social psy term test 1

what does social psychology focus on and why is it important

• social groups influence the sense of self (social influence)

• we like and hangout people who share similar interests (intrapersonal attraction)

• humans are social creatures

• social environments influence what we do and how we feel

what is the definition of social psychology

the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

what are mental representations and how do they affect us

we make mental representations of other people (group them) and it can affect our feelings and way of behaving

CORE PRINCIPLES (there’s 6)

1. social situations exert power and influences our behvaior

2. importance of cognition and how you interpret situations which guides the self

3. internal factors, beliefs, and personality DO affect behavior

4. importance of biology (influence of evolution)(and brain)

5. applying what we have learned with past social psych principles

6. scientific method

explain the typical prisoner’s dilemma

basically that cooperation between two people gives the best outcome

• its the chart that has the cooperate vs defect

• dilemma is that participants choose to protect themselves instead of cooperating in which results a worse state than if they had cooperated

explain the wall street game v. community game conducted by Ross and Samuels

• the study took in competitive undergrads and cooperative undergrads and made them play a game in which they took turns cooperating or competing with others

• some people were told that the game was called “wall street game” and others were told the game was called “community game”

• this study proved that personality types dont define the outcomes of what someone will do in a social situation (the name affected the scores in a way that proved personality doesn’t rule behavior, it has an effect on behavior but social situations also cooperate in decisions)

personality psychology

• individual differences

• private, internal functioning

• correlational methods are often employed (which cant directly manipulate one’s personality, therefore doesn’t show how situation affects personality)

social psychology

• focuses on social influence and role of situation (therefore avoiding the fundamental attribution error)

• experimental methods are often used (manipulates social situations and examine’s effect on people’s behavior)

dispositions

internal factors such as beliefs, values, traits or abilities that guide a person’s behavior

the people’s temple in Jonestown

proves dispositions (aka beliefs) can guides a person’s behavior

evolutionary psych

relatively new branch of psych that seeks to investigate the potential role of genetic factors in various aspects of human behavior

social neuroscience

an integration of biological and social perspectives that explores the neural and physiological bases of social and emotional behavior

scientific method consists of

accuracy, objectivity, skepticism, open-mindedness

common sense explanations vs social psy

• common sense are invoked after we know outcome (hindsight bias), there’s different explanations, little agreement ab which is correct, and cannot verify which is correct

• social psy predicts what will happen and uses scientific method to determine correct explanation

a _______ is a testable proposition that describes relationships that may exist between events

hypothesis

operationalization

translate theoretical variables into observable and measurable behaviors

reliability

yields consistent information

validity

measures what it is supposed to measure

replicability

ability to reproduce or duplicate research studies

a form of observational method, where the research examines the accumulated documents or archives of a culture

archival analysis

researcher observes people and systematically records measurements of their behavior

naturalistic observation

a technique where a researcher cues the behaviors of interest and observes participants responses in a laboratory

structured observation

research in which a rep. sample of people are asked questions about their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

survey methods

methods that measure the relationship between physiological processes and aspects of people’s physical, cognitive, social, or emotional behavior

psychophysiological methods

technique where researches systematically measure two or more variables, and asses relation between them

correlational methods

cross-sectional

compare different groups to each other (age groups)

longitudinal

measure the same group of Ps over time

method in which the research randomly assigns participants to diff conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable

experimental methods

which method is used in ab ¾ social psychology studies

experimental methods

2 essential characteristics of experimental methods

control and random assignment

how can experimental methods increase internal validity

reducing demand characteristics

• use a good cover story

• use high-quality control condition

• minimize expectancy effects

• use designs high in experimental realism

how can experimental methods increase external validity?

• using random sampling

• making sure mundane realism is high

• making sure psychological realism is high

• best test of external validity is to conduct replications

meta analysis

literature review that analyzes data from several studies that examine related hypotheses

the understanding that you exist as an entity with internal states

self-awareness

the belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are

spotlight effect

self concept

who am i?

my sense of self-worth

self-esteem

how can I explain and predict myself?

self knowledge

my roles as a student, family member, and friend; my group identity

social self

collection of traits, attributes and beliefs that individuals use to describe or characterize themselves

self-concept

working self-concept

subset of self-knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context

• influences your thinking and behavior

• can be manipulated to see how behavior is influenced

self information is organized in the form of

self schemas

mental frameworks that organize info, feelings, and beliefs about the self and help guide processing of self-relevant info

self-schemas

self-reference effect

the tendency for information pertaining to the self to be processed more efficiently and better remembered than other info

“looking glass self”

our sense of who we are is shaped by other people

• we internalize the opinions WE THINK people have of us

• if you think everyone has good opinions about you then you’re gonna have high self esteem and feel good ab yourself

affects our self esteem

self concept differentiation

the extent to which persons’ self-representations are different for different social roles and contexts

• for ex with my family i consider myself as kind, organized, and smart

• with my friends i consider myself outgoing, messy, and funny

social comparison theory

we learn ab our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

upward social comparisons

the process where we compare ourselves to people who are better than we are in a particular trait or ability

downward social comparisons

the process where we compare ourselves to people who are worse than we are in a prticular trait or ability

individualism promotes

the independent self

• defining one self in terms of one’s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions, and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others

