Social Psychology 14e by Branscombe, Baron

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Social Psychology 14e by Branscombe, Baron is the 14th edition of the Social Psychology textbook authored by Nyla R. Branscombe, University of Kansas, and Robert A. Baron, Oklahoma State University, and published by Pearson Education Limited in 2017.

  • Above average effect. The tendency for people to rate themselves as above the average on most positive social attributes.
  • Action identification. The level of interpretation we place on an action; low-level interpretations focus on the action itself, whereas higher-level interpretations focus on its ultimate goals.
  • Actor-observer effect. The tendency to attribute our own behavior mainly to situational causes but the behavior of others mainly to internal (dispositional) causes.
  • Additive tasks. Tasks for which the group product is the sum or combination of the efforts of individual members.
  • Affect. Our current feelings and moods.
  • Affective forecasts. Predictions about how we would feel about events we have not actually experienced.
  • Aggression. Behavior directed toward the goal of harming another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.
  • Anchoring and adjustment heuristic. A heuristic that involves the tendency to use a number of values as a starting point to which we then make adjustments.
  • Attachment style. The degree of security experienced in interpersonal relationships. Differential styles initially develop in the interactions between infant and caregiver when the infant acquires basic attitudes about self-worth and interpersonal trust.
  • Attitude. Evaluation of various aspects of the social world.
  • Attitude clarity. When there is no ambivalence in attitude; the person feels clear about what attitude to hold.
  • Attitude correctness. Believing one's attitude is the valid or proper one to hold.
  • Attitude similarity. The extent to which two individuals share the same attitude.
  • Attitude-to-behavior process model. A model of how attitudes guide behavior that emphasizes the influence of attitudes and stored knowledge of what is appropriate in a given situation on an individual's definition of the present situation. This definition, in turn, influences overt behavior.
  • Attribution. The process through which we seek to identify the causes of others' behavior and so gain knowledge of their stable traits and dispositions.
  • Autobiographical memory. Concerns memory of ourselves in the past, sometimes over the life course as a whole.
  • Autokinetic phenomenon. The apparent movement of a single, stationary source of light in a dark room. Used to study the emergence of social norms and social influence.
  • Automatic processing. This occurs when, after extensive experience with a task or type of information, we reach the stage where we can perform the task or process the information in a seemingly effortless, automatic, and nonconscious manner.
  • Availability heuristic. A strategy for making judgments on the basis of how easily specific kinds of information can be brought to mind.
  • Balance theory. Heider's perspective specifies the relationships among (1) an individual's liking for another person, (2) his or her attitude about a given topic, and (3) the other person's attitude about the same topic. Balance (liking plus agreement) results in a positive emotional state. Imbalance (liking plus disagreement) results in a negative state. Nonbalance (disliking plus either agreement or disagreement) leads to indifference.
  • Bargaining (negotiation). A process in which opposing sides exchange offers, counteroffers, and concessions, either directly or through representatives.
  • Body language. Cues provided by the position, posture, and movement of others' bodies or body parts.
  • Bona fide pipeline. A technique that uses priming to measure implicit racial attitudes.
  • Brainstorming. A process in which people meet as a group to generate new ideas freely.
  • Bullying. A pattern of behavior in which one individual is chosen as the target of repeated aggression by one or more others; the target person (the victim) generally has less power than those who engage in aggression (the bullies).
  • Catharsis hypothesis. The view that providing angry people with an opportunity to express their aggressive impulses in relatively safe ways will reduce their tendencies to engage in more harmful forms of aggression.
  • Central route to persuasion. Attitude change resulting from systematic processing of information presented in persuasive messages.
  • Classical conditioning. A basic form of learning in which one stimulus, initially neutral, acquires the capacity to evoke reactions through repeated pairing with another stimulus. In a sense, one stimulus becomes a signal for the presentation or occurrence of the other.
  • Close friendships. Relationships in which two people spend a great deal of time together, interact in a variety of situations, and provide mutual emotional support.
  • Cognitive dissonance. An internal state that results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more attitudes or between their attitudes and their behavior.
  • Cohesive group . One where there are strong bonds among the members creating a sense of solidarity.
  • Cohesiveness. The extent to which we are attracted to a social group and want to belong to it. All forces (factors) that cause group members to remain in the group.
