Glossary

Accommodation When existing schemas change on the basis of new information (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Actor-observer bias or actor-observer difference When we tend to make more personal attributions for the behavior of others than we do for ourselves and to make more situational attributions for our own behavior than for the behavior of others (in Biases in Attribution)

Adjourning stage When group members prepare for the group to end (in Understanding Social Groups)

Affect heuristic The tendency to rely on automatically occurring affective responses to stimuli to guide our judgments of them (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Affect The feelings we experience as part of our everyday lives (in Affect, Behaviour, and Cognition)

Affective forecasting Our attempts to predict how future events will make us feel (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Aggression Behavior that is intended to harm another individual who does not wish to be harmed (in Defining Aggression)

Altruism Any behavior that is designed to increase another person’s welfare, and particularly those actions that do not seem to provide a direct reward to the person who performs them (in Understanding Altruism: Self and Other Concerns)

Altruistic or prosocial personality An individual difference variable that relates to the likelihood of helping others across many different situations (in Other Determinants of Helping)

Anchoring and adjustmentThe tendency to weight initial information too heavily and thereby insufficiently move our judgment away from it (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Anxious/ambivalent attachment style When children become overly dependent on the parents and continually seek more affection from them than they can give (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Assimilation A process in which our existing knowledge influences new conflicting information to better fit with our existing knowledge, thus reducing the likelihood of schema change (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Associational learning When an object or event comes to be associated with a natural response, such as an automatic behaviour or a positive or negative emotion (in Social Cognition)

Attachment style Individual differences in how people relate to others in close relationships (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Attitude is a knowledge representation that includes primarily our liking or disliking of a person, thing, or group (in Exploring Attitudes)

Attitude inoculation A mild attack on the attitude position designed to help the potential target create counterarguments to the potential persuasive attempt, with the expectation that subsequent persuasion will be reduced (in Changing Attitudes through Persuasion)

Attitude strength The importance of an attitude, as assessed by how quickly it comes to mind (in Exploring Attitudes)

Attribution The process of assigning causes to behaviors (in Perceiving Others)

Attributional style The type of attributions that we tend to make for events that occur to us (in Individual Differences in Person Perception)

Authoritarianism A personality dimension that characterizes people who prefer things to be simple rather than complex and who tend to hold traditional and conventional values (in Ingroup Favoritism and Prejudice

Automatic cognition Thinking that occurs out of our awareness, quickly, and without taking much effort (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Autonomy-oriented help The belief that, given the appropriate tools, recipients can help themselves (in Other Determinants of Helping)

Availability heuristic The tendency to make judgments of the frequency of an event, or the likelihood that an event will occur, on the basis of the ease with which the event can be retrieved from memory (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Avoidant attachment style When children are unable to relate to the parents at all, becoming distant, fearful, and cold (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Bait-and-switch technique A persuasion attempt in which the target is offered one product at a very low price and yet the product at the low price is not actually available (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Base rates The likelihood that events occur across a large population (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Basking in the reflected glory When we use and advertise our ingroups’ positive achievements to boost our self-esteem (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Behavioral measures Measures designed to directly assess what people do (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Belief in a just world A tendency to make attributions based on the belief that the world is fundamentally just (in Biases in Attribution)

Bias blind spot The tendency to believe that our own judgments are less susceptible to the influence of bias than those of others (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Black sheep effect The strong devaluation of ingroup members who threaten the positive image and identity of the ingroup (in Ingroup Favoritism and Prejudice)

Blaming the victim See Belief in a just world

Catharsis The idea that engaging in less harmful aggressive actions will reduce the tendency to aggress later in a more harmful way (in The Biological and Emotional Causes of Aggression)

Causal attribution The process of trying to determine the causes of people’s behavior (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Cognitive accessibility The extent to which a schema is activated in memory and thus likely to be used in information processing (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Cognitive dissonance The discomfort that occurs when we respond in ways that we see as inconsistent (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Cognitive heuristics Information-processing rules of thumb that enable us to think in ways that are quick and easy but that may sometimes lead to error (in Social Cognition)

