Affect The feelings we experience as part of our everyday lives
Attitude is a knowledge representation that includes primarily our liking or disliking of a person, thing, or group
Behavioral measures Measures designed to directly assess what people do
Collectivism Cultural norms that indicate that people should be more fundamentally connected with others and thus are more oriented toward interdependence
Correlational research Research designed to search for and test hypotheses about the relationships between two or more variables
Cover story A false statement of what the research was really about
Culture A group of people, normally living within a given geographical region, who share a common set of social norms, including religious and family values and moral beliefs
Dependent variable The variable that is measured after the manipulations have occurred
Electroencephalography (EEG) A technique that records the electrical activity produced by the brain’s neurons through the use of electrodes that are placed around the research participant’s head
Emotions Brief, but often intense, mental and physiological feeling states
Evolutionary adaptation The assumption that human nature, including much of our social behavior, is determined largely by our evolutionary past
External validity The extent to which relationships can be expected to hold up when they are tested again in different ways and for different people
Factorial research designs Experimental designs that have two or more independent variables
Falsifiable When the outcome of the research can demonstrate empirically either that there is support for the hypothesis (i.e., the relationship between the variables was correctly specified) or that there is actually no relationship between the variables or that the actual relationship is not in the direction that was predicted
Field experiments Experimental research studies that are conducted in a natural environment
Fitness The extent to which having a given characteristic helps the individual organism to survive and to reproduce at a higher rate than do other members of the species who do not have the characteristic
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) A neuroimaging technique that uses a magnetic field to create images of brain structure and function
Hindsight bias The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that we probably would not have been able to predict
Implicit Association Test (IAT) A procedure designed to elicit implicit beliefs and attitudes
Ingroup Those we view as being similar and important to us and with whom we share close social connections
Internal validity The extent to which changes in the dependent variable in an experiment can confidently be attributed to changes in the independent variable
Kin selection Strategies that favor the reproductive success of one’s relatives, sometimes even at a cost to the individual’s own survival
Meta-analysis A statistical procedure in which the results of existing studies are combined to determine what conclusions can be drawn on the basis of all the studies considered together
Mood The positive or negative feelings that are in the background of our everyday experiences
Other-concern The motivation to affiliate with, accept, and be accepted by others=
Pearson correlation coefficient A statistic used to summarize the association, or correlation, between two variable
Reciprocal altruism A mutual, and generally equitable, exchange of benefits
Research hypothesis A specific prediction about the relationship between the variables of interest and about the specific direction of that relationship
Schema A knowledge representation that includes information about a person, group, or situation
Self-concern The motivation to protect and enhance the self and the people who are psychologically close to us
Self-report measures Measures in which individuals are asked to respond to questions posed by an interviewer or on a questionnaire
Social cognition An understanding of how our knowledge about our social worlds develops through experience and the influence of these knowledge structures on memory, information processing, attitudes, and judgment.
Social exchange The idea that, if we help other people now, they will return the favor should we need their help in the future
Social influence The process through which other people change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and through which we change theirs
Social neuroscience The study of how our social behavior both influences and is influenced by the activities of our brain
Social norms The ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that are shared by group members and perceived by them as appropriate
Social psychology The scientific study of how we feel about, think about, and behave toward the people around us and how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are influenced by those people
Third variables Variables that are not part of the research hypothesis but that cause both the predictor and the outcome variable and thus produce the observed correlation between them