  • Collective guilt. The emotion that can be experienced when we are confronted with the harmful actions done by our ingroup against an outgroup. It is most likely to be experienced when the harmful actions are seen as illegitimate.
  • Collectivism. Groups in which the norm is to maintain harmony among group members, even if doing so might entail some personal costs.
  • Common ingroup identity model. A theory suggesting that to the extent individuals in different groups view themselves as members of a single social entity, intergroup bias will be reduced.
  • Common-bond groups. Groups that tend to involve face-to-face interaction and in which the individual members are bonded to each other.
  • Common-identity groups. Face-to-face interaction is often absent, and the members are linked together via the category as a whole rather than each other.
  • Companionate love. Love that is based on friendship, mutual attraction, shared interests, respect, and concern for one another's welfare.
  • Competitive altruism. Refers to situations in which individuals behave in a prosocial way in order to boost their own status -- to show that they are even more helpful than others.
  • Compliance. A form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another.
  • Conditioned stimulus. The stimulus that comes to stand for or signal a prior unconditioned stimulus.
  • Conditions of uncertainty. Where the "correct" answer is difficult to know or would take a great deal of effort to determine.
  • Conflict. A process in which individuals or groups perceive that others have taken or will soon take actions incompatible with their own interests.
  • Conformity. A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behavior to adhere to existing social norms.
  • Consensus. The extent to which other people react to some stimulus, or even in the same manner as the person we are considering.
  • Consistency. The extent to which an individual responds to a given stimulus, or situation in the same way on different occasions (i.e., across time).
  • Consummate love. In Sternberg's triangular model of love, a complete and ideal love that combines intimacy, passion, and decision (commitment).
  • Contact hypothesis. The view that increased contact between members of various social groups can be effective in reducing prejudice between them.
  • Controlled processing. A mode of social thought that is logical, systematic, and effortful.
  • Cooperation. Behavior in which group members work together to attain shared goals.
  • Correlational method. A method of research in which a scientist systematically observes two or more variables to determine whether changes in one are accompanied by changes in the other.
  • Correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error). The tendency to explain others' actions as stemming from dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes.
  • Correspondent inference. A theory describing how we use others' behavior as a basis for inferring their stable dispositions.
  • Counterfactual thinking. The tendency to imagine other outcomes in a situation than the ones that actually occurred ("What might have been").
  • Crowdfunding. A new form of prosocial behavior in which entrepreneurs describe the products or services their new company will provide and ask people to contribute.
  • Cyberbullying. Involves the use of communication technologies, such as e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, and offensive personal websites, to engage in deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior that is intended to harm others.
  • Deadline technique. A technique for increasing compliance in which targeted people are told that they have only limited time to take advantage of some offer or to obtain some item.
  • Debriefing. Procedures at the conclusion of a research session in which participants are given full information about the nature of the research and the hypothesis or hypotheses under investigation.
  • Deception. A technique whereby researchers withhold information about the purposes or procedures of a study from people participating in it.
  • Decision/commitment. In Sternberg's triangular model of love, these are the cognitive processes involved in deciding that you love another person and are committed to maintain the relationship.
  • Deindividuation. A psychological state characterized by reduced self-awareness brought on by external conditions, such as being an anonymous member of a large crowd.
  • Dependent variable. The variable that is measured in an experiment.
  • Descriptive norms. Norms simply indicating what most people do in a given situation.
  • Diffusion of responsibility. A principle suggesting that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency the less likely victims are to receive help. This is because each bystander assumes that someone else will assume responsibility for helping.
  • Discrimination. Differential (usually negative) behaviors directed toward members of different social groups.
  • Dismissing attachment style. A style characterized by high self-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is a conflicted and somewhat insecure style in which the individual feels that he or she deserves a close relationship, but is frustrated because of mistrust of potential partners. The result is the tendency to reject the other person at some point in the relationship to avoid being the one who is rejected.
  • Distinctiveness. The extent to which an individual responds in the same manner to different stimuli or events.
  • Distraction conflict theory. A theory suggesting that social facilitation stems from the conflict produced when individuals attempt, simultaneously, to pay attention to the other people present and to the task being performed.
