social psychology

allport’s definition

the scientific study of how an individual’s thoughts, feelings and actions are affected by the actual, imagined or implied (symbolically represented) presence of other people

abcs of social phenomena

affect, behaviour, cognition

affect

our feelings and emotions (the evaluative, felt dimension of experience)

behaviour

our actions and crucially our interactions with others (what we actually do)

cognition

our thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes (how we represent and reason about the social world)

real people and events

the actual, physical presence of others

imagined people or events

others who exist only in our minds at the moment

implied or symbolically represented presence

a symbol that stands in for the social world eg. a uniform, a sign reading CCTV in operation, or even a pair of eyes above an honesty box

what is a construal

The personal meaning we place upon a situation or event

What does the 'heart' represent in construals?

The need for positive self-regard and belonging.

What does the 'mind' represent in construals?

The need to be accurate and understand the world as it actually is.

what is the belonging motive

the desire for stable, meaningful connections with other people

how can belonging affect cognition

It changes how people process and interpret information.

what is understanding others and predicting accurately as a motive

the drive to navigate the world safely helps us progress or achieve our goals

what is the motive of control

the need for autonomy and competence

what is the self-enhancement motive

the drive for self worth, social status and a positive representation (self-esteem is not a private thing, it is calibrated in part against our standing in others’ eyes)

what is the trust motive

trust is our default setting, we are strongly motivated to believe that the world is fundamentall safe, benevolent and fair and that other people will keep us safe and treat us with kindness

5 goals of social psychological research

description, prediction, causal analysis, application, theory building

description

characterising accurately what is actually happening

prediction

forecasting what will tend to happen next, or which variables travel together

causal analysis

establishing what causes what, as opposed to what merely co-occurs with that

application

putting the knowledge to work to solve real world problems

theory building

knitting individual findings into coherent explanatory frameworks that generate new, testable predictions

3 cardinal features of science

observation, experimentation and measurement

observational research

description goal

correlational research

description and prediction goals (allows the study of problems where manipulation would be difficult, impossible or ethically unacceptable)

experimental research

the causal analysis goal (because the research control what varies, alternative explanations can be ruled out and earn the right to speak about cause)

3 questions of social cognition

what information is available? what meaning do we assign? what judgements and behaviours result?

what are 3 functions of the self

organisational, emotional and executive functions including self-control and behaviour regulation

implicit vs explicit attitudes

implicit = operate automatically and often outside our awareness and explicit = which we can consciously report

what is informational social influence

going along with others because we believe they have better information

what is normative social influence

going alone with others to gain approval, liking or acceptance

compliance vs obedience

compliance = agreeing to the direct request of another person, regardless of that person’s status and obedience = compliance that occurs specifically in response to an authority figure or to someone who holds greater social power than we do

deindividuation

the loss of self-awareness and self-regulation that occur when we are submerged in a group or a crowd

how can a group be defined

either a set of individual who have direct interaction with one another (eg. share a common goal) or a set of indivduals that are grouped together on a common attribute (gender, race or ethnicity) even in the absence of direct interction

propinquity

physical or functional nearness that increases opportunities to form relationships (repeated exposure tends to increase liking)

what is the bystander effect

people may be less likely to help when other witnesses are present (diffusion of responsibility)

prejudice (affective)

the emotion attached to an attitude, which varies both in type

discrimination (behavioural)

how people actually act upon their emotions and cognitions toward a group

stereotype (cogntive)

the belief and thoughts that make up for the attitude in the first place