Social Psychology

What is social psychology?

The scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.

What is ‘the social brain’ principle of social psychology?

Our brains are good at taking in and processing social information

What is ‘the power of the situation’ principle of social psychology?

Social contexts we find ourselves in shape the way we think, feel and act

What is ‘levels of analysis’ principle of social psychology?

We are interested in individuals, dyads (duos) and groups

What is ‘the critical thinking’ principle of social psychology?

Healthy scepticism is important for us to live an enriching life

What is the role of the brain in social psychology?

Designed to help us pay attention and interpret our role in relation to others

What is the theory of mind in social psychology?

The brain helps us anticipate other people and understand their role in our lives

What are the different components of the social brain?

• Understanding the self and its relations to others

• Forming judgements about others (quick and effortless process)

• Understanding and making inferences about others’ mental states

• Social decision-making (to help or hurt, to trust or not)

• Perception of socially relevant cues (non-verbal or verbal)

• Understanding social categories and our place in them (has a role in prejudice, discrimination and negative intergroup interactions)

What did Kurt Lewin (1935) say about social psychology?

The behaviour of people is always a function of the field of forces around them (applying physics to psychology)

• The situation we find ourselves in

• Our behaviour is a combination of particular personal attributes in a particular situation

• Person x situation interaction

• Suggests that social psychology and personality psychology go hand in hand (who, when, how and why x personality, preferences, values and experiences)

What are the levels of analysis in social psychology?

• Individual - relationship with self (in social terms)

• Interpersonal - relationships with other individuals/dyads

• Intragroup - relationships with people in the same group

• Intergroup - relationships with people in a different group

Why is scientific rigour and critical thinking a challenge in social psychology?

• Social psychology - study of context

• No one-size-fits-all answer

• Not all findings are true in every situation

• Understanding how and why is what makes social psychology interesting

• Richness and variation in behaviour is what we look to understand

What has been shown in the past about replicability with psychological research?

• 2015 - a paper attempting to replicate 100 psychology studies found only 36% replicated

• Some of the studies failed to replicate or have been re-interpreted in light of new data

• Peer-reviewed studies are not always the best way to answer the RQ

• Some studies may have produced similar but not identical results in order for the study to be deemed as ‘replicable’

What are the benefits of social psychology?

• Gives us insight into our own and others’ behaviour

• Helps us understand the causes and consequences of current events

• Gives us tools to act effectively in the world and help others do the same

• Helps coordinate large-scale problems by understanding what will make people comply to certain rules and regulations (e.g. COVID-19 compliance)

What is personal identity?

Who we are as individuals

What is social identity?

Who we are based on the groups we belong to

What is cultural identity?

Who we are based on our upbringing (macro forces in our daily lives)

What is the social self?

A unitary and continuous awareness of who one is and can change due to external factors (new job, moving countries etc) or from our own efforts (therapy, intentional personality change etc) over time

Can the social self change?

Yes, we can shape and adjust how we see ourselves and many of factors that can change our social self are socially informed and influenced by others

What are some aspects of the self that are influenced by social experiences?

• How we think of ourselves

• What and who we like and dislike

• Habits we form

• Values we adhere to

• How we (learn to) behave (learning what is socially ‘acceptable’ from others)

How does social context affect personality?

Our stable personality traits can be shifted by different social contexts

What was the study conducted on extroversion and introversion?

• ½ participants presented themselves as extroverts and ½ as introverts

• Experimental set-up with intrusive recording in public or private

• Participants rated their “true selves”

• Elaborate backstory for participants to remove any demand characteristics to prevent any sub-conscious bias or attempts to affirm the hypothesis

• Questionnaires - participants rated their true introversion and extroversion

What were the results of the study conducted on extroversion and introversion?

• Slight advantage of presenting as more extroverted than you really are in private

• More evident impact in public which provides evidence for the “fake it till you make it” principle especially in public in front of other people

What is identity?

Something that binds us with others, not separates us from others, often based on the groups we belong to

What is the ‘Social Me’ concept by William James (1890)?