  • Distributive justice (fairness). Refers to individuals' judgments about whether they are receiving a fair share of available rewards -- a share proportionate to their contributions to the group or any social relationship.
  • Door-in-the-face technique. A procedure for gaining compliance in which requesters begin with a large request and then, when this is refused, retreat to a smaller one (the one they actually desired all along).
  • Downward social comparison. A comparison of the self to another who does less well than or is inferior to us.
  • Drive theories (of aggression). Theories suggesting that aggression stems from external conditions that arouse the motive to harm or injure others. The most famous of these is the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
  • Drive theory of social facilitation. Claims that physiological arousal due to the presence of others facilitate performance on wellpracticed tasks.
  • Ego-depletion. The lowered capacity to exert subsequent self-control following earlier efforts to exert self-control. Performance decrements occur when people's ego strength has been depleted by prior efforts at self-control.
  • Elaboration-likelihood model (ELM). A theory suggesting that persuasion can occur in either of two distinct ways, differing in the amount of cognitive effort or elaboration the message receives.
  • Emotional contagion. The spread of emotion from one person to another person who observes this emotion.
  • Empathic joy hypothesis. The view that helpers respond to the needs of a victim because they want to accomplish something, and doing so is rewarding in and of itself.
  • Empathy. Emotional reactions that are focused on or oriented toward other people and include feelings of compassion, sympathy, and concern.
  • Empathy-altruism hypothesis. The suggestion that some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need.
  • Entrepreneur. An individual who has an idea for something new -- for instance, a new product or service -- and takes active steps to develop this idea and turn it into reality.
  • Entitativity. The extent to which a group is perceived as being a coherent entity.
  • Essence. Typically some biologically based feature that is used to distinguish one group and another; frequently can serve as justification for the differential treatment of those groups.
  • Evaluation apprehension. Concern over being evaluated by others. Such concern can increase arousal and so contribute to social facilitation effects.
  • Evolutionary psychology. A new branch of psychology that seeks to investigate the potential role of genetic factors in various aspects of human behavior.
  • Excitation transfer theory. A theory suggesting that arousal produced in one situation can persist and intensify emotional reactions occurring in later situations.
  • Existential threat. The anxiety that results from awareness of our own mortality.
  • Experimentation (experimental method). A method of research in which one or more factors (the independent variables) are systematically changed to determine whether such variations affect one or more other factors (dependent variables).
  • Explicit attitudes. Consciously accessible attitudes that are controllable and easy to report.
  • Fear appeals. Attempting to change people's behaviors by use of a message that induces fear.
  • Fearful-avoidant attachment style. A style characterized by low selfesteem and low interpersonal trust. This is the most insecure and least adaptive attachment style.
  • Feeling rules. Expectations about the appropriate emotions to display or express.
  • Foot-in-the-door technique. A procedure for gaining compliance in which requesters begin with a small request and then, when this is granted, escalate to a larger one (the one they actually desired all along).
  • Forewarning. Advance knowledge that one is about to become the target of an attempt at persuasion; Forewarning often increases resistance to the persuasion that follows.
  • Frustration-aggression hypothesis. The suggestion that frustration is a very powerful determinant of aggression.
  • Fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias). The tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional cues on others' behavior.
  • Gender stereotypes. Stereotypes concerning the traits possessed by females and males and that distinguish the two genders from each other.
  • General aggression model (GAM). A modern theory of aggression suggesting that aggression is triggered by a wide range of input variables that influence arousal, affective stages, and cognitions.
  • Glass ceiling. Barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent qualified females from advancing to top-level positions.
  • Glass cliff. When women and minorities are seen as better leaders because of their ability to manage crises, they are more likely to be selected as leader when the situation contains more risk.
  • Glass cliff effect. Choosing women for leadership positions that are risky, precarious, or when the outcome is more likely to result in failure.
  • Group. A collection of people who are perceived to be bonded together in a coherent unit to some degree.
  • Group polarization. The tendency of group members to shift toward a more extreme position than initially held by those individuals as a result of group discussion.
  • Groupthink. The tendency of the members of highly cohesive groups to assume that their decisions can't be wrong, that all members must support the group's decisions strongly, and that contrary information should be ignored.
  • Habit. Repeatedly performing a specific behavior, so responses become relatively automatic whenever that situation is encountered.
