Ad hoc – formed for a specific purpose, like task-oriented groups
ANOVA – inferential statistical test indicated for use with non-continuous or categorical
independent variables testing whether the variation between averages is bigger than the variation around each of these averages
Attitude – an individual (positive or negative) evaluation of an object, event, person, or idea
Behavioral research or study – see Experiment
Between-subjects – Research designed to test for differences between groups
of research participants (as opposed to within-subjects research that looks at differences between multiple responses of single participants surveyed at different times).
Cell – see Experimental Condition
Categorical variable – a non-numerical variable with qualitative, discrete Levels (see below); for
example, in a study of the effects of a placebo versus active medication, the variable of
whether patients took the placebo or medication is categorical
Cohesion – the amount people in a group ‘stick together’ or the extent to which they are close
psychologically speaking
Construct – a psychological or otherwise intangible concept that is not able to be directly,
measured.
Correlate/correlation – when two things correlate, variation in one corresponds more closely to
variation in the other
Decision-making – the act of choosing one option from a list of possible choices
Dependent variable or measure – A variable or construct that is measured and expected to vary in
hypothesized ways based on changes in the conditions study participants are exposed to
Diversity – differences within a group on any trait (that can be used to differentiate between
people or sub-categorize people in a group)
E.g. – for example
Experiment – the random sampling and assignment of human participants to view different
stimuli with hopes that these different stimuli will lead participants to respond in predictably different ways on relevant psychometric measures, with attempted control of possible confounding variables through standardization of the administration of stimuli and measures.
Experimental Condition – In the context of the present research, participants are randomly
assigned to one of twelve possible conditions where their group can vary in two ways, personality similarity can be high or low (2) and the group can agree in one of two ways or disagree (x 3 = 6), and participants are either asked to think about times they were uncertain of how to act or certain of how to act (x 2 = 12).
Factor – another term for variable especially one that has discrete or non-continuous levels
Group – three or more people sharing a common social category or a group of people sharing
identity-relevant traits presumed to exist
Groupthink – the dogged pursuit of cohesion and the group leader’s preference at the expense of
a broader surveying of options in a decision-making scenario
Group polarization – when the average of a group’s ratings shifts between the time individual
group members make ratings alone and the time they make these ratings after learning how other people in a group responded.
I.e. – in essence
Identification – the extent to which a person’s self-concept or idea about who they are overlaps
with a label or concept; in other words, how much one feels a certain trait applies to them is the level of identification with this trait
Identity-uncertainty – see Self-uncertainty
Independent variable or measure – In a controlled experiment, the thing that is manipulated or
changed or is different between different participants to see if you can affect dependent measures filled out by these people
Inter-group – having to do with something between groups
Intra-group – having to do with something within a group
Ingroup – a relative term referring to the group a person is in
Item – a single question in a set of questions meant to measure the same concept
Level – a unit within a factor or variable. For example, a study comparing behavior between
people in hot and cold rooms has temperature as an independent variable, measure, or factor and this factor has two levels.
Main effect – when the levels of one variable correlate with or predict statistically significant
differences in dependent variable measures
Mean – average
Minimal group – a group, usually formed in the context of behavioral research, defined in terms
of the most minimal traits that people can share, for instance just being called a team separate from other teams
Multivariate analysis – Statistical tests analyzing more than one dependent variable at a time
Norm – a norm is the perceived average of a trait among a group of people in the same social
category
Operational(ization) Definition – how a construct is eventually assigned a numerical value; the
logical connections that allow for the measurement of psychological variables by assessing or measuring more tangible markers of these things. The number of unique responses to an activity with instructions, ‘List as many uses for the following objects as you can,’ could be an operationalization or operational definition of creativity.
Outgroup – a relative term for a group that is different or the opposite in a meaningful way from
a group one is in; for example, calling someone a good guy implies the outgroup of bad guys
Participant(s) – a person whose responses to survey measures were recorded
Pre-discussion preference or response – an individual’s answer to a question or preferred choice
in a decision-making scenario before knowing anybody else in a group’s answer or preference
Predicts – correlates with
Preference norm – the average of individually preferred options in a decision-making scenario
Preference combining groups – decision-making groups; two or more people asked to discuss
personal preferences for what to choose in a decision-making scenario and agree on one option
Priming – to invoke or bring to mind a specific semantic or conceptual category
(Ingroup) Prototype – the fuzzy set of traits that describe the ideal ingroup member
(Inter-item) Reliability – an indicator of how much responses on single items or questions in the
same measure or survey will correlate. Higher reliability implies that questions included in the same survey are measuring the same construct
Response distribution – a diagram or table showing the frequency of each possible response to a
question. The aim of a behavioral, psychological and other research like that described here is to see if differences in what the experimenter exposes people to registers as differences in response distributions in different experimental conditions
Response option – one of two or more possible answers to a question
Response scale – the set of options available for answering a survey question; for example, rate
the following on a scale of one to ten
Self – the answer to the question of who a person is; what a person is described as that can be
more or less identified with
Self-Uncertainty – the state of being unsure as to how one should act, think, or feel or what to
Expect for the circumstances surrounding the self
Scale – a set of questions also called a test, measure, or (psychometric) instrument meant to
measure or assess the same construct or concept
Shared-information bias – the tendency of people to not bring up in conversation evidence or
information that they do not have in common with others in a decision-making group
Statistical significance – when a difference between two numbers is greater than the amount of
variation expected or observed around these numbers. When a measure of variance is the same as a difference between means of participants in different experimental conditions, then there is less reason to think that assigning participants to these different conditions made a difference and it is as if these means came from the same response distributions.
Stimuli – the materials presented to participants that differ across experimental conditions in
meaningful ways relative to dependent measures
Social – having to do with the interaction of living things most commonly referring to humans
Social identity and identification – respectively the social categories, category labels, or
communally shared (i.e., between two or more others) traits a person attributes to himself or herself and the extent to which these labels, traits, categories are important to or central to who he or she is
Task-uncertainty – the state of being unsure how to complete a task or how the process of
completing a task will proceed
Three-way (study) design – A study with three independent variables
Three-way (statistical) interaction – where the relationship between two out of three
variables changes depending on or at different levels of, the value of a third variable. For example, if temperature correlates with humidity more at higher elevation, there is a three-way interaction between temperature, humidity, and elevation
Two-way interaction – where the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable depend on the value of a second independent variable. In the reported study, there were no differences between preference norm or similarity conditions alone within self-uncertainty conditions, meaning, with high self-uncertainty, averaging across similarity no preference norm differences were revealed and averaging across norm conditions no differences were revealed between similarity conditions.
Alex Ash Creative 