MODULE #1: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Scientific study of how people influence each other’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Social Thinking

Thinking that someone is accommodating

Social Influence

What you think influences others

Social Behavior

How we behave based on what we think and how we are influenced by others

SOCIAL THINKING

Someone’s principles and values

SOCIAL THINKING

• How we perceive ourselves and others.

• What we believe

• Judgments we make

• Our attitudes

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

• Culture

• Pressure to Conform

• Persuasion

• Groups of People

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR (PREJUDICE)

• Negative judgment of someone to exclude them

• Based on what is normal for you

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR (AGGRESSION)

Inflicting harm to others

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR (ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY)

_____ (physical or based on a person’s personality) and _____ is built through time (accepting someone’s flaws)

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR (ALTRUISM)

Helping someone and not expecting anything in return

WE CONSTRUCT OUR SOCIAL REALITY

You and I may react differently to a situation because we think differently

WE CONSTRUCT OUR SOCIAL REALITY

Your beliefs about yourself also matter

WE CONSTRUCT OUR SOCIAL REALITY

One’s perspective of themselves is also a big factor.

INTUITION (GUT FEELINGS)

Ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired.

WE KNOW MORE THAN WE KNOW WE KNOW

On a regular basis, we are mostly on automatic pilot, we intuitively judge how likely something will happen based on how easily the mental image of those situations come to mind, may they be imagined or experienced in the past.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR

Aristotle has identified humans to be social animals.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR

We speak and think in words we learned from others. We long to connect, to belong, and to be well thought of.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR

Our culture also helps define our situations.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR

Social psychologist Hazel Markus (2005) sums it up: "People are, above all, malleable.”

SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR

Our attitudes and behavior are shaped by external social forces.

OUR INNER ATTITUDES AFFECT OUR OUTER BEHAVIOR

Our political attitudes influence who we would likely vote for or if we're even going to vote at all.

PERSONALITY DISPOSITIONS ALSO AFFECT BEHAVIOR

Facing the same situation, people may react differently.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

Our inherited human nature predisposes us to behave in ways that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

We carry the genes of those whose traits enabled them to survive and reproduce. Our behavior, too, aims to send our DNA into the future.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

Evolutionary psychologists ask how natural selection might predispose our actions when dating and mating, hating and hurting, caring and sharing

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

Nature also endows us with an enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environments. To understand social behavior, we must consider under-the skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influences.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

Studies have shown that stress hormones affect how we feel and act: A dose of testosterone decreases trust, and a dose of oxytocin increases it (Bos et al., 2010). Social support strengthens disease-fighting immune system.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED

We are biopsychosocial organisms. We reflect the interplay of our biological, psychological, and social influences.