  • Happiness. Refers to subjective well-being, which involves global life satisfaction, satisfaction with specific life domains, frequent positive feelings, and relatively few negative feelings.
  • Hassles. Minor annoyances experienced in daily life that may be low in intensity, but contribute to stress in our lives.
  • Heuristic processing. Processing of information in a persuasive message that involves the use of simple rules of thumb or mental shortcuts.
  • Heuristic-systematic model. Two distinct routes to persuasion: one where heuristic low-effort strategies are employed, and the other where effortful and systematic information processing is used.
  • Heuristics. Simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid manner and seemingly effortless manner.
  • Hooliganism. Negative stereotype about how people behave in crowds at sporting events, especially applied to incidents involving England's soccer fans.
  • Hubris. The tendency to hold exaggerated self-confidence and overly positive views about oneself.
  • Hypocrisy. Publicly advocating some attitudes or behavior and then acting in a way that is inconsistent with these attitudes or behavior.
  • Hypothesis. An as yet unverified prediction concerning some aspect of social behavior or social thought.
  • Identity fusion. The extent to which you see yourself and your group as overlapping.
  • Ideology. The philosophical and political values that govern a group.
  • Illusion of truth effect. The mere repetition of information creates a sense of familiarity and more positive attitudes.
  • Implementation plan. A plan for how to implement our intentions to carry out some action.
  • Implicit associations. Links between group membership and trait associations or evaluations that the perceiver may be unaware of. They can be activated automatically based on the group membership of a target.
  • Implicit attitudes. Unconscious associations between objects and evaluative responses.
  • Implicit self-esteem. Feelings about the self of which we are not consciously aware.
  • Impression formation. The process through which we form impressions of others.
  • Impression management (self-presentation). Efforts by individuals to produce favorable first impressions on others.
  • Incidental feelings. Those feelings induced separately or before a target is encountered; as a result, those feelings are irrelevant to the group being judged but can still affect judgments of the target.
  • Independent variable. The variable that is systematically changed (i.e., varied) in an experiment.
  • Individualism. Groups where the norm is to stand out and be different from others; individual variability is expected and disagreement among members is tolerated.
  • Information overload. Instances in which our ability to process information is exceeded.
  • Informational social influence. Social influence based on the desire to be correct (i.e., to possess accurate perceptions of the social world).
  • Informed consent. A procedure in which research participants are provided with as much information as possible about a research project before deciding whether to participate in it.
  • Ingratiation. When we try to make others like us by conveying that we like them; praising others to flatter them.
  • Injunctive norms. Norms specifying what ought to be done; what is approved or disapproved behavior in a given situation.
  • Instrumental conditioning. A basic form of learning in which responses that lead to positive outcomes, or which permit avoidance of negative outcomes, are strengthened.
  • Intergroup comparisons. Judgments that result from comparisons between our group and another group.
  • Intergroup sensitivity effect. When criticism of a group by an ingroup member is responded to more favorably than when made by an outgroup member.
  • Interpersonal trust. An attitudinal dimension underlying attachment styles that involves the belief that other people are generally trustworthy, dependable, and reliable as opposed to the belief that others are generally untrustworthy, undependable, and unreliable. This is the most successful and most desirable attachment style.
  • Intimacy. In Sternberg's triangular model of love, the closeness felt by two people -- the extent to which they are bonded.
  • Intragroup comparisons. Judgments that result from comparisons between individuals who are members of the same group.
  • Introspection. To privately contemplate "who we are." It is a method for attempting to gain self-knowledge.
  • Introspection illusion. Our belief that social influence plays a smaller role in shaping our own actions than it does in shaping the actions of others.
  • Kin selection theory. A theory suggesting that a key goal for all organisms -- including human beings -- is getting our genes into the next generation; one way in which individuals can reach this goal is by helping others who share their genes.
  • Leadership. Involves setting the group's agenda and influencing others to act in ways that will achieve those goals.
  • Less-leads-to-more effect. The fact that offering individuals small rewards for engaging in counterattitudinal behavior often produces more dissonance, and so more attitude change, than offering them larger rewards.
  • Lineup. A procedure in which witnesses to a crime are shown several people, one or more of whom may be suspects in a case, and asked to identify those that they recognize as the person who committed the crime.
