spotlight effect
The belief that others are paying more attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are.
illusion of transparency
The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others.
self-concept
A person's answers to the question "Who am I?".
self-schema
Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.
possible selves
Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.
social comparison
Evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.
individualism
The concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.
collectivism
Giving priority to the goals of one's groups (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.
interdependent self
Construing one's identity in relation to others.
planning fallacy
The tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task.
impact bias
Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.
immune neglect
The human tendency to underestimate the speed and the strength of the "psychological immune system," which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.
dual attitudes
Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.
self-esteem
A person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.
self-efficacy
A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one's sense of self-worth. A bombardier might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.
locus of control
The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.
learned helplessness
The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events.
self-serving bias
The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.
self-serving attributions
A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors.
defensive pessimism
The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action.
false consensus effect
The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.
false uniqueness effect
The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.
group serving bias
Explaining away outgroup members' positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one's own group).
self-handicapping
Protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure.
self-presentation
The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals.
self-monitoring
Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance to create the desired impression.
priming
Activating particular associations in memory.
belief perseverance
Persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.
misinformation effect
Incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it.
controlled processing
Explicit" thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.
automatic processing
Implicit" thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponding to "intuition.
overconfidence phenomenon
The tendency to be more confident than correct�to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs.
confirmation bias
A tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
heuristic
A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments.
representativeness heuristic
The tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member.
availability heuristic
A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. If instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace.
counterfactual thinking
Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn't.
illusory correlation
Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.
illusion of control
Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are.
regression toward the average
The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average.
misattribution
Mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source.
attribution theory
The theory of how people explain others' behavior�for example, by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations.
dispositional attribution
Attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits.
situational attribution
Attributing behavior to the environment.
spontaneous trait inference
An effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior.
fundamental attribution error
The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (Also called correspondence bias, because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition).
self-awareness
A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions.
self-fulfilling prophecy
A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.
behavioral confirmation
A type of self fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations.
attitude
A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often rooted in one's beliefs, and exhibited in one's feelings and intended behavior).
implicit association test
A computer-driven assessment of implicit attitudes. The test uses reaction times to measure people's automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. Easier pairings (and faster responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious as
role
A set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave.
foot-in-the-door phenomenon
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
low-ball technique
A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.
cognitive dissonance
Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. For example, dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favoring one alternative des
insufficient justification
Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient".
self-perception theory
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.
overjustification effect
The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.
self-affirmation theory
A theory that (a) people often experience a self-image threat, after engaging in an undesirable behavior; and that (b) they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people's self-concept in one domain and they will compensate eithe