Social Psychology Exam 1

Define Social Psychology

The scientific study of the feelings thoughts and behaviours of individuals in social situations/the discipline that sets out to understand how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours if individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others./ the scientific study of how individuals think, feel and behave in a social context

Characteristics of social psychology

The individual in the social context as the level of analysis, examines internal psychologic states as well as overt behaviour, uses scientific methods to invesigate questions

What are the 3 areas of focus of the study of normal human interaction

Situation - context affects your behaviour, cognition - thoughts determine actions/perceptions and interpretations, person -peoples stable traits/interaction with situations and cognitions

Fundamental Attribution Error

The failure to recognize or underestimate the impact of situational influences on behaviour, along with the tendency to overemphasize the impact of dispositions on behaviour/ believing other behaviours is due to internal factors while believing our won behaviour is a result of external factors

Dispositions

Internal factors such as beliefs, values, personality traits and abilities that guide a persons behaviour

The Power of the situation

Situations often determine behaviour, regardless of an individuals attributes

The Stanford prison experiment

Aim: To determine whether poor prison conditions are due to disposition or environment; competing hypotheses: dispostioinal hypothesis - the nature of the people involved leads to poor prison conditions, environmental hypothesis - the prison environment leads to poor prison conditions

The Stanford Prison Experiment participants/respondents

Participants - recruited via a newspaper ad, 75 respondents - 22 selected, selected most physically and mentally stable, mature and least involved in antisocial behaviours based on a questionnaire

Archival Research

Involves analyzing social behaviours documented in past records a

Coincidence

alternative explanation for relationships, a relationship is found purely by chance

Reverse Causation

alternative explanation for relationships; when you think Variable 1 causes Variable 2, but it could actually be that Variable 2 causes Variable 1.

Third Variable

Alterative explanation for relationships; a third, unmeasured variable controls the relationship b/ww the variables or exerts a causal influence on both variable 1 and 2

Correlations

correlation tell us about the strength and directions of a relationship b/w variables

The self is inherently social

our beliefs about ourselves influence the way we interact with others; the way others interact w/ us influences what we believe about ourselves

Self concept

The sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves

Self concept - person factors - Introspection

Examining ones own inner thoughts and feelings, can be full fledged stories about oneself; can yield accurate/inaccurate self knowledge, may lack self insight because of strong motives, may overestimate our positives, may be confused, may not be able to anticipate our future emotions (affective forecasting)

Self concept - person factors self perceptions

When internal cues are difficult to interpret, people look to their own behaviour/ Self-perception theory says that we figure out what we think or feel by observing our own behaviour, especially when we aren't sure how we feel.

Self concept - person factors - Autobiographical memories

Our memories for the the past influences how we see ourselves now, our memories are self centred and memories are not always accurate

Sources of Self Concept

person (introspection,perception of our own behaviours, autobiographical memories) and situation factors (other people, our culture)

Self concept - situation factors

our sense of who we are is forged in large part by our interactions with others, principle of situationism; aspects of the self may change deepening on the situation

Self concept - situation factors - Other people

Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) - people evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others - particularly when there is no objective standard for comparison: Social comparison theory says that people learn about themselves by comparing themselves to other people.

Self concept - Situation factors - our culture

Independent view; self distinct, autonomous entity, separate from others and defined by individual traits and preferences, associated more with the western world (North America, Western Europe)/ Interdependent view: the self is connected to others and defined by social duties and shared traits and preferences, associated more with the eastern world ( East Asian, south asian, mediterranean, latin American, African cultures

Situationism - working self concept

subset of self knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context

Situationsims - Distinctiveness

we may highlight aspects of the self that make us feel most unique in a given context

Situationism - Social context

self concept may shift dramatically depending on WHO we are interacting with

Self - schemas

beliefs and feelings about oneself that guide the processing of self relevant info, a cognitive structure derived from past experiences, serve as the basic units of organization for self knowledge

Self Esteem

The overall positive/negatie evaluation an individual has of themselves. Trait self esteem is a persoo’s enduring level of self regard across time, state self esteem refers to the dynamic changeable self evaluations a person experiences as momentary feelings about the self

Self Esteem matters

People w/ Leo self esteem are: less satisfied w/ life, more hopeless and more depressed, less able to cope with life’s challenges rend to disengage from tasks when they fail, more prone to antisocial behaviour and delinquency

Contingencies of self worth model

self esteem is contingent on successes and failures in domains on which a person has based their self worth, self esteem is more resilient if its based on multiple domains

sociometer hypothesis

Self esteem is an internal, subjective index or marker of the extent to which a person is included or liked on favourably by others, suggests that culture is likely related to self esteem/The sociometer hypothesis says that self-esteem acts like a monitor that tells us how accepted or rejected we are by other people.