  • Linguistic style. Aspects of speech apart from the meaning of the words employed.
  • Loneliness. The unpleasant emotional and cognitive state based on desiring close relationships but being unable to attain them.
  • Love. A combination of emotions, cognitions, and behaviors that often play a crucial role in intimate relationships.
  • Low-ball procedure. A technique for gaining compliance in which an offer or deal is changed to make it less attractive to the target person after this person has accepted it.
  • The Lure effect. A technique for gaining compliance in which individuals are first asked to do something they find appealing and then, once they agree, are asked to do something they dislike.
  • Magical thinking. Thinking involving assumptions that don't hold up to rational scrutiny -- for example, the belief that things that resemble one another share fundamental properties.
  • Matching hypothesis. The tendency for individuals in a romantic relationship to be similar to each other in terms of physical attractiveness.
  • Mediating variable. A variable that is affected by an independent variable and then influences a dependent variable. Mediating variables help explain why or how specific variables influence social behavior or thought.
  • Mere exposure. By having seen before, but not necessarily remembering having done so, attitudes toward an object can be formed.
  • Meta-analysis. An average effect size observed across many studies is computed permitting assessment of the strength of an effect. This allows for strong conclusions, in part because of the increased sample size and reduced error when many studies are combined.
  • Metaphor. A linguistic device that relates or draws a comparison between one abstract concept and another dissimilar concept.
  • Microexpressions. Fleeting facial expressions lasting only a few tenths of a second.
  • Minimal groups. When we are categorized into different groups based on some "minimal" criteria we tend to favor others who are categorized in the same group as ourselves compared to those categorized as members of a different group.
  • Mirror neurons. Refers to systems in the brain that appear to provide a neural foundation for our capacity to experience empathy.
  • Moderators. Factors that are treated as independent variables and can change the size or even direction of a relationship between two variables. By comparing an effect or strength of a relationship under different conditions, knowledge of when and how effects emerge is gained, ensuring science is a cumulative enterprise.
  • Modern racism. More subtle beliefs than blatant feelings of superiority. It consists primarily of thinking minorities are seeking and receiving more benefits than they deserve and a denial that discrimination affects their outcomes.
  • Mood congruence effects. The fact that we are more likely to store or remember positive information when in a positive mood and negative information when in a negative mood.
  • Mood dependent memory. The fact that what we remember while in a given mood may be determined, in part, by what we learned when previously in that mood.
  • Moral disengagement. No longer seeing sanctioning as necessary for perpetrating harm that has been legitimized.
  • Multicultural perspective. A focus on understanding the cultural and ethnic factors that influences social behavior.
  • Narcissism. An aspect of personality; persons high in narcissism have unjustified overinflated self-esteem, which leads them to focus on themselves while largely ignoring the needs and feelings of others.
  • Narcissistic rage. Intense anger experienced by narcissistic persons who have doubts about the accuracy of their exaggerated self-image when someone calls these views into question.
  • Need for affiliation. The basic motive to seek and maintain interpersonal relationships.
  • Negative interdependence. A situation where if one person obtains a desired outcome, others cannot obtain it.
  • Negative-state relief model. The proposal that prosocial behavior is motivated by the bystander's desire to reduce his or her own uncomfortable negative emotions or feelings.
  • Noncommon effects. Effects produced by a particular cause that could not be produced by any other apparent cause.
  • Nonverbal communication. Communication between individuals that does not involve the content of spoken language. It relies instead on an unspoken language of facial expressions, eye contact, and body language.
  • Normative focus theory. A theory suggesting that norms will influence behavior only to the extent that they are focal for the people involved at the time the behavior occurs.
  • Normative social influence. Social influence based on the desire to be liked or accepted by other people.
  • Norms. Rules or expectations within a group concerning how its members should (or should not) behave.
  • Obedience. A form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more others to perform some action(s).
  • Objective scales. Those with measurement units that are tied to external reality so that they mean the same thing regardless of category membership (e.g., dollars earned, feet and inches, chosen or rejected).
  • Observational learning. A basic form of learning in which individuals acquire new forms of behavior as a result of observing others.
  • Optimistic bias. Our predisposition to expect things to turn out well overall.
