
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Term
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Definition
• Altruism is a motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests (Pg. 429)
• Egoism is a motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase one's own welfare (Pg. 430) |
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Term
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Definition
| the idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes. Favoritism toward those who share our genes. |
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Term
| Genetic egoism fosters ____________. |
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Definition
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Term
| Bystander intervention (the bystander effect): conditions when it is most likely |
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Definition
| As the number of people known to be aware of an emergency increases, any given person becomes less likely to help. For the victim, there is no safety in numbers. (ex. study done in office where woman is heard in another room falling off chair and is heard moaning in pain. 70% alone offered to help. Among pairs of strangers, only 40% offered to help). |
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Term
| Increasing Bystander's helpfulness (3 main points) |
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Definition
• Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility
o Personal appeals for blood donation are more effective than posters and media annoucements (if the appeals come from friends).
o Personalized nonverbal appeals can also be effective: Hitchhikers doubled their number of ride offers by looking the drivers in the eye.
o Bystanders that identified with one another (by name, age etc) were more likely to aid a sick person than anonymous bystanders
o Helpfulness also increases when one expects to meet the victim again.
• Guilt and concern for self-image
o Guilty people are more helpful: At the zoo, when someone got called out for feeding the animals, 58% offered help to another experimenter who had dropped something shortly after.
o Door in the face technique(Whoever deleted what I wrote, I hope you fail)
o Asking for a contribution so small that you would feel like a scrooge if you did not comply. "Even a penny can help" increased donations. (Pg. 460)
• Teaching moral inclusion, modeling altruism, attributing helpful behavior to altruistic motives, learning by doing, learning about altruism
• *All on pages 458-464 |
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Term
| Legal witnesses' (eyewitnesses) testimony and credibility |
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Definition
| Confident witnesses are most believed |
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Term
| Eyewitnesses and choosing perpetrators from a lineup |
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Definition
• Giving eyewitnesses an array of mug shots reduces accuracy in later identifying the criminal. Errors are especially likely when the witness has to stop. think, and compare faces.
• Witnesses who build a face composites, and verbally describe a criminal's face have more difficulty later identifying the actual criminal from a line up.
• Some researchers think this "verbal overshadowing" occurs because one's memory for the face accomodates the verbal depiction. Others think that the verbal description replaces the unconscious perception or makes it inaccessible. (Pg. 551)
• Dunning and Perretta (2002) did a study where eyewitnesses who make their identifications in less than 10-12 seconds were almost 90% accurate. However those taking longer were only 50% accurate. (Pg. 552)
• Tim Valentine (2003) analyzed eyewitness viewings of London police lineups and found that 9 in 10 fast identifications were of the actual suspect. Only 4 in 10 slow identifications were the correct suspect. (Pg. 552)
• Younger eyewitnesses abnd those who had viewed the person for more than a minute were more accurate than older eyewitnesses and people who saw the suspect for less than a minute. (Pg. 552)
• A simultaneous lineup tempts people to pick the person who most resembles the perpetrator in the lineup. (Pg. 553) |
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Term
| Effect of juror's gender on deciding a verdict |
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Definition
| • In acquaintance-rape trials, men more often than women judge the defendent not guilty. |
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Term
| Commitment and Social Influence |
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Definition
| Once having made a public commitment, they stick it. At most, they will change their judgments in later situations but not within the same situation. Prior commitments restrain persuasion. Hung verdicts are more likely in cases when jurors are polled by a show of hands vs. secret ballot. |
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