Cognitive reappraisal Altering an emotional state by reinterpreting the meaning of the triggering situation or stimulus (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Collectivism Cultural norms that indicate that people should be more fundamentally connected with others and thus are more oriented toward interdependence (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Commitment The feelings and actions that keep partners working together to maintain the relationship Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term

Communal relationships Close relationships in which partners suspend their need for equity and exchange, giving support to the partner in order to meet his or her needs, and without consideration of the costs to themselves (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Companionate love Love that is based on friendship, mutual attraction, common interests, mutual respect, and concern for each other’s welfare (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Competition The attempt to gain as many of the limited rewards as possible for ourselves, while reducing the likelihood of success for the other parties (in Competition and Cooperation: The Role of Social Dilemmas)

Conceptual variables The general/abstract characteristics that we are trying to measure (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Conditioning The ability to connect stimuli (things or events in the environment) with responses (behaviors or other actions) (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Confirmation bias The tendency for people to seek out and favor information that confirms their expectations and beliefs (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Conflict When parties are involved in violence and hostility (in Competition and Cooperation: The Role of Social Dilemmas)

Conformity The change in beliefs, opinions, and behaviors as a result of our perceptions about what other people believe or do (in Influencing and Conforming)

Consensus information When a situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the situation creates the same behavior in most people (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Consistency information When a situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the situation always produces the behavior in the target (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Contact hypothesis The idea that intergroup contact will reduce prejudice Reducing Discrimination)

Controlled cognition When we deliberately size up and think about something; for instance, another person (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Cooperation Behavior that occurs when we trust the people or groups with whom we are interacting and are willing to communicate and share with the others (in Competition and Cooperation: The Role of Social Dilemmas)

Correlational research Research designed to search for and test hypotheses about the relationships between two or more variables (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Counterfactual thinking The tendency to think about events according to what might have been (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Covariation model When a given behavior is more likely to have been caused by the situation if that behavior covaries (or changes) across situations (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Cover story A false statement of what the research was really about (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Defensive attribution When we make attributions that defend ourselves from the notion that we could be the victim of an unfortunate outcome, and often also that we could be held responsible as the victim (in Biases in Attribution)

Deindividuation The loss of individual self-awareness and individual accountability in groups (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Dependency-oriented help When the recipient feels that the implication of the helping is that he or she is are unable to care for himself or herself (in Other Determinants of Helping)

Dependent variable The variable that is measured after the manipulations have occurred (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Diffusion of responsibility When we assume that others will take action and therefore we do not take action ourselves (in How the Social Context Influences Helping)

Discrimination Unjustified negative behaviors toward members of outgroups based on their group membership (in Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination)

Disorganized attachment style A blend of anxious and avoidant attachment styles (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Dispositional (or internal) attribution When we decide that the behavior was caused primarily by the person (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Distinctiveness information When a situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the behavior occurs when the situation is present but not when it is not present (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Door-in-the-face technique A persuasion tactic that involves making an unreasonably large request before making the (intended) smaller request (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Downward social comparison When we attempt to create a positive image of ourselves through favorable comparisons with others who are worse off than we are (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

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 (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Emotional (or impulsive) aggression Aggression that occurs with only a small amount of forethought or intent and that is determined primarily by impulsive emotions (in Defining Aggression)

Emotions Brief, but often intense, mental and physiological feeling states (in Affect, Behaviour, and Cognition)

Empathy An affective response in which a person understands, and even feels, another person’s distress and experiences events the way the other person does (in The Role of Affect: Moods and Emotions)

