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compensation effect

an increase in group performance that occurs when one or more members work harder to compensate for the real or imagined shortcomings of their fellow members. Compare Köhler effect; sucker effect.

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Psychology term of the day

March 15th 2025

utopia

utopia

n. an idealized, perfect society. Coined by English statesman and author Thomas More (1478–1535) in his speculative political fiction Utopia (1516), the term is of Greek derivation (literally, “no place”). By contrast, the term dystopia, coined in about 1950, refers to an imaginary society of nightmarish conditions. —utopian adj.