  • Optimum level of well-being theory. A theory suggesting that for any specific task there is an optimum level of subjective well-being. Up to this point, performance increases, but beyond it, performance on the task declines
  • Overconfidence bias. The tendency to have more confidence in the accuracy of our own judgments than is reasonable.
  • Passion. In Sternberg's triangular model of love, the sexual motives and sexual excitement associated with a couple's relationship.
  • Passionate love. An intense and often unrealistic emotional response to another person. When this emotion is experienced, it is usually perceived as an indication of true love, but to outside observers it appears to be infatuation.
  • Peripheral route to persuasion. Attitude change that occurs in response to peripheral persuasion cues, which is often based on information concerning the expertise or status of would-be persuaders.
  • Perseverance effect. The tendency for beliefs and schemas to remain unchanged even in the face of contradictory information.
  • Personal-versus-social identity continuum. At the personal level, the self is thought of as a unique individual, whereas at the social identity level, the self is seen as a member of a group.
  • Persuasion. Efforts to change others' attitudes through the use of various kinds of messages.
  • Physical attractiveness. The combination of characteristics that are evaluated as beautiful or handsome at the positive extreme and as unattractive at the negative extreme.
  • Planning fallacy. The tendency to make optimistic predictions concerning how long a given task will take for completion.
  • Playing hard to get. A technique that can be used for increasing compliance by suggesting that a person or object is scarce and hard to obtain.
  • Pluralistic ignorance. When we collectively misunderstand what attitudes others hold and believe erroneously that others have different attitudes than us.
  • Politicized collective identity. Recognizing shared grievances and engaging in a power struggle on behalf of one's devalued group.
  • Portion size effect. The tendency to eat more when a larger portion of food is received than if a smaller portion is received. Portion size acts as a starting point (anchor) for how much food is perceived to be appropriate to eat. Since portion sizes have steadily increased over time, this effect is believed to play an important role in overeating in western societies.
  • Possible selves. Image of how we might be in the future -- either a "dreaded" potential to be avoided or "desired" potential that can be strived for.
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A psychological condition caused by experiencing or witnessing an extremely frightening, often life-threatening, ordeal or event.
  • Prejudice. Negative emotional responses based on group membership.
  • Preoccupied attachment style. A style characterized by low selfesteem and high interpersonal trust. This is a conflicted and somewhat insecure style in which the individual strongly desires a close relationship but feels that he or she is unworthy of the partner and is thus vulnerable to being rejected.
  • Priming. A situation that occurs when stimuli or events increase the availability in memory or consciousness of specific types of information held in memory.
  • Procedural justice. Judgments concerning the fairness of the procedures used to distribute available rewards among group members.
  • Proportion of similarity. The number of topics on which two people express similar views is divided by the total number of topics on which those two people have communicated, resulting in a proportion that can be used to predict attraction.
  • Prosocial behavior. Actions by individuals that help others with no immediate benefit to the helper.
  • Prototype. Summary of the common attributes possessed by members of a category.
  • Provocation. Actions by others that tend to trigger aggression in the recipient, often because they are perceived as stemming from malicious intent.
  • Proximity. In attraction research, the physical closeness between two individuals with respect to where they live, where they sit in a classroom, where they work, and so on. The smaller the physical distance, the greater the probability that the two people will come into repeated contact experiencing repeated exposure to one another, positive affect, and the development of mutual attraction.
  • Punishment. Procedures in which aversive consequences are delivered to individuals when they engage in specific actions.
  • Random assignment of participants to experimental conditions. A basic requirement for conducting valid experiments. According to this principle, research participants must have an equal chance of being exposed to each level of the independent variable.
  • Reactance. Negative reactions to threats to one's personal freedom. Reactance often increases resistance to persuasion and can even produce negative attitude change or opposite to what was intended.
  • Realistic conflict theory. The view that prejudice stems from direct competition between various social groups over scarce and valued resources.
  • Recategorization. Shifts in the boundaries between our ingroup ("us") and some outgroup ("them"). As a result of such recategorization, people formerly viewed as outgroup members may now be viewed a belonging to the ingroup and consequently are viewed more positively.
  • Reference groups. Groups of people with whom we identify and whose opinions we value.
  • Relationships. Our social ties with other individuals, ranging from casual acquaintance or passing friendships, to intense, long-term relationships such as marriage or lifetime friendships.