Evolutionary adaptation The assumption that human nature, including much of our social behavior, is determined largely by our evolutionary past (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Exchange relationships Relationships in which each of the partners keeps track of his or her contributions to the partnership (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Experimental confederate A person who is actually part of the experimental team but who pretends to be another participant in the study (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Experimental research Research designs that include the manipulation of a given situation or experience for two or more groups of individuals who are initially created to be equivalent, followed by a measurement of the effect of that experience. (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Extended-contact hypothesis The prediction that people who have friends from other social groups will be more accepting of all members of those groups (in Reducing Discrimination)

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 (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Factorial research designs Experimental designs that have two or more independent variables (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

False consensus bias The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people hold similar views to our own (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Field experiments Experimental research studies that are conducted in a natural environment (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Fixed-sum outcome When a gain for one side necessarily means a loss for the other side or sides (in Strategies for Producing Cooperation)

Foot-in-the-door technique A persuasion attempt in which we first get the target to accept a rather minor request, and then ask for a larger request (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Forming stage When the members of the group come together and begin their existence as a group (in Understanding Social Groups)

Framing effects occur when people’s judgments about different options are affected by whether they are framed as resulting in gains or losses. (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Frustration The emotion that results from feeling that we are not obtaining the important goals that we have set for ourselves (in The Biological and Emotional Causes of Aggression)

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) A neuroimaging technique that uses a magnetic field to create images of brain structure and function (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Fundamental attribution error When we tend to overestimate the role of person factors and overlook the impact of situations in explaining a behavior (in Biases in Attribution)

Group polarization When, after discussion, the attitudes held by the individual group members become more extreme than they were before the group began discussing the topic (in Group Decision Making)

Group process The events that occur while the group is working together on the task (in Group Performance)

Group-serving bias (or ultimate attribution error) The tendency to make internal attributions about our ingroups’ successes, and external attributions about their setbacks, and to make the opposite pattern of attributions about our outgroups (in Biases in Attribution)

Groupthink When a group that is made up of members who may actually be very competent and thus quite capable of making excellent decisions nevertheless ends up making a poor one as a result of a flawed group process and strong conformity pressures (in Group Decision Making)

Halo effect The influence of a global positive evaluation of a person on perceptions of their specific traits (Initial Impression Formation)

Hindsight bias The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that we probably would not have been able to predict (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Implicit Association Test (IAT) A procedure designed to elicit implicit beliefs and attitudes (in Social Categorization and Stereotyping)

Independent variable The situation that is created by the experimenter through the experimental manipulations (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Individualism Cultural norms, common in Western societies, that focus primarily on self-enhancement and independence (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Informational social influence The change in opinions or behavior that occurs when we conform to people who we believe have accurate information (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Ingroup favoritism The tendency to respond more positively to people from our ingroups than we do to people from outgroups (in Ingroup Favoritism and Prejudice)

Instrumental or cognitive aggression Aggression that is intentional and planned (in Defining Aggression)

Insufficient justification The perception that a threat or reward that is in fact sufficient to get the person to engage in or avoid a behavior is not sufficient (in Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior)

Integrative outcome When a solution can be found that benefits all the parties (in Competition and Cooperation in Our Social Worlds)

Interdependence A state in which the group members depend on each other for successful performance of the group goals (in Reducing Discrimination)

Internal attribution See Dispositional attribution

Internal validity The extent to which changes in the dependent variable in an experiment can confidently be attributed to changes in the independent variable (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Interpersonal attraction The strength of our liking or loving for another person (in Initial Attraction)

Jigsaw classroom An approach to learning in which students from different racial or ethnic groups work together, in an interdependent way, to master material (in Reducing Discrimination)

Just world belief The belief that people get what they deserve in life (in Other Determinants of Helping)

Kin selection Strategies that favor the reproductive success of one’s relatives, sometimes even at a cost to the individual’s own survival (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Labeling bias When we are labeled, and others’ views and expectations of us are affected by that labeling (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Looking-glass self When part of how we see ourselves comes from our perception of how others see us (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Low-ball technique A persuasion attempt in which the persuader promises the target something desirable, with the intention of getting the target to imagine himself or herself engaging the desired behavior, before indicating that the desirable offer is actually not possible (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Mere exposure effect The tendency to prefer stimuli (including, but not limited to, people) that we have seen frequently (in Initial Attraction)