• What we know about ourselves from social relationships

• Who a person is in one context is not necessarily the same person they are in another context

What is the ‘Working self-concept’ by Markus & Wurf (1987)?

• A sub-set of our self-knowledge is brought to the mind in a given context

• E.g. The self relevant to relationships may be mind’s prime focus in romantic contexts and the self related to competition in sports contexts etc

• First to write about psychology systematically

What is the self-categorisation theory?

• Grouping things together helps us understand the world better

• Emphasises the differences between groups and the similarities within groups

• We often categorise people into ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’ (e.g. people we similar to vs people we are different to)

How do we categorise ourselves according to the self-categorisation theory?

• The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction on a continuum

• Different identities become salient in different contexts

• Shifting the salience of difference identities can change ingroup and outgroup members

• Who we are depends on the context of situations we find ourselves in (changes our position on the continuum)

• Personality identity, social identity and human identity (most inclusive group)

What is cultural identity?

• Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class etc)

• A form of social identity that impacts how we view the world and our way of life from birth

• Can be fostered directly (socially) or indirectly (background exposure to ways of life, predispositions towards seeing the world in a particular way etc)

What is a individualist culture?

Believe that the self is an autonomous entity separate from others and people should assert their independence and celebrate their uniqueness (many Western countries)

What is a collectivist culture?

Believe that the self is fundamentally connected to other people and people should seek to fit in a community and fulfil appropriate roles (Many Asian/African/Latin American countries)

What is self-construal?

The process we use to perceive the ‘self’

What was the study conducted on Culture and the Social Self?

• Even within cultures, there are differences in self-construal

• ‘Who am I’ exercise among different groups living in Kenya

• Undergraduate students living in Nairobi with more exposure to Western culture vs Traditional Maasai herding peoples who had little contact with Western culture

What were the results of the study conducted on Culture and the Social Self?

• Emphasised social roles

• Variations within the same culture due to social class and exposure to other ways of thinking

What are the basic psychological needs of humans according to Williams (2009)?

• Belonging - to be accepted by others

• Self-esteem - to be liked by others

• Control - to be capable of achieving goals

• Meaning - to have relevance in the world (purpose beyond just ourselves)

What was the Greenway et al., (2016) study conducted on the connection with others that fosters the basic psychological needs of humans?

• People asked to remember a time they gained or lost an important identity or group membership (social connection of some kind)

• They reflected on how this event affected basic needs

What is ‘The Sociometer Hypothesis’ (Leary et al., 1995)?

• Things that improve our self-esteem are also the same things that make others accept and like us as a part of their group (belonging)

• High-self esteem = social inclusion

• Low self-esteem = social exclusion

• Self-esteem cues us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds (indirectly improves self-esteem)

• Self-esteem is needed for social reasons, rather than personal reasons

What is the Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)?

• We seek to gain accurate self-evaluations

• Comparisons with other people help us to understand the accuracy of our own self-evaluations which can be both good and bad

What is a downward comparison?

When we compare ourselves to others we think are worse than us which can improve our self-evaluation

What is an upward comparison?

When we compare ourselves to others we think are better than us on a particular dimension which can worsen our self-evaluation

What is the Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model (Tesser, 1988)?

• We seek to maintain or improve our self-evaluation (feel good about ourselves)

• Comparisons with others influence our self-evaluation

• Worsened when comparisons are with a close other (friend, family member etc)

What is reflection?

• When other people improve our self-evaluation (outperformance phenomenon)

• Usually happens in a domain that is not relevant to the self (less likely to affect us as we do not care as much about our performance in the domain)

• Improved self-evaluation because the self shares in the success

What is comparison?

• When other people worsen our self-evaluation

• Usually happens when evaluation happens in a domain that is relevant to the self

• Worsens self-evaluation because it invites unfavourable comparison with our own abilities

What is Basking in Reflecting Glory (BIRG-ing)?

• Others’ success becomes our success

• We align ourselves publicly with successful others (affiliation with groups we belong to that are doing well)

• Motivation for enhancement (to feel good)

What is Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORF-ing)?

