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textbook chapters 1-3 and class material
What is Social Psychology?
The Systematic study of nature and the causes of human social behavuour (what people do and how they do it)
Key Themes
Social Thinking
Social Influences
Social Relations
Social Thinking
Construct our own social reality
powerful social intuitions
Social Relations
social behaviour is biological behaviour
Relating to others is a basic need
Core Concerns
Impact one individual has on another
impact the Group has on an individual
impact the individual members have on a group
impact one group has on another
the impact of social context and social structure on groups and individuals
Symbolic Interactionism
Understanding the world as the product of the everyday interactions of people
people act towards things based on the meaning those things have for them
SI Looking glass self
imagine how we appear to others
imagine the other persons reaction to our appearance
respond with a feeling
group processes
dependance on one another
“us”
rules, roles, power structure
Social exchange theory
cost benefit ideology
maintains relationships
Social structure and Personality
relationships between groups of individuals
ie social class, religion, family etc.
Cognitive Perspectives
mental activities (memory)
Cognitive processes (intervening factor btw external stimulation and behavioural responces)
Cognitive Concepts
cognitive structure (cognitions are interrelated and affect behaviour)
Schemas
Evolutionary Theory
Social behaviour is linked to our genes (Darwin)
Naturalistic Fallacy
what it is vs what ought to be??
hindsight bias
convincing oneself after an event that they accurately predicted it before It happend
what is empirical research?
The systematic investigation of observable andWh measurable phenomena in the world
why is empirical research important ?
relies on objective evidence rather than personal opinions or assumptions.
helps to validate theories, make informed decisions
ensures accuracy, reliability, and credibility
Strength of surveys
cheap, private and clear
weakness of surveys
problems with self-report
what are surveys?
self-report
group info
good for sensitive info
What are field studies?
observation of everyday life in action
unobtrusive
participant observation
benefits of field studies
real world benefits
in-depth understanding
private and sensitive matters
weaknesses of field studies
concent
time consuming
how data is recorded
Ethnography
non-participant observation
moves beyond technical knowlledge
What is content analysis?
studying documents to identify themes and infer based on said themes (form of archival research)
benefit of content analysis
cheep
less of a time commitment
socio-historic archives
weaknesses of content analysis
level of control over quality of info
difficulty creating reliable and valid study
inconsistent or missing information in archives
experiment
manipulating some factor to see effect on another
high level of control
indépendant variable must be manipulated
participants must be randomly assigned
benefits of experiments
high level of internal (lab) and external (field) validity
more research control
weaknesses of experiments
limits to what can be studies
ethical concerns
expensive
subject and experimental effects
low external validity
What are research ethics?
set of rules and regulations researchers must follow when preforming research
Why are ethics important?
to protect participants
must be volunteers
have informed content
avoid harm
ensure confidentiality
ethical issue example
Stanford Prison experiment
violation of harm principle (connected but not informed)
What is the self
sense of self as individuals and personal identity
I
active self
impulsive
responce to me
Me
passive self
socialized self
Generalized other
conception of attitudes and expectations held in common by members of organized groups with whom they interact
Play stage
child imitating roles they see enacted by adults
Game stage
child taking on the roles of those around them, understanding these roles and anticipating actions and behaviours of others
Role Taking
process of imaginatively occupying the position of another person and viewing the self and the situation form the other persons perspective
the looking-glass self
self as a social object
perception based on the perception of others perceptions
acquired through social relationships
spotlight effect
over estimating the extent to which others attention is aimed at us
illusion of transparency
overestimating others ability to be aware of our emotions
self and culture
individualism - western cultures - independent self
collectivism - eastern cultures- interdependent self
self-esteem
our sense of self worth
high self esteem result
better performance or narcissism or more positive outlook
low self esteem result
high levels of anxiety and loneliness, more problems in life
self-Efficacy
how competent we feel at a task
self-serving bias
seeing ourselves as better than average (diminishing failures and accepting credit for success)
What is Identity?
