Difficulty: Introductory | Prerequisites: None, though a basic sense of how psychology experiments work (independent variables, controls) will help.
Social psychology sits at the intersection of how we think about ourselves and how we think about other people. This set of definitions covers foundational concepts you will meet across multiple units: the self (esteem, regulation, enhancement), how we explain behaviour (attribution, covariation), and the mental shortcuts and biases that shape everyday judgement (construal level theory, base rates, regression to the mean). If you are coming in cold, these terms form the vocabulary the rest of the course builds on, so they are worth locking down early.
The definitions here originate from an NYU Social Psychology course (PSY 301) and map closely to topics in most introductory social psych textbooks.
These definitions cover how people perceive themselves (self-esteem as a social meter, self-enhancement, self-regulation), how they explain behaviour (covariation principle, attribution), and systematic thinking errors they fall into (base-rate neglect, regression to the mean, construal level distortions). Knowing these terms cold is the entry ticket to every later topic in social psychology.
Channel factors
Seemingly unimportant situational circumstances that turn out to be surprisingly influential in shaping behaviour.
Think of it as: tiny details in the environment that nudge people one way or another. The classic example is the Yale seminary study, where theology students who were told they were running late were far less likely to help a person in distress, even though they were on their way to give a talk about the Good Samaritan.
Theory of mind
The understanding that other people have their own beliefs, desires, and mental states that may differ from your own.
In simple terms, this means recognising that other people see the world differently from you, and using that knowledge to predict or explain their behaviour.
Internal validity
The degree of confidence that only the manipulated (independent) variable, and nothing else, could have produced the observed results in an experiment.
Think of it as: how sure you can be that your experiment actually tested what it claimed to test, with no confounds sneaking in.
Sociometer hypothesis
The theory that self-esteem functions as an internal, subjective gauge of how much a person is accepted and valued by others.
In simple terms, this means your self-esteem is less about objective self-assessment and more like an alarm system that tracks whether the people around you like and include you.
Self-enhancement
The motivated desire to protect and maintain positive views of oneself.
Think of it as: the psychological drive to see yourself in a favourable light, which shows up as taking credit for successes and deflecting blame for failures.
Self-regulation
The process of controlling or redirecting the pursuit of one goal in order to serve another, often longer-term, goal.
In simple terms, this means overriding what you want right now (scrolling your phone) in favour of what you want more broadly (passing the exam).
Promotion focus
A self-regulatory orientation in which a person strives to approach the standards of their ideal self, emphasising gains, aspirations, and accomplishments.
Think of it as: playing to win rather than playing not to lose. A promotion-focused student aims for an A rather than trying to avoid a C.
Construal level theory (CLT)
The idea that psychologically distant events or objects are thought about in abstract, high-level terms, while psychologically close events or objects are thought about in concrete, detail-rich terms.
In simple terms, this means that a holiday six months away feels like "relaxation and adventure," but a holiday tomorrow feels like "packing suitcases and checking in online."
Base-rate information
Statistical information about the relative frequency of members of one group (or events) compared to another.
Think of it as: the background odds before you know anything specific about a case. People frequently ignore base rates and over-rely on vivid individual information instead.
Regression effect (regression to the mean)
The statistical tendency for extreme outcomes to be followed by less extreme outcomes on subsequent measurement, simply because extreme scores partly reflect chance.
In simple terms, this means that after an unusually good or bad event, the next event will probably be closer to average. It is not caused by any intervention; it is a mathematical inevitability. The classic trap: a city installs speed cameras after a spike in crashes and credits the cameras when crashes drop, when they likely would have dropped anyway.
Covariation principle
The idea that a behaviour should be attributed to a cause that is present when the behaviour occurs and absent when it does not.
Think of it as: if every time your flatmate cooks, the fire alarm goes off, you attribute the alarm to the cooking, not to the weather.
Ideomotor action
An action that becomes more likely to occur simply because a person is thinking about doing it.
In simple terms, this means that merely imagining or contemplating a movement can prime your body to carry it out, often without conscious intention.
Descriptive norms
What people in a given situation typically do; the observed behavioural pattern.
Think of it as: "most people don't take rocks from the national park" (a description of actual behaviour).
Prescriptive norms (injunctive norms)
What people believe a person ought to do in a given situation; the socially approved standard.
Think of it as: "you should not take rocks from the national park" (a moral or social rule about correct behaviour). The distinction matters because the two types of norm can point in different directions and have different effects on compliance.
Sociometer hypothesis frames self-esteem not as a trait you build in isolation but as a real-time readout of social acceptance. When people exclude you, your self-esteem drops; when they include you, it rises.
Self-enhancement is the motivational engine behind many cognitive biases: it explains why people take credit for group successes, downplay negative feedback, and compare themselves to worse-off others.
Self-regulation is the capacity to override impulses in favour of higher-order goals. It connects to willpower research, ego depletion debates, and delay of gratification.
Promotion focus is one pole of regulatory focus theory (the other is prevention focus). Promotion-focused individuals are sensitive to the presence or absence of positive outcomes, while prevention-focused individuals are sensitive to the presence or absence of negative outcomes.
Covariation principle (Kelley's model) is the formal backbone of how people decide why someone behaved the way they did. It relies on three dimensions: consensus (do other people do it too?), distinctiveness (does this person do it in other situations?), and consistency (does this person always do it here?).
Theory of mind underpins all social cognition. Without the ability to represent other people's mental states, attribution, empathy, deception, and cooperation all break down.
Internal validity is a methods term, not an attribution term, but it shows up in this list because social psychologists need it to make causal claims about behaviour.
