PSYC 345 Chapters 1-3

Social Psychology

The scientific study fo the ways in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency (usually erroneous) to overestimate our powers of prediction once we know the outcome of a given event.

Aronson’s 1st Law

People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy.

Fundamental Attribution Error

A systematic tendency to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences.

FAE Implications

1. People generally make a personality/dispositional assumption first.

2. Satisfies motivational assumptions (it’s a ‘them’ problem)

3. Cognitive miserliness (most efficient to assume that it is a personality fault)

4. Occurs more in individualistic cultures.

Milgram’s Obedience Study

Study modelled after the power structures of the Nazi party, where an authority figure instructed the participant to shock a compatriot to deadly rates. 65% obedience rate.

Walter Mischel

Published a 1968 paper on how personality can predict behaviour. Found that there is only a 9% relation between personality index results and true behaviour.

Social Psych vs Personality

Situational/social factors often have a much greater impact on an individual’s behaviour than their personality.

Social Psych and Clinical Psych

It is common to assume that cognitive problems arise from internal factors, but they can also result from external situations as well.

Fiedler Contingency Model

The idea that, even if someone’s personality is suited for leadership, they need to have the leadership style necessary to adequately lead in that situation.

Kurt Lewin

Psychologist who emphasized that behaviour is the product of both the person AND the situation.

Situational Facilitating Factors

Factors in social situations which encourage/contribute to a behaviour.

Situational Inhibitory Factors

Factors in social situations which discourage/prevent certain behaviours.

Channel Factors

Small details which can act as a ‘tipping point’ in directing behaviour one way or another. Ex. The availability of masks can determine an individual’s choice to wear them.

Implications for Situational Interventions

Big interventions can have small or no effects, whereas small interventions can have large effects. Ex. Changing how much taxes are charged to encourage more payments vs changing the wording around asking people to pay.