  • Repeated exposure effect. Zajonc's finding that frequent contact with any mildly negative, neutral, or positive stimulus results in an increasingly positive evaluation of that stimulus.
  • Representativeness heuristic. A strategy for making judgments based on the extent to which current stimuli or events resemble other stimuli or categories.
  • Risk averse. We weigh possible losses more heavily than equivalent potential gains. As a result, we respond more negatively to changes that are framed as potential losses than positively to changes that are framed as potential gains.
  • Roles. The set of behaviors that individuals occupying specific positions within a group are expected to perform.
  • Salience. When someone or some object stands out from its background or is the focus of attention.
  • Schemas. Mental frameworks centering on a specific theme that help us to organize social information.
  • Schism. Splintering of a group into distinct factions following an ideological rift among members.
  • Secure attachment style. A style characterized by high self-esteem and high interpersonal trust. This is the most successful and most desirable attachment style.
  • Selective avoidance. A tendency to direct attention away from information that challenges existing attitudes. Such avoidance increases resistance to persuasion.
  • Self-affirmation. Refers to the tendency to respond to a threat to one's self-concept by affirming one's competence in another area (different from the threat).
  • Self-construal. How we characterize ourselves, which can vary depending on what identity is salient at any given moment.
  • Self-control. Achieved by refraining from actions, we like and instead performing actions we prefer not to do as a means of achieving a long-term goal.
  • Self-depreciating. Putting ourselves down or implying that we are not as good as someone else.
  • Self-determination theory (SDT). A framework used to study motivation that involves two forms of human initiative: intrinsic and extrinsic. People persist longer at tasks they are intrinsically motivated to complete and gain enjoyment from, whereas extrinsic motivation to achieve awards or financial gains is less likely to promote happiness.
  • Self-enhancement. The goal of increasing the positivity of one's self-image.
  • Self-esteem. The degree to which we perceive ourselves positively or negatively; our overall attitude toward ourselves. It can be measured explicitly or implicitly.
  • Self-evaluation maintenance model. This perspective suggests that to maintain a positive view of ourselves, we distance ourselves from others who perform better than we do on valued dimensions and move closer to others who perform worse than us. This view suggests that doing so will protect our self-esteem.
  • Self-promotion. Attempting to present ourselves to others as having positive attributes.
  • Self-regulation. Limited capacity to engage our willpower and control our own thinking and emotions.
  • Self-serving bias. The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to internal causes (e.g., one's own traits or characteristics) but negative outcomes or events to external causes (e.g., chance, task difficulty).
  • Self-verification perspective. Theory that addresses the processes by which we lead others to agree with our views of ourselves; wanting others to agree with how we see ourselves.
  • Shining standards. When we use one group as the standard but shift to use another group as the comparison standard when judging members of a different group.
  • Similarity-dissimilarity effect. The consistent finding that people respond positively to indications that another person is similar to themselves and negatively to indications that another person is dissimilar from themselves.
  • Singlism. Negative stereotyping and discrimination directed toward people who are single.
  • Social cognition. The manner in which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world.
  • Social comparison. The process through which we compare ourselves to others to determine whether our view of social reality is, or is not, correct.
  • Social comparison theory. Festinger (1954) suggested that people compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative.
  • Social contagion. Refers to the process by which emotions experienced by one person spread to others.
  • Social dilemmas. Situations in which each person can increase their individual gains by acting in one way, but if all (or most) people do the same thing, the outcomes experienced by all are reduced.
  • Social embeddedness. Having a sense of that you know other persons because you know their reputations, often by knowing other people they know too.
  • Social facilitation. When the presence of an audience improves task performance.
  • Social identity theory. Addresses the consequences of perceiving ourselves as a member of a social group and identifying with it; predicts how we respond when our group identity is salient. Suggests that we will move closer to positive others with whom we share an identity but distance from other ingroup members who perform poorly or otherwise make our social identity negative.
  • Social influence. Efforts by one or more persons to change the behavior, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others.
  • Social learning. The process through which we acquire new information, forms of behavior, or attitudes from other people.
  • Social learning view (of prejudice). The view prejudice is acquired through direct and vicarious experiences in much the same manner as other attitudes.
  • Social loafing. Reductions in motivation and effort when individuals work in a group compared to when they work individually.