Culture and self esteem

members of independent cultures tend to report higher elf esteem than members of interdependent cultures, interdependent cultures place more value on self improvement

Self - discrepancy theory

our self esteem is defined by the match/mismatch b/w how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves - actual self vs ought self vs ideal self

Actual self

who we believe we are -

Ought self:

the self concerned with the duties, obligations and external demands we feel compelled to honour - prevention focus, focus on avoiding negative outcomes and avoidance related behaviours

Ideal Self

The self that embodies our wishes and aspirations - promotions focus focus on attaining pastiche outcomes and approach related behaviours

Impacts on self discrepancy theory

(1) Amount: the larger the discrepancy, the worse we feel (2): importance: the more important the domain, the worse we feel about a discrepancy (3) Accessibility: the more we focus on the discrepancy, the worse we feel

Self awareness theory

Self-awareness theory says that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we compare our behaviour to our personal standards and values: Self focuses attention leads people to notice self discrepancies

what situations facilitate self awareness

talking about ourselves, seeing ourselves in a mirror, having an audience, holding a conspicuous position in a group

Is awareness of self discrepancy positive or negative?

Both; positive - change the behaviour/ shape up - negative: reduce self esteem, stress and anxiety, turn attention away from the self/ ship out

Self presentation

strategies we use to shape what we think of themselves and what others think of us - two types of strategies (1) strategic self enhancement (2) self verification

Self enhancement

we think we’re much better than we really are. the desire to maintain, increase or protect ones positive self views, we are motivated to view ourselves positively

Better than average effect

most people thinktheyure above average on various personality trait and ability dimensions, we weight abilities we excel as more valuable, large and highly reliable effect, correlates with self esteem (.34), stronger for personality traits vs abilities, positive vs negative dimensions, stronger in European Americans than East Asians

Self enhancement mechanisms

self affirming, self serving cognitions, self handicapping, basking in reflected glory, downward social comparisons

Self affirmation Theory

people can maintain an overall sense of self worth following psychologically threatening info by affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat/ positive illusions and mental health, most people assume that proper mental health is marked by realistic views of the world, but most well adjusted people tend to have slightly unrelaistic views about themselves

Self serving cognitions

beliefs about oneself that serve to enhance self esteem; includes taking credit for success and distancing yourself from failure, unrealistic optimism

Self handicapping

behaviours designed to sabotage our performance in so we have an excuse for the failure - lack of effort use of drugs/booze, procrastination

Basking in reflected glory

increasing our self esteem by associating with others who are successful, cut off reflected failure - maintaining our self esteem by distancing from others who failed

Downward social comparison

Defensive tendency to compare ourselves to others who are worse off than we are

Are positive self illusions adaptive?

depressed people and those with low self esteem more realistic than better adjusted peers, may promote happiness, health, and motivation to care for others and work productively, but straying too far from reality can be self destructive - may encourage negative behaviours, may alienate us from others

What is social cognition

cognition - the way we think/ social - interactions b/w people/ social cognition - the way we think about others; the psychological processes that people engage in to make sense of social info

How do we use social info?

learning, schemas, heuristics, biases; we have two modes of info processing; the intuitive system, the rational system

The intuitive system

Rapid, automatic - an automatic processing system, based on associations that come automatically to mind, info processing done in parallel - many things can be intuitively processed at the same time

The rational system

slower and more controlled - a controlled processing system, based on rules and deduction, processing occurs serially - one thing at a time

Are people irrational

no but, the intuitive system automatically notes the presences if more red marbles in the large bowl, the rational system is required to calculate the odds of winning for each bowl

Stanford prison experiment - prisoner 819

wanted to leave, changed his mind - didnt want to be a bad prisoner - chose to leave, once his rational system had been engaged

Snap judgements rely on the intuitive system

personality judgements based on physical appearance are snap judgements, when judging only by appearance, sna[ judgements correlate well w/ judgements engaging our rational system (.39, -.63), correlate well with persons later judgements, validity varies - actual extroversion correlates w/ snap judgments of extroversion but actual extraversion correlates weakly w/ facial asymmetry

Social cognitions aren’t always accurate

social cognitions are based on firsthand info and secondhand info, first hand info is based on personal experience or observations, unfiltered - we are interpreting raw data, can be unrepresentative of the norm, can be inaccurate because source is intentionally misleading

When things go wrong - pluralistic ignorance

misperception of a group norm because others are acting contrary to their private beliefs out of a concern for the social consequences, these actions reinforce the erroneous group norm

when things go wrong - self fulfilling prophecies

the tendency to act in ways that bring about the very thing you expect to happen, requires a mechanism that translates a given expectation into an action that tends to confirm the prophecy

Unrepresentative experience

An unrepresentative experience is an experience that does not accurately reflect what usually happens or what is typical of a larger group or situation.

