social psychology exam 1 review

social psychology

scientific study of the ways in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the real or imagined presence of others

ABC’s of social psychology

affect (feelings), behavior (actions), and cognitions (thoughts)

5 big ideas in social psychology

1. we construct our social reality

2. our feelings, behavior, and thoughts are shaped by social influences

3. our social intuitions are powerful, but sometimes they are inaccurate and dangerous

4. people are socially motivated

5. humans have limited attentional resources, so we must filter the world around us (and we use varied cognitive processes to sort through this information)

attribution

an explanation for a behavior; an attribution is a type of construal

internal attribution

attributing behaviors to a person’s disposition or personality traits

external attribution

attributing behaviors to the situation that a person is in

naive realism

conviction that we perceive things “as they really are,” underestimating how much we are interpreting or “spinning” what we see

fundamental attribution error (FAE)

the tendency to overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of the situation in explaining others’ behavior
we easily attribute people’s behavior to the person’s disposition/personality traits

construals

the ways in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world

the research process

theory → hypothesis → research designed to test → results of predictions

hypotheses

testable predictions about the relationships between events

three types of research methods

1. observational: observing people’s behavior and systematically recording what occurs, without intervening (what happens?)

2. correlational: measuring two or more variables to assess the strength and direction of their relationship (what goes together?)

3. experimental: randomly assigning participants to conditions, manipulating an independent variable, and measuring its effect on a dependent variable (what causes what?)

naturalistic observations

observing behavior in its natural setting

case studies

an in-depth study of a single person or group

surveys

asking people about their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors

question framing

how researchers decide to ask (or frame) their questions

random sampling

sample is representative; everyone in population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample

archives

examining existing public records or datasets

correlations

examines whether two variables are systematically related and, if they are, how they’re related

positive correlation

as X increases, Y increases

negative correlation

as X increases, Y decreases

zero correlation

X scores are unrelated to Y

3 possibilities of correlations

1. variable A could cause variable B

2. variable B could cause variable A

3. a third variable C could cause both A and B

independent variable

manipulated by the experimenter

dependent variable

what we think is being affected by the IV

random assignment

each participant has equal chance of being placed in any condition

field studies

behavior measured in the real world, but also includes a manipulation

laboratory studies

a controlled experiment with complete control over the variables in the study

cognition

thought

cognitive psychology

scientific study of thought processes

social cognition

scientific study of thought processes that are related to people and social information

automatic thinking

unconscious, unintentional, involuntary, effortless

controlled thinking

conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful

cognitive misers

we try to conserve our cognitive energy and are willing to take mental shortcuts to understand the social world

schemas

mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world

they influence the information people notice, think about, and remember

they are useful because they reduce ambiguity

heuristics

the simple rules for making decisions in a rapid manner

mental shortcuts that allow people that conserve their mental resources

representativeness heuristic

mental shortcut whereby people judge something according to how similar it is to the typical case

error: instead of thinking about what’s statistically most likely, people rely on how well something seems to fit

gambler’s fallacy

incorrectly thinking that independent events somehow influence each other, when they don’t; incorrectly believing that chance events will “even out” in the short run

availability heuristic

tendency to judge how likely something is based on how easily we can think of examples of it (making judgments based on the information that’s most available in the mind)

anchoring heuristic

a tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information received (the “anchor”) when making subsequent estimates

error: people stay too close to the anchor (even if the anchor is arbitrary)

confirmation bias

tendency to notice and search for information that confirms our beliefs and to ignore (or fail to seek out) information that disconfirms our beliefs

hindsight bias

tendency to exaggerate one’s ability to have foreseen an outcome AFTER learning about the outcome

it’s also called the “I knew it all along” phenomenon

accessibility

how readily a schema comes to mind (and the more accessible a schema is, the more likely we’ll use that schema to make judgments and decisions)

what makes schemas accessible?

1. chronic accessibility (food schemas are always available for foodies)

2. goal-activated accessibility (hunger makes food schemas accessible)

3. temporary accessibility (priming food related ideas)

priming

the process by which exposure to certain stimuli (such as words, images, or smells) temporarily increases the accessibility of related concepts in the mind

priming mechanism

link between perception and behavior is automatic, but it relies on motivation and resources for priming to affect behavior

self-fulfilling prophecy

the phenomenon whereby people’s expectations about what another person is like, influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations, making the expectations come true

it’s a reinforcing cycle and we do this all the time

counterfactual thinking

the tendency to imagine alternative outcomes in a situation, other than the outcome that actually occurred; to think about what “might-have-been”

overconfidence bias

tendency for people to feel more confident in their judgments than their skills, abilities, and knowledge warrants

→ occurs because we don’t know what we don’t know; we lack knowledge of our own blind spots

why study heuristics and biases?

→ reveal how we think about ourselves and others

→ help us understand how things like misunderstandings, prejudice, and discrimination come to be

→ benefit from greater awareness of how the mind works

individualism

values independence, autonomy, and self-reliance

collectivism

values interdependence, cooperation, and social harmony