Final Exam Reflection

Thursday, May 14th, 2026

social psychology

the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

social influence

the effect that words, actions, or the presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior

construal

perception, comprehension, and interpretation of a situation

fundamental attribution error (FAE)

the tendency to attribute the cause of behavior to the person, disreagrding the situation

naive realism

fault construal, the common conviction that we perceive things accurately, underestimating how much we are interpreting (thinking the other side is biased)

motives that direct construal

self-esteem (evaluation of one’s own self-worth) and

social cognition (the need to be accurate, but sometimes we are inaccurate because information in incomplete, interpretation is wrong, naive realism)

observational method

observe and systematically record (similar to a case study),

examples include ethnography and archival analysis (social media sites, shopper cards, etc)

observational method strengths

rich data and gathers information for correlational or experimental studies

observational method weaknesses

many behaviors are difficult to observe

descriptive, NOT predictive or causal

correlational method

two or more variables systematically measured, along with covariates (~confounds), the relationship between varaibles is mathematically predicited (if X is _, we can predict Y will be _)

correlational method strengths

predictive if representative (random sampling)

can study phenomena that’s difficult to observe

can be applied to the real world (extranal validity)

correlational method weaknesses

sampling error/bias

research bias

reporting bias

does not support a causal mechanism

spurious correlations - things that seem to be correlated but are not really

(swimming pool fatalities and Nicolas Cage film appearances)

experimental method

random assignment to different conditions, the independent variable is the variable researchers manipulate to see whether it has an effect on the outcome (dependent variable)

experimental method strengths

supports causality

random assignment

internal validity - control confounds

experimental method weaknesses

lacks external validity

does not generalize to the real world

cross culutral research

examines whether psychological processes are universal or cultural

challenges of research bias and translation

institutional review boards (IRB)

respect for persons = informed consent

beneficience = minimizing harm

justice = offer interventions to everyone who took part in the experiement

social cognition

how people think about themselves and the social world

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

two kinds of social cognition

automatic thinking and controlled thinking

automatic thinking

quick assumptions

no conscious deliberation

unintentional, involuntary, effortless

helps with quick decisions

controlled thinking

slow, deliberate, conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful

schemas

mental frameworks or structures that organize our knowledge of the social world, influence what we notice/think about/remember, and can fill in gaps in new situations

self-fulfilling prophecy

expectations or schemas influence how we act toward another person

the person behaves consistently with our expectations, making the prophecy come true

judgmental heuristics

shortcuts

when we don’t have adequate schemas for a specific judgement or decision

when we have too many possible schemas and don’t know which is best

two types of automatic schemas

availability and represenativeness

availabilty schema

how easily does it come to mind, memory accessible

“what comes to mind must be most likely”

representativeness schema

how similar is something to the prototypical cause

“if it looks like the sterotype it must be true”

counterfactual reasoning

mentally challenging an aspect of the past, imagining what “might have been”

comparing downward - I could have done worse

comparing upward - I could have done better

social perception

how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people

based on observable behavior (how people act, what people say, facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice)

encoding nonverbal communication

expressing or emitting (pat on the back, smiling)

decoding nonverbal communication

interpreting the meaning (is that a smile or smirk?)

6 universally recognized emotions

anger, disgust, happiness, fear, sadness, suprise

affect blend

facial expressions in which different parts of the face register different emotions, challenge decoding

display rules

culturally determined rules about how nonverbal communication is used, challenges decoding

other challenges to decoding

eye contact/gaze and personal space

emblems

nonverbal gestures that have a well-understood meaning within a given culture, challenges decoding

thin-slicing

facial appearance can cue inital impressions in less than 100 miliseconds

primacy effect

when forming impressions, the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later

belief perserverance

tendency to stick with an inital judgment even in the fact of new information that should prompt us to reconsider, we want to stick with the consistent impression of someone as our self-esteem is linked to consistency

attribution theory

they way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior

internal attributions

dispositional - attitude, character, personality

external attributions

situational - thinking most people would behave simialry

self-serving bias

when making self-attributions making

internal attributions for successes

external attributions for failures

tendency to think others are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are ourselves

fundamental attribution error correspondence bias

when making attributions, we overestimate the extent to which people’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors

perceptual salience

focus attention on the person, not the surrounding situation

more likley to make the FAE

Lerner’s belief in a just world

assumption that people get what they deserve, bad things only happen to bad people

type of defensive attribution

leads to avoid/denying feelings, avoiding root causes, victim-blaming

two step attribution process

1. make an internal attribution

   1. assume person’s behavior was due to something about that person

   2. occurs quickly, spontaneously

2. adjust attribution by considering situation

   1. may skip this step

   2. requires effort, conscious attention

holistic thinking

collectivistic, east asian cultures

focuses on whole picture: the object or person, the surrounding context, and relationship between them

analytic thinking

individualistic, Western cultures

focuses on properties of the object or people, pays less attention to context or situation

self concept

overall set of beliefs people have about their personal attributes

evolves over time 18-24 months, begins as concete and simplistic and with age there is more emphaisis on psychological states and how we are perceived by others

independent self-concept

defines self through internal thoughts, feelings, actions, and noth other people’s

independence and uniqueness are valued

more common in Western culutres

interdependent self-concept

defines self through relationships to others

more sensitivty toward how thoughts, feelings, actions affect others

uniqueness frowned upon

more common in Asian and non-Western cultures

self knowledge

the way we understand ourselves and how we organuze information about ourselves

introspection

“looking inward” and examining thoughts, feelings, motives

may avod if unpleasnat, moods not predicted by expected variables

self-awareness theory

when motivated to focus on ourselvs, we evaluate and compare our behavior to our own interal standards and values

may be unpleasant when self-preception is not concistent with values and standards

self perception theory

when our attitudes and feelings are unclear or ambigious, we observe our behavior to understand

when we lack self-awarness, we look at our behavior to understand how we are feeling, perceving ourselvs from the outside

misattribution of arousal

mistake a reason for our felling to the wrong source

social comparison theory

measuring our abilities and attitudes by comparing to other people to get an accurate assesment of our abilities, to feel better about ourselves, and to know what to strive for

downard social comparison

comparing to people who are less impressive with regard to a partcular trait or ability

upward social comparison

comparing to people who are more impressive with regard to a partcular trait or ability

self control

the ability to override immediate desires to achieve long-term goals

effective strategies for self-control

• implementation of intentions

• contingency plans (how to address setbacks)