• Distance yourself publicly from those who have publicly failed (removing affiliation and only showing support when they win)

• Taking down signs of support

• Motive for protection (to avoid feeling bad)

What is ‘The Better-Than Average Effect’ (Alicke & Govorun, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988)?

• Most of us tend to view ourselves positively and believe we are above average on a wide range of positive dimensions

• Does not differ when comparing a general or similar other (robust effect across genders, culture etc)

• Statistically impossible for most people to be above average if skills are considered to be equally distributed across the population

• Becomes pathological when it is ‘out of touch’

What is psychological distance?

Loneliness

What is social distance?

Social network centrality (e.g. maintaining distance from minority groups)

What is induced distance?

Rejection and discrimination

What is loneliness?

A subjective feeling of distress when social relations are not going how we would like

• Discrepancy between level of connectedness we want to have and what we currently have

• We can be surrounded and still be lonely or be alone but not feel lonely

• Loneliness is more affected by the quality rather than the quantity of friendships (where you feel misunderstood)

What is social isolation?

A state of having minimal contact with others (different to loneliness)

What are the predictors of loneliness?

• Worse physical health (increase in inflammation and chronic health conditions)

• Worse life satisfaction

• Fewer social interactions (reciprocal loneliness also predicts lower social interactions, almost like an epidemic where people are less willing and leads to a lack of a hope to find meaningful friendships in a self-perpetuating cycle)

• Greater social anxiety (stress of social interactions to make meaningful friendships is too much)

• Greater depression

• More negative emotions

What is the relationship between loneliness and mental health?

Bi-directional, each one predicts and affects the other

What is social distance in social networks?

• A way of quantifying social structures in terms of nodes (individuals in a network) and ties that link them

• Involves several measures (who knows them, popularity etc)

• Lack of inclusion from social distance is detrimental for health (physical and mental as shown by the predictors of loneliness)

What are stars in a social network?

• Increasingly bi-dimensional/reciprocal relationships

• Known by many people

• Liked by many people

• Capable of having many social influences as a result

What is the relationship between social networks and physical health?

• Greater social integration is associated with lower mortality

• Having good and strong social connections is a key indicator of future health conditions

What was the Berkman and Syme (1979) study conducted on social networks and physical health?

• 9 year prospective study of 6,928 adults in Alameda County, California

• Assessed social ties in the form of marriage, friends, relatives, organisational and church membership

• The less social ties people had, the greater the likelihood they were going to die in the next 9 years

• Same pattern for men and women across age groups

• Effect size of increased social ties was similar to that of giving up smoking (shows that social relations are extremely important to health)

What did the Cacioppo et al. (2009) study find about social networks and mental health?

• People directly connected to a lonely person in a social network were 52% more likely to be lonely

• Loneliness grows in networks over time and particularly strong when the lonely tie is a close other

What are the explanations for the ‘loneliness epidemic’ from the Cacioppo et al. (2009) study?

• Induction - Emotional contagion within a network (interactions with someone lonely make you question your own social relations and their quality which may in turn, make you feel lonely)

• Homophily - Similar people are connected (lonely people friends with other lonely people)

• Shared environment - Exposure to the same social challenges and upheavals

What was the first act of ostracism in history?

A procedure from Ancient Greece in which a citizen was expelled from the city-state for 10 years (social shunning)

What is ostracism?

Any act of ignoring and excluding of an individual or group by an individual or group

What are group reasons for ostracism?

• To remove people who do contribute to the group or their behaviour reflects badly on the group and has a negative influence on others

• Strengthening the group (making it more cohesive) and protecting the group

What are individual reasons for ostracism?

Individuals who ostracise on behalf of a group feel more powerful and in control (from deciding whether others can be part of a group and how they are viewed socially)

How was ostracism tested in the online ‘Cyberball’ experiment?

• Online version of ball-tossing game

• Participants throw a ball with other players

• When included - participants receive the ball 1/3 of the time

• When excluded - participants receive the ball once or twice and then never again

• Used regularly in studies today

• Effects of exclusion are similar to those from in-person ostracism

• Modern paradigms seek to incorporate more ecological validity (apply to other environments/settings) and experimental control in the exclusion process

What is the o-Cam?