• emphasizes uniqueness and independence

collectivism promotes

interdependent self

• defining oneself in terms of one’s own relationships to other people; recognizing that one’s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others

• conformity is encouraged

• connectedness

why can introspection lead to errors when explaining our own behavior

it can only give us access to what is in our conscious mind (ex, cant explain mood)

planning fallacy

may underestimate how long we have to complete a task

affective forecasting errors

not good at predicting how we are going to feel in the future

impact bias

over estimating the enduring impact of an emotion-causing event

• lottery example (habituation)

immune neglect

underestimating the speed and strength of the “psychological immune system”

• after a breakup one feels the sadness is gonna be there forever, however we recover quicker than we believe we can

types of self esteem

global (or trait), state, implicit

general, stable, and conscious attitude toward the self (strongly influenced by genes and environment)

global (or trait) self-esteem

fluctuations in response to valenced events

state self esteem

general attitude toward the self that is not consciously accessible

implicit self-esteem

sociometer hypothesis (buffers social rejection)

• self-esteem might be present due to biological explanations (evo theory)

• ability to judge/value ourselves

• may have aided our ancestors with reproduction success, if there is social rejection then we’re gonna evaluate ourselves which causes us to want change

terror management theory (buffers anxiety)

• self esteem evolved in order to help our ancestors with existential anxiety (which interfered with survival/reproduction)

• ability to evaluate helps with anxiety

• high self esteem: people are gonna remember you and you are worthy

• low self esteem: gotta change so people start admiring and respecting you

high self esteem can become a problem when

• high, but unstable (or fragile): aggression, bullying, narcissism

• high, but contingent self-esteem: negative impact on academics

self esteem in interdependent cultures

• based on relationships

• also focuses on negative characteristics

• more balanced evaluation

self esteem in independent cultures

• competitive

• positive bias: feel good about yourself and ignore the negative

self-enhancement motive

basic and fundamental human need to maintain or enhance self-esteem

• motivation to feel good about ourselves

self-serving bias

a tendency to perceive oneself favorably

• positive illusions

• temporal comparisons

positive illusions

we tend to see ourselves as better than what we really are (better-than-average effect)

temporal comparisons

recalling information in a way that leads to a favorable self-evaluation

• when you compare your present self to who you were on the past

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people share our opinions, attitudes, and undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors

• “everyone cheats on exams”

false uniqueness effect

the tendency to underestimate the extent to which other people share our positive attitudes and desirable or successful behaviors

• we think we are kinder than others or better in certain positive traits

unrealistic optimism

a phenomenon in which people see themselves as more likely than other people to experience good events, and less likely than other people to experience bad events

perceived control

the tendency to see uncontrollable events as at least partially under our control

• watching your fav sports team play

overconfident judgements

people tend to be overconfident when predicting our own behavior

• planning fallacy

basking in reflected glory

associating with successful others to increase one’s feelings of self-worth

self-handicapping

we anticipate we’re gonna fail, so we create an obstacle to blame once we fail

self-presentation

the act of expressing yourself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to your ideals

• social media posts

self serving attributions

the tendency to attribute our successes to dispositional factors and our failures to situational factors

• getting an “a” vs an “f”

• if you get an A then you think its because you worked hard, if you get an f you blame it on outside factors like teacher made test too hard

limits to self reports

• positively biased

• explanatory errors (self serving attributions)

• prediction errors

pluralistic ignorance

a false impression of how other people are thinking, feeling, or responding

self fulfilling prophecy

beliefs that lead to their own fulfillment

(people’s social expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations)

social cognition

how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions

bottom up processes

data driven

• forming conclusion based on stimuli encountered in the environment

top down processing

theory driven

• filtering and interpreting new information in light of pre-existing knowledge and expectations

automatic thinking

system 1

• quick, effortless, unintentional, unconscious, habitual

• ex. intuitive thinking

controlled thinking

system 2

• conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful

• requires cognitive resources (attention)

• checks automatic thinking

how r schemas implemented

• there are multiple schemas we make about interpretations of the world however the one used will be the one most accessible aka the one in the forefront of your minds

much of our social information is _____ because ______

automatic; schemas can be primed outside of conscious awareness and control

• subliminal

• even physical sensations can prime social judgements and vice versa

availability heuristic in automatic thinking

a mental rule of thumb where people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring smth to mind

representative heuristic in automatic thinking

mental shortcut where people classify something according to how similar it is too typical case

• can lead to base rate fallacy: tendency to ignore base rate info

counterfactual thinking

mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been

• occurs when alternative outcomes are accessible

• influences emotion and behavior (regret, motivation, disappointment, “luck”

illusory correlation

perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists

illusion of control or perceived control

ignore regression toward the average

mood

strongly influences how we think about and perceive the social world

mood congruence effects

we are more likely to store or remember positive information when in a positive mood and negative information when in a negative mood

attribution theory

description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior

• we can make dispositional (internal) attributions or situational (external) attributions

how do we decide which attributions to make?

spontaneous trait inference, and Kelley’s covariation model

spontaneous trait inference

an effortless automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone’s behavior

kelleys covariation model

in order to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs

consensus

information about the extent to which other people behave the same way as the actor does toward the same stimulus