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 (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Mindguard Someone whose job it is to help quash dissent and to increase conformity to the leader’s opinions (in Group Decision Making)

Misattribution of arousal When people incorrectly label the source of the arousal that they are experiencing (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Mood The positive or negative feelings that are in the background of our everyday experiences (in Affect, Behaviour, and Cognition)

Mood-dependent memory The tendency to better remember information when our current mood matches the mood we were in when we encoded that information (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Narcissism A personality trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness (in The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem)

Need for cognition The tendency to think carefully and fully about our experiences, including the social situations we encounter (in Individual Differences in Person Perception)

Negative attributional style The tendency to explain negative events by referring to their own dispositions, which are also seen as being stable throughout one’s lifespan, and is a global descriptor of the self (in Individual Differences in Person Perception)

Negotiation The process by which two or more parties formally work together to attempt to resolve a perceived divergence of interest in order to avoid or resolve social conflict (in Strategies for Producing Cooperation)

Nonphysical aggression Aggression that does not involve physical harm (in Defining Aggression)

Nonverbal behavior Any type of communication that does not involve speaking, including facial expressions, body language, touching, voice patterns, and interpersonal distance (in Initial Impression Formation)

Normative social influence Conformity that occurs when we express opinions or behave in ways that help us to be accepted or that keep us from being isolated or rejected by others (in The Many Varieties of Conformity

Norming stage When the appropriate norms and roles for the group are developed (in Understanding Social Groups)

Objective self-awareness The tendency to focus on our outer public image and to be particularly aware of the extent to which we are meeting the standards set by others (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Observational learning When people learn by observing the behavior of others (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Observational research Research that involves making observations of behavior and recording those observations in an objective manner (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Operant learning The principle that experiences that are followed by positive emotions (reinforcements or rewards) are likely to be repeated, whereas experiences that are followed by negative emotions (punishments) are less likely to be repeated (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Operational definition The particular method that we use to measure a variable of interest in a tangible way (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Optimistic bias The tendency to believe that positive outcomes are more likely to happen than negative ones, particularly in relation to ourselves versus others (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Outgroup homogeneity The tendency to view members of outgroups as more similar to each other than we see members of ingroups (in Social Categorization and Stereotyping)

Overconfidence bias The tendency to be overconfident in our own skills, abilities, and judgments (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Overjustification The viewing of our behavior as caused by the situation, leading us to discount the extent to which our behavior was actually caused by our own interest in the activity (in Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior)

Passionate love The kind of love that we experience when we are first getting to know a romantic partner (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Pearson correlation coefficient A statistic used to summarize the association, or correlation, between two variables (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Performing stage When group members establish a routine and effectively work together (in Understanding Social Groups)

Physical aggression Aggression that involves harming others physically (in Defining Aggression)

Planning fallacy The tendency to overestimate the amount that we can accomplish over a particular time frame How We Use Our Expectations)

Pluralistic ignorance When people think that others in their environment have information that they do not have and when they base their judgments on what they think the others are thinking (in How the Social Context Influences Helping)

Positive attributional style Ways of explaining events that are related to high self-esteem, including a tendency to explain the negative events they experience by referring to external causes that are not stable through one’s lifetime, and do not have global impact (in Individual Differences in Person Perception)

Postdecisional dissonance The feeling of regret that may occur after we make an important decision (in Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior)

Prefrontal cortex The part of the brain that lies in front of the motor areas of the cortex and that helps us remember the characteristics and actions of other people, plan complex social behaviors, and coordinate our behaviors with those of others (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Prejudice An unjustifiable negative attitude toward an outgroup or toward the members of that outgroup (in Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination)