• A modern experimental paradigm that increases the realism of the ostracism experience

• Two confederates begin talking without the participant

• Participant slowly understands what is happening

• More accurate to how ostracism occurs in real life (increased ecological validity compared to previous studies e.g. online ‘Cyberball’ experiment

Why does ostracism hurt?

• Fundamental reaction to ostracism is hurt regardless of who is ostracising (whether an ingroup or an outgroup)

• Evolutionary perspective - ostracism signals danger (no access to social resources)

• Being excluded or ostracised harms basic psychological needs (makes us feel unheard and bad overall)

What are the negative impacts of discrimination?

• Stress and emotional reactions with detrimental impacts on mental health

• Negative coping responses (e.g. resorting to drugs and alcohol)

• Reduced access to resources (e.g. education, housing employment etc)

• Physical injury via racially-motivated assault

What is the Stimulation Hypothesis about social media?

Online interactions strengthen existing relationships and thus have a social benefit (more social connections)

What is the Displacement Hypothesis about social media?

Social media replaces offline, face-to-face interactions, thus incurring social costs

How can social media strengthen social ties according to the Stimulation Hypothesis?

• Stimulates wellbeing when it facilitates meaningful connections

• Active use of social media involves attempts to connect with others

• Associated with greater social support and wellbeing

• When it enhances self-disclosure, it can improve relationships and wellbeing

• People can be less concerned with how others view them online compared to in-person (e.g. less worried about physical appearance)

What is self-disclosure?

Revealing something vulnerable or personal and the other person feeling more comfortable to do the same to you

How can social media weaken social ties according to the Displacement Hypothesis?

• Can harm wellbeing when it displaces good activities such as face-to-face interactions (increases loneliness) or sleep

• Negative effects when it is used out of the anxiety of not wanting to talk to people in-person

• Experiencing withdrawal when not using social media and loss of control over use of addiction with use

• Problematic use predicts worse social relationships

• Harmful when it promotes upward social comparison

Do social media restrictions help improve social wellbeing?

• Operate on the assumption that restricting social media use will make us feel better

• Research is divided (support for both sides) about whether restricting social media does improve wellbeing

• Our reasons for using social media may matter more than how much we social media, in terms of the impact on wellbeing (e.g. if we use it to connect with others, more likely to have a positive impact rather than mindlessly scrolling)

Why does how we use social media matter to wellbeing more than how much we use it?

• Active vs passive = engaging vs lurking

• Motives = engage with others vs compare to others

• Type vs amount of use = control over social media vs control over us

• Similar to social interactions in real life - positive when used to enhance existing relationships and forge new ones but negative when used to escape the social world or compare ourselves to others we see online

What are snap judgements?

Quick impressions about people based on a glance of their physical appearance

What was the Willis & Todorov (2006) study conducted on snap judgements?

• Showed people faces and had them rate those faces on a range of traits

• Some participants could look at the faces for however long they wanted to

• Other participants rated their impressions after seeing their faces for 1 second, half a second or 100 milliseconds (progressively less time to see their faces)

• Wanted to analyse the correlation between the ratings in each condition

What were the Willis & Todorov (2006) study on snap judgements?

• 1 second judgements tightly correlated with Gold Standard conditions

• We tend to agree on what makes someone aligned with a particular trait (e.g. competent, attractive, kind etc)

• High correspondence especially for the trait of trustworthiness and honesty

How does voting behaviour show that impressions make a difference?

• Our judgements of others predict consequential decisions

• Politicians with faces judged to be more competent after 1 second exposure were 69% more likely to win their election (same as for a 1/10 of a second)

• Snap judgements about competency made before an election accurately predict who will win that election in 70% of cases

• Not necessarily accurate or based in reality but can affect perceivers’ thoughts and behaviour

What is thin slicing?

The ability to find patterns in events based on narrow windows of experiences (draw relatively accurate conclusions about the emotions and attitudes of someone from short interactions with them)

What was the Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) study conducted on thin slicing?

• Participants formed judgements of university lecturers and high school teachers

• Based on 10 second videos of the person teaching

• Participant judgements compared against student evaluations (lecturer) and principal ratings (high school teacher)

What were the results of the Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) study conducted on thin slicing?