In simple terms: You experience something once or a few times and assume it is true for everyone, even though your experience may not be typical.

Social cognitions are not always accurate

second hand info - comes from others, sometimes efforts made to aviod error but often not

When things go wrong - in service of entertainment

one of the most pervasive causes of distortion in secondhand accounts is the desire to entertain, an overemphasis on bad news leads people to think things are always bad and getting worse - bad new bias

When things go wrong - ideological distortions

people may be biased when transmitting info because they wish to foster specific ideas in others, people may also biased when they interpret second hand info

Attention

we must attend to social info in order for that info to influence our cognitions

Framing

how info is presented influences the way we think about it, can be positive or negative - negative info draws more attention than positive info, info framed in negative ways will elicit stronger responses, info framed in negative ways will elicit stronger responses - In decision making, a loss hurts more than a gain feels good

Types of framing - spin farming

framing info to be seen as favourable or unfavourable

types of framing - order effects

primary - things heard first influence out decision more than info heard later/ recency: things heard last influence our decision more than info heard earlier

The serial position curve

The serial position curve shows that we tend to remember items at the beginning and end of a list better than items in the middle.

Types of framing - temporal framing

we think about actions and events within a particular time perspective; construal level theory: psychological distant actions and events are thought about in abstract terms, whereas actions and event that are close at hand are thought about in concrete terms

Schemas

A knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of stored info

schemas guide attention

attention is selective - we may pay attention only to things we expect to see, schemas can negatively and positively influence social interactions

Schemas influence memory

schemas may influence how info is encoded into memory and how its retrieved from memory, people tend to remember info that is consistent with schema better than inconsistent info

expectations

sometimes people apply a schema because of a pre-existing expectation about what they will encounter

Expectations

sometimes people apply a schema because of a preexisting expectation about what they will encounter

Schemas and social situations

schemas help us know how to behave in social situations, schemas can influence judgements even when we are unaware the schema has been activated

Priming

when previously presented info activates a concept, making it more accessible, a prime is the presented info

which schemas are activated and applied

recent activation - if a schema was recently active, its likely to influence us, the more often a schema is activated, the more likely its to be used in the future - can become chronically accessible, people differ in the schemas they tend to use when evaluating others, consciousness of activation isn’t necessary - participants in premiering experiments rarely realize they’ve been primed, schemas can be activated even when we are unconscious of the prime - subliminal stimuli - a stimulus that is so weak or breif that its below the threshold of conscious awareness

Attribution

an interpretation which leads to a judgement, social attribution - identifying or inferring the cause of a persons behaviour

Attribution theory

a group of theories that describes how people explain the cause of behaviour

Causal Attribution

How we explain behaviour - our own and that of others, inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behaviour/explanations focus on: personal attributions: attributions to internal characteristics(dispositions)of the actor, situational attributions: attributions to factors external to the actor

importance of causal attributions

attributions influences how you respond to the situation, covariation theory

kellys covariation theory

peoples attribute behaviour to stimuli that are present when the behaviour occurs and absent when it doesnt Kelley's Covariation Theory explains how we figure out why someone behaves a certain way by looking at the situation and their behaviour over time.

In super simple terms: We look at the person, the situation, and how they behave in similar situations to figure out what caused their behaviour.

Covariation principles

the idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the behaviour; stimulus present - behaviour, stimulus absent - no behaviour - therefore the stimulus causes behaviour

people consider how the stimulus and behaviour covary

consistency, consensus, distinctiveness

Consistency

Does this person regularly behave this way in this situation? high- this person has behaved in the same way when in this situation in the past low - this person hasn’t behaved in the same way when in this situation in the past

Consensus

Do other people regularly;arly behave in this way in this situation? high - most people would behave the same way in this situation low - few people would behave the same way in the situation

Distinctiveness

does this person behave this way in other situations? high - this person would behave differently;ty if the situation was just slightly different low - this person would behave similarly even if the situation was different

Discounting principle

the idea that people should assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes might have produced it A

Argumentation principle

the idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other causes are presented that normally would produce a different outcome

Counterfactual thinking

causal attributions can be formed by comparing real outcomes to imagined alternatives counterfactual thoughts - what might have, could have, or should have happened, “if only” something had occurred differently

emotional amplification

an increased emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the even not happening, we may feel mire personally responsible for failure deadening on how easy it is to imagine the alternative, strength of emotional reaction is influenced by whether the even resulted from a routine action or a departure from the norm