Primacy effect The tendency for information that we learn first to be weighted more heavily than is information that we learn later (in Initial Impression Formation)

Priming A technique in which information is temporarily brought into memory through exposure to situational events, which can then influence judgments entirely out of awareness (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Prisoner’s dilemma game A laboratory simulation that models a social dilemma in which the goals of the individual compete with the goals of another individual (or sometimes with a group of other individuals) (in Competition and Cooperation: The Role of Social Dilemmas)

Private acceptance Real change in opinions on the part of the individual (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Process gain When groups work better than we would expect, given the individuals who form them (in Group Performance)

Process loss When groups perform more poorly than we would expect, given the characteristics of the members of the group (in Group Performance)

Propinquity effect The tendency for people to become better acquainted with, and more fond of, each other when the social situation brings them into repeated contact (in Initial Attraction)

Psychological reactance A strong motivational state that resists social influence (in Person, Gender, and Cultural Differences in Conformity

Public compliance A superficial change in behavior (including the public expression of opinions) that is not accompanied by an actual change in one’s private opinion (in The Many Varieties of Conformity)

Public goods Benefits that are shared by a community at large and that everyone in the group has access to, regardless of whether or not they have personally contributed to the creation of the goods (in Competition and Cooperation: The Role of Social Dilemmas)

Random assignment Determining separately for each participant which condition he or she will experience through a random process (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Recency effect When information that comes later is given more weight (in Initial Impression Formation)

Reciprocal altruism A mutual, and generally equitable, exchange of benefits (in Understanding Altruism: Self and Other Concerns)

Reciprocity norm A social norm reminding us that we should follow the principles of reciprocal altruism (in Understanding Altruism: Self and Other Concerns)

Reconstructive memory bias When we remember things that match our current beliefs better than those that don’t and reshape those memories to better align with our current beliefs (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Relational or social aggression Intentionally harming another person’s social relationships (in Defining Aggression)

Representativeness heuristic When we base our judgments on information that seems to represent, or match, what we expect will happen, while ignoring more informative base-rate information (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Research hypothesis A specific prediction about the relationship between the variables of interest and about the specific direction of that relationship (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Schema A knowledge representation that includes information about a person, group, or situation (in Affect, Behaviour, and Cognition)

Secure attachment style When children perceive their parents as safe, available, and responsive caregivers and are able to relate easily to them (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Self-affirmation theory When people try to reduce the threat to their self-concept posed by feelings of self-discrepancy by focusing on and affirming their worth in another domain, unrelated to the issue at hand (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-awareness The extent to which we are currently fixing our attention on our own self-concept (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-awareness theory When we focus our attention on ourselves, the tendency for us to compare our current behavior against our internal standards (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-complexity The extent to which individuals have many different and relatively independent ways of thinking about themselves (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-concept A knowledge representation that contains knowledge about us, including our beliefs about our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that we exist as individuals (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-concept clarity The extent to which one’s self-concept is clearly and consistently defined (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-disclosure The tendency to communicate frequently, without fear of reprisal, and in an accepting and empathetic manner (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Self-discrepancy theory The tendency to experience distress when we perceive a discrepancy between our actual and ideal selves (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-efficacy The belief in our ability to carry out actions that produce desired outcomes (in Social Cognition and Affect)

Self-esteem The positive (high self-esteem) or negative (low self-esteem) feelings that we have about ourselves (in The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem)

Self-fulfilling prophecy A process that occurs when our expectations about others lead us to behave toward those others in ways that make our expectations come true (in Sources of Social Knowledge)

Self-monitoring The tendency to be both motivated and capable of regulating our behavior to meet the demands of social situations (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Self-perception The process of using our perceptions of our behavior to help us determine our attitudes toward an attitude object (in Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior)