  • Social networks. Composed of individuals with whom we have interpersonal relationships and interact with on a regular basis.
  • Social norms. Rules indicating how individuals are expected to behave in specific situations.
  • Social perception. The process through which we seek to know and understand other people.
  • Social skills. A combination of aptitudes that help individuals who possess them to interact effectively with others, thereby increasing their attractiveness.
  • Social support. Drawing on the emotional and task resources provided by others as a means of coping with stress.
  • Staring. A form of eye contact in which one person continues to gaze steadily at another regardless of what the recipient does.
  • Status. The individual's position or rank within the group.
  • Stereotype threat. Can occur when people believe that they might be judged in light of a negative stereotype about their group or that, because of their performance, they may in some way confirm a negative stereotype of their group.
  • Stereotypes. Beliefs about social groups in terms of the traits or characteristics that they are believed to share. Stereotypes are cognitive frameworks that influence the processing of social information.
  • Stress. Our response to events that disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, our physical or psychological functioning.
  • Subjective scales. Response scales that are open to interpretation and lack an externally grounded referent, including scales labeled from good to bad or weak to strong. They are said to be subjective because they can take on different meanings depending on the group membership of the person being evaluated.
  • Subliminal conditioning. Classical conditioning of attitudes by exposure to stimuli that are below individuals' threshold of conscious awareness.
  • Subtype. A subset of a group that is not consistent with the stereotype of the group as a whole.
  • Superordinate goals. Goals that tie the interests of both sides in a conflict together rather than driving them apart. These are goals that can only be achieved by cooperation between groups.
  • Survey method. A method of research in which a large number of people answer questions about their attitudes or behavior.
  • Symbolic social influence. Social influence resulting from the mental representation of others or our relationships with them.
  • Synchronous behavior. Behavior in which individuals closely match their actions to those of others.
  • Systematic observation. A method of research in which behavior is systematically observed and recorded.
  • Systematic processing. Processing of information in a persuasive message that involves careful consideration of message content and ideas.
  • Teasing. Provoking statements that call attention to the target's flaws and imperfections.
  • Terror management theory. A view that human awareness of death evokes existential terror that can be reduced by adhering to cultural worldviews that give meaning to one's life.
  • That's-not-all technique. A technique for gaining compliance in which requesters offer additional benefits to target people before they have decided whether to comply with or reject specific requests.
  • Theory of planned behavior. An extension of the theory of reasoned action, suggesting that in addition to attitudes toward a given behavior and subjective norms about it, individuals also consider their ability to perform the behavior.
  • Theory of reasoned action. A theory suggesting that the decision to engage in a particular behavior is the result of a rational process in which behavioral options are considered, consequences or outcomes of each are evaluated, and a decision is reached to act or not to act. That decision is then reflected in behavioral intentions, which strongly influence overt behavior.
  • Thin slices. Refers to small amounts of information about others we use to form first impressions of them.
  • Tightness versus looseness. In some cultures people are expected to adhere to many strong social norms (tight cultures), whereas in other cultures norms are weaker and less strongly enforced (loose cultures).
  • Threat. It primarily concerns fear that our group interests will be undermined or our self-esteem is in jeopardy.
  • Tokenism. Tokenism can refer to hiring based on group membership. It can concern a numerically infrequent presence of members of a particular category, or it can refer to instances where individuals perform trivial positive actions for members of outgroups that are later used as an excuse for refusing more meaningful beneficial actions for members of these groups.
  • Transactional justice. Refers to the extent to which people who distribute rewards explain or justify their decisions and show respect and courtesy to those who receive the rewards.
  • Triangular model of love. Sternberg's conceptualization of love relationships.
  • Unconditioned stimulus. A stimulus that evokes a positive or negative response without substantial learning.
  • Unintentional social influence. Instances in which other persons change our behavior without intending to do so.
  • Unpriming. Refers to the fact that the effects of the schemas tend to persist until they are somehow expressed in thought or behavior and only then do their effects decrease.
  • Unrequited love. Love felt by one person for another who does not feel love in return.
  • Upward social comparison. A comparison of the self to another who does better than or is superior to us.
  • Zero-sum outcomes. Those that only one person or group can have. So, if one group gets them, the other group can't.
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