Social Psychology 1

What is Social Psychology?

Social psychology is the scientific study of how
people affect and are affected by others

Late 1800s: two experiments point in opposite
directions

Norman Triplett: competition enhances
performance

Max Ringelmann: as group size increases,
individual effort decreases

Gender Identity nature vs nurture

Nature-– Genes, hormones, brain structure and other
innate processes dictate one’s choices and
actions

What is the psyche?

A broad term for mind, encompassing
emotions, desires, perceptions, and all other
psychological processes

Evolution, and Doing What’s
Natural

The theory of evolution focuses on how
change occurs in nature
• Natural selection decides which traits will
endure, and which will disappear
– Survival
– Mutation
– Reproduction

Mineka and cook

rhesus monkeys and snakes study

Being social offers evolutionary benefits

– Can find more food
– Can mate and reproduce easier
– Can alert each other to danger
– Can take care of sick and injured

Social brain theory

Animals with bigger brains

live in larger, more complex

social groups (Dunbar,

1993, 1996)

Emotional Intelligence vs
Intelligence Quotient

Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a way to
measure how a person recognizes
emotions in himself or herself and others,
and manages these emotional states to
work better as a group or team.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a value that
indicates a person's ability to learn,
understand, and apply information and
skills in a meaningful way.

What is culture?

An information-based system includes shared
ideas and common ways of doing things
• As social animals we seek connections
with others. We live, work, and play
together.

Important features of culture

– Shared ideas

– Culture as a system
– Culture as praxis
– Culture, information, and meaning

Co-evolution of Nature and Culture Interacting

Co-evolution: nature shapes culture, and
culture shapes nature

A Brief History of Social Psychology:

1908

publication of social psychology
textbooks

A Brief History of Social Psychology:

twentieth century

rapid changes and events
in world lead to new ideas

Kurt Lewin (1930s)

behavior is a function of the
person and the situation

Gordon Allport (1954)

the importance of attitudes

Stanley Milgram (1960s)

the role of obedience (in
light of World War II)

1950s: psychology divided into two camps:

– Behaviorism
– Freudian psychoanalysis

Social psychology: combines the scientific
method of behaviorism with the Freudian
study of inner thoughts and feelings

Contemporary Themes in Social Psychology

• Cognitive theory

– Mental processes

• Biological and evolutionary processes

– Social neuroscience

• The self

– Concept, esteem, presentation

• Group conflict

– Political, racial, ethnic

How Social and cognitive processes intertwine

Other people’s beliefs, desires, and expectations
remain in our thoughts, affecting us even when we
are physically alone
• “group in the individual”

Other people’s influences on us, even when they
are present, depend on the ways we perceive and
interpret them
• “individual in the group”

Two Fundamental Axioms of Social Psychology

Construction of Reality
– What we experience as “real” is our own
construction
– Shaped by cognitive and social processes
– Two people may experience quite different
realities

• Pervasiveness of Social Influence
– Even our innermost private thoughts are shaped
by:
• Thoughts about others’ reactions
• Social group memberships
• Culturally learned beliefs
– These effects are usually not conscious but are
pervasive

Three Motivational Principles

Striving for Mastery
– We seek to understand and predict events in the
social world

• Seeking Connectedness
– We seek to create and maintain feelings of
mutual support, liking, and acceptance

• Valuing “Me and Mine” (Self-esteem)
– We are motivated to see ourselves and anything
connected to us in a positive light

• Conservatism
– Individuals’ and groups’ views of the world are
slow to change

Why do we believe in the “hot hand”?

Streaks appear to happen more often than we
think, because they are more “available” in our
memory

Three Processing Principles

• Accessibility
– The most readily available generally has the most
impact

• Superficiality Versus Depth
– Sometimes we just “operate on automatic,”
relying on the most accessible information
without thinking further

-Systematic processing

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Individualistic

• Typical of Western societies

• Strive to distinguish self as individual

Collectivist

• Typically Eastern

• Focus on fundamental relatedness of all

individuals

first and third person memories

north american - first-person memories

east asian - third person (collectivistic culture) focuses more on third person pov and how they are perceived by others

Causal Attribution styles

 North Americans

→ internal attribution styles

 East Asians

→ external attribution styles

When encountered contradiction between westerners and east asians

• Westerners →

– They may compare both items of information,

then decide that one is right and the other is

wrong.

• East Asians →

– They may retain basic elements of the two

opposing perspectives and believe that both

perspectives may contain some middle ground

A dialectical response - peng and nisbett

Chinese refer to dialectical response more than americans (rationalizing)

The Duplex Mind

• Automatic system

• Conscious system

• Automatic system

– Outside of consciousness

– Simple operations

– Always on, even in sleep

like breathing

• Conscious system

– Complex operations

– Turns off during sleep

moral dumbfounding

when individuals make a gut feeling or a very confident judgment but are unable to provide a general consensus of why