MUIDS Grade 12 Psychology - Social Psychology 1 Unit

Social Psychology

Social Psychology

Study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people’s presence and actors. Includes: Social cognition, social behavior and social influence

Social cognition

How people interpret social information and make sense of others in society.

Social behavior

The actions and interactions of individuals within a society / social groups

Social influence

How people are affected and affect eachother

How we recieve social information

Using social ques

Social ques

things that express other people’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings

Example social ques

Body language, facial expression, vocal tone, attractiveness, personal space

Perception

How people make sense of sensory information

Person perception

How we interpret others based on observed physical characteristics

Stereotype

Generalizing from a characteristic or trait, done to understand others and their actions easier. A cognitive shortcut (heuristics)

Heuristic

Cognitive shortcuts we use to understand the world and analyze / make fast decisions / solve problems

Self-fufilling prophecy

When false expectations lead to actions or behaviors which eventually fulfill the belief (can influence social interactions)

How does perception lead to stereotype?

Perceptions can lead to making decisions about these people, which is a type of stereotype

Attribution theory

Explaining the causes of behavior using assumptions. Attributing things to internal or external reasons (situational / despositional)

Actor - observer bias

The way we attribute failures differs between our own failures and others’ failures. For own failures, we attribute to external factors, and for others’ failures we atribute to internal factors

Fundamental attribution error

When people overemphasize the effect of internal traits on others’ failures

Self

One’s own identity which is distinct from others

Self Esteem

How you percieve your self worth

traits of high self esteeem

confidence, able to say no, accept and like yourself, stand up for yourself, accept compliments, set boundaries, forgive yourself

traits of low self esteem

Dislike themselves, passive, sensitive to criticism / defensive, self critical,dwell on mistakes, lack confidence, focus on own flaws, self-doubting

positive illusions

positive views of ourselves not rooted to reality- overly positive

Self-serving bias

When we take credit for our success, but blame outside factors for failure. We do it to maintain and enhance self esteem

Self - objectification

When we see ourself as objects to be judged by physical attributes, believing that self worth comes from physical appearance. Because of social media and unrealistic expectations, bullying, criticism, toxic relationships or a desire for validation.

Stereotype threat

When someone feels that they are at risk of doing something to reinforce a negative stereotype about their group. due to fear or being judged unfairly

Social comparison

When we compare ourselves against other people to get better asessment of ourselves, and motivate progress. But can make one feel inadequate

Attitude

Our feelings and opinions towards things (formed by upbringing). Can predict behaviors.

Things needed for attitude to predict behavior

strong attitude, strong awareness and practice of attitude, issue affects one personally

Cognitive dissonance theory

When behavior does not match attitude, one has to change. Either action / behavior or attitude changes

Self perception theory

When we look back at past behaviors to find our true attitude for something

Persuasion techniques

foot in the door, door in the face

4 elements of persuasion

Communicator, message, target audience, medium

Foot in the door

start small and work way up to large requests

door in the face

Start big. when rejected, ask for small thing instead

Elaboration of likelihood model

Two ways to persuade- central and peripheral routes

Central route of persuasion

directly engage with audience in argument

peripheral route of persuasion

indirect method of persuading using other factors, such as trustworthiness

Attitude innoculation

way to resist persuasion by exposing oneself to the weaker version of a counterargument first.