exam 1 social psych

uscu

what is social psych?

the scientific study of the ways in which peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others

what are the abc’s of psych?

Affect, Behavior, and Cognition

what is the field theory?

B=f(P*E)

Behavior is the function of the person and their environment

do social psychologist care about what a social situation is like objectively, or how people see or understand that situation?

social psychologist care more about how people see or understand that situation

what are the 3 major research designs?

descriptive, correlational, and experimental

what is descriptive research?

describing the state of reality, 1 variable

what is correlational research?

describing the relationship (correlation) between 2 or more variables, no causal inference, prediction

empirical research = ?

data-centric

what are the goals of social psych?

describe, predict, and explain causality

how do you explain causality?

from an experiment

why does social psych get a bad rap?

familiarity with the subject matter and hindsight bias

what is hindsight bias?

the tendency to exaggerate prediction of an outcome after knowing that it occurred (ex: saying you knew a team would win a game after seeing they won)

what is the HOMER scientific method?

Hypothesize, Operationalize, Measure, Evaluate, Revise or replicate

what is hypothesize?

collections of variables organized into a testable statement of prediction, at least 2 concepts, some statement of the relationship between them (ex: related, causes, connected)

hypothesis example:

texting during class is related to poor exam performance

what is operationalize?

turning theoretical variables into things that can be measured

what are the 2 variables involved with operationalize?

conceptual variable and operational variable

what is a conceptual variable?

the general concept in which you are interested in, the idea (ex: texting during class)

what is a operational variable?

how you actually measure that concept (ex: number of texts, a simple yes/no)

what are the 3 different methods for testing hypotheses?

observational, goal is description

correlational, goal is prediction

experimental, goal is to answer causal question

what are the observational methods?

behavioral observation, physical trace analysis, and archival data analysis

what are some problems with observational methods?

some behaviors are hard to observe, information may be missing or unclear, cannot predict and explain behaviors

what is the correlation coefficient ( r ) ?

the statistical measure of the strength (the number) and direction (+ or -) of the relationship between 2 variables

what are advantages with correlational design?

shows natural variable relationship and useful when experiments are unethical

what are disadvantages with correlational design?

reverse-causality problem and third variable problem

what is experimental design?

randomly assign participants to identical conditions differing only by the IV

what is the IV?

the thing researchers change to see if it causes something else to happen

what is the DV?

what researchers measure to see if it is affected

experiments should be high in ______ _______?

internal validity

what is internal validity?

ensuring only the IV affects the DV; the experiment measures what it should

how do you increase internal validity?

in a lab setting

what is a confound variable?

a variable that changes with the IV, making it unclear whether the DV is caused by the IV or the confound

what is external validity?

how well study results generalize to other situations and people

how do you increase external validity?

by repeating

what is generalizability across situations?

generalize from experiment to real life situations or similar situations

what is generalizability across people?

generalize from participants to people in general

what is the WEIRD population?

White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

as internal validity goes up, external validity goes ___

down, vice versa

what is the ultimate test of external validity?

revise or replicate

what do observational and correlational research have in common?

they cannot answer causal question

what is social cognition?

how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgement and decisions

what are the 2 kinds of social cognition?

automatic thinking: quick and without control

controlled thinking: effortful and deliberate

what are the “Four Horseman of Automaticity” that automatic thinking satisfies most of or all?

non-conscious: were not aware

unintentional: we don’t mean to start

involuntary: we can’t stop if we want

effortless: take little or no resources

what are schemas?

mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world (ex: knowing how to order food at a fast food restaurant even if you’ve never been there)

how does automatic thinking help us understand new situations?

by relating them to our prior experiences

when applied to members of a social group such as gender or race, schemas are commonly referred to as……

stereotypes

what is accessibility?

the extent to which a concept is at the forefront of someones mind and thus likely to be used in making judgements about the social world

how can a concept become accessible?

it is chronically accessible, it is related to a current goal, or it is temporarily accessible because of a recent experience (priming)

when are self-fulfilling prophecies most likely to occur?

when people are distracted

what are self-fulfilling prophecies?