Strong positive correlation for university lecturers and lower for high school teachers (principal may not be aware of what the teacher is like on a day-to-day to basis compared to lecturers)

What is warmth as a trait we can use to form an impression of someone?

A dimension that helps us assess others’ intent in a social context (friendly, kind, sincere, generous, helpful etc)

What is competence as a trait we can use to form an impression of someone?

A dimension that help us assess others’ ability to act on their intent (skilled, efficient, intelligent, confident etc)

Why are warmth judgements made more quickly than competence judgements?

They are primary because another person’s intent for good or ill is more important to survival than whether the other person can act on those intentions (both judgements can be combined together to help us form an overall impression)

What is impression by innuendo?

We may infer qualities about people if we do not have concrete evidence about those qualities

What was Kervyn et al. (2012) study conducted on the ‘innuendo effect’?

• Told about the same person but in different ways

• Warmth-only condition, control condition and competent-only condition

What were the results of the Kervyn et al. (2012) study conducted on the ‘innuendo effect’?

• Overall positive impression because we tend to believe that someone has all good qualities in the warmth-only condition

• We tend to assume someone is low on a particular dimension if you are not given information about them in relation to that particular dimension

What is impression formation?

The process by which people combine information about others to make overall judgements

What is the ‘Algebraic model’ for updating our impressions of others?

• Formed on the basis of a mechanical combination of information about a person

• Involves different ways including summative, averaging and weighted averaging

What is the ‘Summative model’ for updating our impressions of others?

Adding values representing different traits to provide an overall first impression (weight refers to which traits have a greater impact on the overall first impression we form)

What are the main criticism of the ‘Summative model’ for updating our impressions of others?

A mathematical input and output are used to produce an end product of forming an overall first impression

What is the ‘Configurational model’ for updating our impressions of others?

Combining the information you receive about someone into an overall impression that can be different from the simple sum of items of information about that person (based on the Gestalt principles - the whole is greater than the sum of all the parts)

• Central traits - influential in impression formation

• Peripheral traits - less influential in impression formation

Whether or not it is a central or influential trait depends on the context or environment in which you are forming this overall impression

What was Asch (1946) study conducted on the ‘Configurational model’?

• Tested how small changes to a description of an individual might affect overall impression formation

• A person was described in the exact same way but with one difference, described as either ‘warm’ or ‘cold’

• Participants asked how likely the person was to also possess other traits

What were the results of Asch (1946) study conducted on the ‘Configurational model’?

A higher % of participants were more likely to attribute other positive traits to someone described as ‘warm’ rather than ‘cold’ (Warm and cold are considered to be diagnostic traits that can make a significant difference to our first impression of someone)

How we do form impressions based on all the models?

• We form a more holistic view, rather than forming one algebraically

• An emergent expression is formed that may vary depending on the total context of information prvided

• Central traits (that hold significant weight due to context) can change the impressions we form

What are the processes involved in getting to know someone?

• Initial liking - factors that make us like others

• Getting closer - sharing and self-disclosure

What do we like about others?

People who are familiar

What is the mere exposure effect?

The more we are to something, the more we like it (also applies to objects)

What was the Moreland and Beach (1992) study on the mere exposure effect?

• Four people attended psychology lectures but did not participate

• Varied the number of lectures attended: 0, 5, 10, 15

• With regular exposure - we are still more likely to like someone more in a situation/environment when we have seen them in a different situation/environment

What were the results of the Moreland and Beach (1992) study on the mere exposure effect?

• At first, other students could not consciously recall having seen them in the lecture hall

• A greater % of participants expressed interest to be friends or think they would enjoy spending time with them who had attended more lectures

What was the Burgess and Wallin (1953) study on the mere exposure effect?

• 1000 couples provided information on 88 characteristics

• Real couples were more similar to each other than random couples on 66 of 88 characteristics

• Actual similarity only seems to predict liking in short interactions and perceived similarity seems to matter more in existing relationships

• The less we know about someone, the more actual similarity affects liking (we have less information to base our information on)