meanings attached to self by ones self and others
role identity
social identity
role identity
your job at work, mother, father
social identity
high school social cliques
multiple identities
we have many and some are more prominent
situated self
conception of who we are in relation to the people around us
identity silence / hierarchy
which identity is more prominent or frequent
self presentation
the process by which individuals attempt to control the impressions that other form of them in social interactions
authentic self presentation
the real you
ideal self presentation
how we want to be seen
tactical self presentation
more thought out and consistent with who you are associating with
frames
set of widely understood rules or conventions prating to a transient but receptive situating that indicates which roles should be enacted and which behaviours are proper (subjective)
impression management
conscious decision to contra information in an interaction and influence interactions
Goffman and Dramaturgy
frontstage - how we appear to others, want to be seen
backstage - how we really are, authentic self
Ingratiation Strategies
opinion confomity
other enhancement
supplication (of information)
selective self-presentation
aligning actions
results form an impression management fail
how we neutralize this fail
use disclaimers (before) and accounts (after)
stigma and spoiled identities
an attribute, behaviour, reputation or identity which is socially discrediting in some way
discredited (hard to conceal)
discreditable (not obvious needs an outing)
Goffman
coping strategies for stigman and spoiled identities
concealment
remedy the stigma
overly pleasant
social perception
constructing an understanding of the social world from the data we get through our sense.
the process by which we form impressions of other peoples traits and personalities
cognition
the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning
Rosenhan’s Experiment
8 grad students went through mental screening and got deemed ‘sane’
Went into a psych hospital and said they ‘heard voices’
Acted normal once inside hospital
no one noticed they where sane
attached with labels for future
Rosenhan’s experiment findings
once you’ve been labels as something its hard to get rid of that label
Changed the structure of mental hospitals as a whole
Staff used their surroundings and cognitive structure to understand these people as insane
The staff didn’t expect to meet researchers - they expected to meet mentally ill people
priming
activating of an association (unconscious)
Automatic processing
ie schemas, emotional reactions
controlled processing
conscious effort, attention, and focus to complete a task or solve a problem
deliberate and intentional thinking, .
overconfidence phenomenon
errors in memories
schemas
cognitive framework that helps us organize and interpret information
person schema
individualized, dependent on indiviual, for someone wh know, when the dont act according to our schema we know something is wrong
self schema
when we think about ourselves
group schema
broad
more sterotypes
social groups
negative or positive
role schemas
blueprint of a certain role (from own experiences)
event schemas (scripts)
idea of how we talk and engage bases on a situation
conformation bias
more eager to confirm our own beliefs and less eager to disprove them
Implicit Personality Theory
The inference of concurrence of personality traits based on another personality trait
Infer the coexistence of additional personality traits based on one
Teachers who work with gifted children would assume that the student was also socially deficient
If children's grades aren't high, people assume that they’re bad kids
why we use schemas
help us organize and understand and recall and process things
disadvantages of schemas
more accepting of info that fits into current schemas
fill in missing information that fit into pre-existing schemas
reluctance to change schemes
the halo effect
Tendency to infer a number of positive attributes based off of one
Often comes with attractiveness
impression formation
Process of creating a coherent picture of someone based on many sources of information
Overall opinion of a person
Trait centrality
Certain traits ranking high in our perception of a person, affecting our overall impression of them
Impacts other traits associated with a person
Impacts overall impression
Also impacts how we presence the other traits associated with the person
self-fulfilling prophecy
If someone labels us as something, we internalize those traits
When we act towards someone based on our impression of them and they reflect that impression back to us
They react in ways that confirm our original impression
heuristics
A mental short-cut that helps us choose that appropriate schema
Availability
Recently experienced
Representativeness
Take a few characteristics and apply them to a particular category
attribution theory
The process we use to infer the causes of someone’s behaviour
In doing so, we are able to act effectively in the situation and make inferences about their future actions or behaviour
We rely on our own common-sense understanding
Dispositional
Internal characteristics
Situational
Environmental factors
fundamental attribution error
The tendency to overestimate the importance of personal (dispositional) factors and underestimate situational differences (environmental factors)
focus of attention bias
focusing on certain aspects of the person or situation, we may ignore other influencing factors
actor-observer difference
The tendency to attribute our own behavior to external factors (acting as an actor), while attributing others' behavior to internal factors (observing them as an observer).
what is an attitude
a belief or feeling related to a person or event and a resulting behaviour tendency
Affects (feelings)
Behaviour
Cognition (tendency)
can be implicit (subconscious) or explicit (conscious)
Cognition (component of attitude)
beliefs about attitudes (perception)
evaluations (component of attitude)
feelings about something
behavioural disposition (component of attitude )
response to our evaluations
affect-based attitude
hard to change with cognitive reasoning (i.e. irrational fear of spiders)
cognition-based attitude
towards environment (i.e. choosing to buy thrifted clothes for environmental purpose and not trends )
Instrumental Conditioning
source of attitude where a direct experience (+ or -) form the attitude