Self-presentation The tendency to present a positive self-image to others, with the goal of increasing our social status (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Self-reference effect When information that is processed in relationship to the self is particularly well remembered (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-report measures Measures in which individuals are asked to respond to questions posed by an interviewer or on a questionnaire (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Self-schema A variety of different cognitive aspects of the self (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Self-serving bias The tendency to attribute our successes to ourselves, and our failures to others and the situation (in Biases in Attribution)

Self-verification theory The tendency for people to often seek confirmation of their self-concept, whether it is positive or negative (in The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem)

Shared information bias When group members tend to discuss information that they all have access to while ignoring equally important information that is available to only a few of the members (in Group Decision Making)

Situational attribution When we determine that a behavior was caused primarily by the situation (in Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution)

Sleeper effect Attitude change that occurs over time when the content of a message is remembered but the source of the message is forgotten (in Changing Attitudes through Persuasion)

Social categorization The natural cognitive process of placing individuals into social groups according to their social categories (in Social Categorization and Stereotyping)

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. (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Social dilemma A situation in which the goals of the individual conflict with the goals of the group (in Competition and Cooperation in Our Social Worlds)

Social facilitation The tendency to perform tasks better or faster in the presence of others (in Group Performance)

Social group A set of individuals with a shared purpose and who normally share a positive social identity (in Working Groups: Performance and Decision Making)

Social identity The sense of our self that involves our memberships in social groups (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Social identity theory The tendency to draw part of our sense of identity and self-esteem from the social groups that we belong to (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Social influence The process through which other people change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and through which we change theirs (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Social loafing A group process loss that occurs when people do not work as hard in a group as they do when they are alone (in Group Performance)

Social neuroscience The study of how our social behavior both influences and is influenced by the activities of our brain (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Social norms The ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that are shared by group members and perceived by them as appropriate (in Defining Social Psychology: History and Principles)

Social power The ability of a person to create conformity even when the people being influenced may attempt to resist those changes (in Obedience and Power)

Social responsibility norm A social norm that we should try to help others who need assistance, even without any expectation of future paybacks (in Understanding Altruism: Self and Other Concerns)

Social support refers to the comfort that we receive from the people around us—for instance, our family, friends, classmates, and coworkers (in Liking and Loving)

Spontaneous message processing When we focus on whatever is most obvious or enjoyable, without much attention to the message itself (in Changing Attitudes through Persuasion)

Spotlight effect When people overestimate the extent to which other people are focusing on them (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Stereotype The positive or negative beliefs that we hold about the characteristics of social group (in Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination)

Stereotype threat Performance decrements that are caused by the knowledge of cultural stereotypes (in Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination)

Storming stage When group members may attempt to make their own views known, expressing their independence and attempting to persuade the group to accept their ideas (in Understanding Social Groups)

Subjective self-awareness The tendency to introspect about our inner thoughts and feelings (in The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept)

Sunk costs bias When we choose to stay in situations largely because we feel we have put too much effort in to be able to leave them behind (in Close Relationships: Liking and Loving over the Long Term)

Superordinate goals Goals that are very important and require the cooperative efforts and resources of more than one group to attain (in Reducing Discrimination)

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 (in Conducting Research in Social Psychology)

Thought suppression Attempts to avoid thinking about what one does not want to think about (in How We Use Our Expectations)

Thoughtful message processing The careful consideration of whether a persuasion attempt is valid or invalid (in Changing Attitudes through Persuasion)

Tit-for-tat strategy Initially making a cooperative choice and then simply matching the previous move of the opponent (whether cooperation or competition) (in Strategies for Producing Cooperation)

Trait ascription bias A tendency for people to view their own personality, beliefs, and behaviors as more variable than those of others (in Biases in Attribution)

Upward social comparison When we compare ourselves with others who are better off than we are (in The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation)

Verbal aggression Yelling, screaming, swearing, and name calling (in Defining Aggression)

Violence Aggression that has extreme physical harm, such as injury or death, as its goal (in Defining Aggression)

What is beautiful is good stereotype The belief that external attractiveness signifies positive internal qualities (in Initial Attraction)