• arrange enviornments (how easy or difficult it is to do something)

• manage health to offset depletion (sleeping, eating, work/life balanace)

ineffective strategies for self control

• avoidance

• distraction

• over-focusing on the long term goal (incremental goals)

impression management

the way we present ourselves to others, and how we get others to see us as we want to be seen (how we modify ourselves)

forms of impression management

• apperance

• choice of words (cursing)

• body lanaguage and posture

• integratation (flattery)

• self-handucapping (creating obstacles and excuses)

• code-switching (to build connection or hide yourself)

cognitive dissonance

psychological discomfort that people feel when

two cogntive (beliefs, attitudes) conflict or when they behave in ways that conflict with their attitudes, beliefs, or values

ways to reduce dissoance

• change behavior

• change one of the conflicting attidues, beleifs, values, or behaviors

• jusfity behavior by adding new cognition (yes, but…)

post decision dissonance

every time we make a decision, we experience dissonance

• the choosen alternative has some negative aspects

• the rejected alternative has some positive aspects

changing attitudes to reduce post-decision dissonance

distort likes and dislikes

• inflate positve aspects of choosen option

• minimize positve aspects of the alternative choice

reducing happens automatically

justifaction of effort

tendency for indivudals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain

conterattiduanal behavior

acting in a way that runs counter to one’s private beliefs

(consistent with our values OR our attitude)

effects of counterattiduinal behavior

• depends on external justificaiton (large reward easier to justify)

• internal justifcation used if external justification is lacking (change/modification in attidue)

dehumanizing to justify cruelty

extreme propaganda common in wars and conflicts, used to justify inhumane treatment

discouraging temptation

harsh punishment may be effective, but it doesn’t change attitude toward the behavior

mild punishment creates dissonanace

self-affirmation theory

people reduce threats to their self-esteem by affirming themselves in areas unrelated to the source of a threat

(smoker affirming themselves by focusing on how good they care for their kids)

self-evaluation maintenance

we experinece dissonance when someone close to us outerforms us in an area that is central to our self-esteem

dissonance related to self-evaluation maintenance can be reduced by

• becoming less close to the person

• changing our behavior so we outperform them

• decide the area is not that important to us after all

understanding cognitive dissonance

helps explain why some extreme behaviors can occur and feel justified by the actor (maintain self-esteem)

recgonizing dissonance can help us learn from mistakes

narcissism

exessive self-interest and lack of empathy toward others

too much self-esteem and it’s fragile

outcomes of exessive narcissism

• poorer academic performance

• less success in business

• more violence and aggression

• disliked by othes

• difficulty admitting wrongdoing

• react to dissonance in ways that preserve self-esteem

attitudes

evaluations of people, objects, ideas

not neautral or objective

may be indirectly influenced by genes

three compoenents of attitudes

cogntive - thoughts and beliefs

affective - emotional reacions

behavioral - actions or observable behavior

cognitively based attitudes

beliefs about the properties or facts

affectively based attitudes

feelings and values, sensory reaction, aesthetic reaction, conditioning

may override objective analysis

expicit attitudes

consciously endorsed and easy to report

mostly govern how we choose to act

do not always align with our implicit attitudes

implicit attitudes

involuntary, uncontrollable, and often unconscious

may trigger feelings and behaviors

do not always align with our explicit attitudes

implicit attitudes and self-perception theory

we don’t know how we feel about something until we see how we behavior

most influencial when inital attitude is weak or ambious or there is no other plausible explanation for the behavior

attitudes as predictors of behavior

people may feel one way, but actidifferntly if given the opportunity

better at prediciting planned behavior

how attitudes change

by behavior (threat to self-esteem, self-concept, lack of external justication)

by social influence

persuasive communication

advocates a particular side, behavior or product

central route to persuasion

if people are motivated and they have the ability to pay attention then there is logic and compelling facts

peripheral route to persuasion

if people are not motivated or they don’t have the ability to pay attention then perhpheral and superfical route

fear-arousing communications

attempting to change attitudes using fear

moderate amounts of fear combined with information on how to reduce fear

fear-arousing communications fail when people

become defensive

minimize or deny resolving dissonance

are unable to think rationally

advertising techniques - emotional appeal

peripheral route

when products are similar, classiclally condition the product with excitement, youth, attractiveness, humor

advertising techniques - subliminal messaging

words or images not consciously perceived

• can make schemas more salient

• does not make people act ounter to their wishes, values, or personalities

advertising and culture

more persuasive when ads match the thinking style of the target audience

• western culture: indivudality, self improvement

• eastern culture: benefits for social group, social hierarchy

attitude inoculation

inital exposure to small, relatively weak arguments makes people more resistant to later, stronger arguments

reactance

reaction to the perception that freedom to perform a behavior is threatended

results in a stronger desire to perform the behavior

conformity

change in behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people (social influence)