Social Psychology 1

Psychology

Scientific study of observed behavior and mental processes.

Neuropsychology

Advanced linking brain and behavior

Affective Science

Modern science of emotions

Biological Psychology

Links behavior to brain, genetics and neurotransmitters.

Behavioral Psychology

Observable learning, conditions and reinforcement.

Cognitive Psychology

Mental processes (thinking, reasoning, problem-solving)

Psychoanalytical Psychology

Unconscious drives, early childhood experiences.

Subjectivist Psychology

Personal interpretation of experiences, cultural and personal meaning.

Social psychology

Investigating social influence, external behavior, interaction, mental processes, feelings,

Main topic of Social Psychology

Social Influence

Social Cognition

Subfield of social psychology that involves what happens in our heads when we see external behaviors and cognition.

Schemas

Organized beliefs and knowledge about others

Attitude

Favorable or unfavorable evaluations of objects, people and abstract ideas

A in ABC Model of Attitudes

Affective (Emotions) anger, fear, sadness

B in ABC Model of Attitudes

Behavior (Actions) walking away, ignoring, clapping, yelling

C in ABC Model of Attitudes

Cognitive (Beliefs) snakes are dangerous, government is corrupt

Accommodation

The process of changing your existing beliefs and knowledge to fit the new information.

Assimilation

The process of taking new information and fitting into pre-existing schemas

Representativeness Heuristics

When we see something we instantly compare it to a mental picture (stereotype) we already have in our minds.

Availability Heuristics

We judge the events’ likelihood by how easily an example comes up to our minds.

Anchoring Heuristics

People rely heavily on the first piece of information they receive when making decisions.

Perception

How our brain takes raw data from our senses (eyes. ears, nose) and turns it into something that makes sense.

Father of Attributions

Frits Heider

Attributions

Our interpretations of why something happened.

Dispositional Attributions

We decide that something happened because of who they are

Situational Attributions

We decide that something happened because of the situation they were in.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others’ behavior. (Ignore the context, blame the person)

Correspondence bias

The tendency to infer that a person’s behavior corresponds to (matches) their actual personality.

Self-Serving Bias

 FAE - how we judge others, but this is how we protect ourselves and our self-esteem. Success → Internal causes (we are very smart), Failures → External causes (the test was too hard)