Base-rate information is the statistical backdrop that people systematically ignore in favour of vivid anecdotal evidence (the base-rate fallacy). It pairs with representativeness and availability heuristics.
Regression to the mean is not a psychological bias in itself; it is a statistical fact. The bias is in misinterpreting it, for instance attributing a natural regression to whatever intervention happened to coincide with it.
Construal level theory predicts that increasing psychological distance (in time, space, social distance, or probability) shifts thinking from concrete to abstract. This has practical implications for persuasion, planning, and decision-making.
Channel factors are Lewin's insight that small situational details can have outsized effects on behaviour, often more than personality or attitudes.
Descriptive vs. prescriptive norms is a distinction that matters for campaigns and interventions. Telling people "most people litter" (descriptive) can accidentally increase littering, while telling them "you should not litter" (prescriptive) is more effective.
Ideomotor action sits at the boundary of conscious and unconscious behaviour and connects to priming research.
Students often confuse descriptive norms with prescriptive norms. Descriptive is about what people actually do; prescriptive is about what people believe should be done. They can conflict: most people may speed on a motorway (descriptive) even though speeding is disapproved of (prescriptive).
Students frequently think regression to the mean is caused by some force pulling outcomes back to average. It is not. It is a purely statistical phenomenon: extreme scores contain a large random component, and randomness is unlikely to repeat in the same direction.
Self-enhancement is sometimes mistaken for narcissism. Self-enhancement is a normal, widespread motivation; narcissism is a more extreme, rigid pattern with distinct interpersonal consequences.
Internal validity is often confused with external validity. Internal validity asks "did the experiment work as designed?" External validity asks "do the results generalise beyond the lab?" They trade off against each other in many study designs.
⚠️ Channel factors are a favourite exam topic because the Yale seminary study is vivid and counter-intuitive. Be ready to identify channel factors in novel scenarios.
⚠️ Sociometer hypothesis is often tested as a compare-and-contrast: how does it differ from a trait-based view of self-esteem?
⚠️ Regression to the mean is tested by giving you a scenario (sports performance, medical symptoms, crime rates) and asking whether an observed change is best explained by an intervention or by regression. The answer is almost always regression.
⚠️ Covariation principle questions require you to apply Kelley's three dimensions (consensus, distinctiveness, consistency) to a vignette and determine whether the attribution is internal, external, or situational.
⚠️ Descriptive vs. prescriptive norms often appear in applied questions about public health messaging or environmental campaigns.
True or false: The sociometer hypothesis says self-esteem is a stable personality trait unrelated to social feedback.
Fill in the blank: The ______ principle states that behaviour should be attributed to causes that are present when the behaviour occurs and absent when it does not.
True or false: Regression to the mean requires some causal mechanism to push outcomes back toward the average.
Fill in the blank: ______ norms describe what people typically do, while ______ norms describe what people believe should be done.
True or false: Construal level theory predicts that people think more concretely about events that are far in the future.
Answers: 1. False (it is a dynamic gauge of social acceptance). 2. Covariation. 3. False (it is a statistical artefact of random variation). 4. Descriptive; prescriptive. 5. False (distant events are thought about abstractly, not concretely).
Q: A city sees a record number of traffic accidents in January and installs new speed cameras in February. Accidents fall in March. A politician credits the cameras. What statistical concept best explains the drop, and why?
A: Regression to the mean. January's record was an extreme value; statistically, the next month's count was likely to be closer to the long-run average regardless of any intervention. The cameras may have helped, but the drop alone is not evidence of that.
Q: According to the sociometer hypothesis, what psychological function does self-esteem serve?
A: Self-esteem acts as an internal, subjective gauge of how much a person is accepted and valued by the people around them. It rises with social inclusion and drops with exclusion.
Q: A researcher finds that a new teaching method improves exam scores, but later discovers that the control group also received extra tutoring. Which type of validity is compromised, and why?
A: Internal validity. If the control group received an unplanned intervention (tutoring), you can no longer be confident that the teaching method alone produced the difference in scores.
Q: Explain the difference between a descriptive norm and a prescriptive norm, using an example involving littering.
A: A descriptive norm describes what people actually do: "most visitors to the park do not litter." A prescriptive norm describes what people believe should be done: "visitors should not litter in the park." The first is observational; the second is evaluative.
Q: A student who has been studying self-regulation decides to skip a party to revise for an exam. Which regulatory focus (promotion or prevention) best describes a student who frames this decision as "I want to get an A"?
A: Promotion focus. The student is orienting towards a positive ideal outcome (achieving an A) rather than trying to avoid a negative outcome (failing the exam), which would be prevention focus.
The sociometer hypothesis connects directly to belongingness and rejection research (Baumeister and Leary), which you will likely encounter in a unit on relationships or group processes.
Construal level theory and base-rate neglect both feed into the broader topic of heuristics and biases, where Kahneman and Tversky's work on System 1 and System 2 thinking provides the overarching framework.
Channel factors and descriptive/prescriptive norms reappear in units on persuasion, compliance, and social influence, particularly when discussing how to design effective interventions or nudges.
Social psychology definitions, PSY 301, NYU social psych, channel factors, theory of mind, internal validity, sociometer hypothesis, self-esteem as social gauge, self-enhancement, self-regulation, promotion focus, prevention focus, regulatory focus theory, construal level theory, CLT, psychological distance, base-rate information, base-rate fallacy, base-rate neglect, regression to the mean, regression effect, covariation principle, Kelley attribution model, ideomotor action, ideomotor effect, descriptive norms, prescriptive norms, injunctive norms, social norms, attribution theory, heuristics and biases, self-concept, social cognition