Alphabetical Glossary

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random assignment to condition
the process whereby all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment; through random assignment, researchers can be relatively certain that differences in their participants' personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions

random selection
a way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population, by making sure that everyone in the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample

rationalization trap
the potential for dissonance reduction to produce a succession of self-justifications that ultimately result in a chain of stupid or immoral actions

reactance theory
the idea that when people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of reactance is aroused; people can reduce this reactance by performing the threatened behavior

realistic conflict theory
the theory that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination

reasons-generated attitude change
attitude change resulting from thinking about the reasons for one's attitudes; people assume their attitudes match the reasons that are plausible and easy to verbalize

reciprocity norm
a social norm stating that receiving anything positive from another person requires you to reciprocate (or behave similarly) in response

reconstructive memory
the process whereby memories for an event become distorted by information encountered after the event has occurred encountered after the event has occurred

recovered memories
recollections of a past event, such as sexual abuse, that had been forgotten or repressed; a great deal of controversy surrounds the accuracy of such memories

relational dialectics
a theory which states that close relationships are always in a state of change, due to opposing forces of autonomy/connection, novelty/predictability, and openness/closedness

relationship-oriented leader
a leader who is concerned primarily with the feelings of and relationships between the workers

relative deprivation
the perception that you (or your group) have less than you deserve, less than you have been led to expect, or less than people similar to you have

replication
repetition of a study, often with different subject populations or in different settings

representativeness heuristic
a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case

retrieval
the process by which people recall information stored in their memories

roles
positions in a group that come with a specified "script," or expected set of behaviors