PSY220 - Introduction to Social Psychology

what is social psychology?

studies the influence of our situations, with special attention to how we view and affect one another

difference between social psych and sociology

social psych lies at the boundary of sociology, but focuses more on individuals and uses more experimentation

social psych is the scientific study of…

social thinking, influence and relations

social thinking

• how we perceive ourselves and others

• what we believe

• judgements we make

• our attitudes

• cognition and perception

social influence

• culture and biology

• pressures to conform

• persuasion

• groups of people

• we are not just individuals

social relations

• helping

• agression

• attraction and intimacy

• prejudice

social thinking themes

we construct our social reality

our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes dangerous

social influence themes

social influence shapes behavior

disposition also shapes behavior

social relation themes

social behavior is also biological behavior

relating to others is a need

applying social psychology

social psychology’s principles are applicable to everyday life

social neuroscientists consider

that to understand social behavior we must consider both biological and social influences

how do our own values affect social psych in explicit ways

values influence research topics, values vary by time and culture, values influence the analysis of data

how do our own values affect social psych in implicit ways

forming concepts, labelling, naturalistic fallacy

naturalistic fallacy

when you slide from the description of ‘what is’ to prescription of ‘what ought to be’

hindsight bias

tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen it, “i knew it all along” phenomenon

social representations

our assumptions/shared beliefs between those near us that have come from the same culture

is social psych just common sense criticisms

1. social psych is trivial because it documents the obvious

2. social psych is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people

common sense

a problem w/ common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts, hindsight bias

theory

an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events

hypothesis

a testable proposition that describes the relationship that may exist between events

correlational research

detecting natural associations and relationships, not causal

experimental research

ability to control the environment and variables, experimenter manipulates the independent variable & measures the dependent variable

random assignment

each participant has an equal likelihood of being assigned to each condition of an experiment

correlation does not equal

causation

ethics of experimentation

• can be anywhere between harmless to high risk

• informed consent is crucial

• minimize demand characteristics

• mundane realism is not needed

• experimental realism is very important

mundane realism

degree to which experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

experimental realism

degree to which an experiment involves its participants

generalizations

combo of everyday experience + lab analysis, consider the lab as a controlled reality, there are limitations with participants being mostly uni students

demand characteristics

cues that experiments expect certain behaviors/outcomes