(1) people have an expectation about what a person or group is like, (2) which influences how they act towards that person, (3) which causes the person to behave with the expectation, (4) which makes the expectation true, (5) which proves your original expectation was correct

what are judgmental heuristics?

mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently

when are judgmental heuristics used?

used when we are not motivated or able to engage in more careful and effortful processing

what does salience mean?

sticks out to us more

what is representative heuristic?

our tendency to pay more attention to the “typicality” or representativeness of information while ignoring its base rate frequency.

what is anchoring and adjustment heuristic?

a mental shortcut where people use a number or value as a starting point and then adjust insufficiently

even arbitrary numbers have influence on judgments

what is confirmation bias?

peoples natural tendency is to try to confirm rather than disconfirm their current hypothesis

what is framing effect?

context in which information is presented influence judgments

generally humans are loss averse (we weight potential losses more heavily than potential gain)

what are some examples of framing effect?

order effects and wording of information

what does it mean that automatic thinking happens outside of conscious awareness?

it means our mind is thinking, reasoning, and making connections without us realizing it, even while we focus on something else

what are the 2 general theories of social affect?

basic emotion theory and constructionism

what is the basic emotion theory?

emotions are “basic” or biologically distinct and universal

what are the 3 principles of the basic emotion theory?

emotions correspond to specific facial expressions

people perceive facial expressions universally

emotions have a 1:1 ratio (you feel it, you express it every time)

what is the distinctive and universal pattern for the basic emotion theory?

distinctive and universal causes of emotions (ex: bear causes fear) —→ distinctive and universal “affect programs” in brain/genetics (emotion) —→ distinctive and universal behavioral outputs (how the emotion is expressed)

what brain region is associated with fear?

amygdala

what brain region is associated with disgust?

insula

what brain region is associated with anger?

orbitofrontal cortex

what brain region is associated with sadness?

anterior cingulate cortex

what does autonomic differentiation mean?

each basic emotion has its own unique, programmed autonomic nervous system reaction that is automatically triggered whenever that basic emotion circuit is fired

according to the basic emotion theory, people physiological experiences for basic emotions are _____ around the world

identical

what is the constructionism theory?

emotions are constructed of more psychological “ingredients”

what basic parts are emotions a product of?

basic feelings of pleasure/displeasure and arousal from body changes

attributions about the meaning of those body changes

what is emotion paradox?

we see emotion everywhere but have no way to quantify or directly measure it

according to the constructionism theory, facial expressions are more like _____ than biological reactions

symbols

what is core affect?

core affect= Valence x Arousal

valence ranges from ___ to ___

positive to negative

arousal ranges from ___ to ___

low to high

what are the 4 reasons why there still might be 1:1 correspondence between specific emotions and facial expressions?

measurement error, affect blends, masking, and display rules

why does how parents and caregivers discuss emotions matter?

it gives them knowledge about what instances of emotions look and feel like

provides information on causes and consequences

what is minimal universalism?

we know positive vs. negative emotions, and activated vs. deactivated emotion (physiological arousal)

we are not good at identifying specific emotions

what is minimal universalism bounded by?

culture, language, personal experience and the situation (and biology also likely plays a role)

what are the 2 steps in the 2-factory theory of emotion (aka constructionism)

1. something changes in you

2. you decide what the change means, how it made you feel

what is the broaden-and-build theory?

when we feel good, it makes us broaden mental activities and behaviors, which leads to new resources

what is self-regulation?

the process of setting goals and using our cognitive and affective capacities to reach those goals

_______ regulation is a large component of self-regulation

emotional

what is the halo effect?

an attractive person must be funny, nice, kind, and more because you misattribute your arousal

emotion regualtion examples:

distraction, suppression, reconceptualization/reappraisal, affect labeling, self-distancing/self-talk, and mindfulness