PSYC2210 Exam 1

Social Psychology @ Georgia Tech

Social psychology

The study of how the actual, implied, and imagined presence of others influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

The three kinds of presence

1. Implied

2. Actual

3. Imagined

Kurt Lewis’ Framework

Both personal and situational factors influence behavior

Two axioms of social psychology

1. Constructivism

2. Situationism

Constructivism

our view of reality is shaped by cognitive and social processes —> we actively CREATE much of what we see and remember, and there is no objective reality

Situationism

perception is not passive —> the primary determinant of behavior are situational cues/conduct, NOT underlying personality

Social cognition

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

Two kinds of thinking

1. Quick and Associative (Experimental system)

2. Slow and Deliberate (Cognitive system)

Characteristics of Quick and Automatic thinking

Must have one of:

• Lack of awareness

• Lack of control

• Lack of conscious intent

• Efficiency

Not consciously initiated, determined by external situations, can’t be controlled

Most of our thinking surrounding perception of people is automatic

The cognitive system

A conscious, rational, and controlled way of thinking

Organization of memory

We naturally group information about similar subjects together in our minds

Categorization

Placing new experiences into existing categories (schemas)

Schema

A mental framework, derived from past experiences, that contains a person’s beliefs, feelings, and expectations about categories

—> a schema with information about yourself is called a self-schema

• Schemas are as much a part of memory as perception — we fill in the gaps with schemas

  • Over time, changes in schemas can ALTER existing memories (EX: Mandela Effect)

2 kinds of accessibility

1. Chronic accessibility

2. Temporal accessibility

Chronic accessibility

Developed through long-term experiences, repeated exposure, or personal significance

Temporal accessibility

Triggered by recent events, priming, or situational context.

Priming

Using recent experience to increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. Priming is an automatic (unconscious) thought process

The Perseverance Effect

People’s beliefs about themselves and the social world tend to persist even after the evidence supporting the beliefs is discredited

Self-fulfilling prophecy

When initial expectations cause fulfillment of those expectations

Attitude

an evaluation of something along a positive —> negative spectrum

3 components of attitude

1. Affect — how you feel about something, how much you like/dislike something

2. Behavior — we approach things we find rewarding and avoid things we find punishing

3. Cognition — current thoughts/knowledge/beliefs about something

Accessibility

How much a concept is at the forefront of your mind

Response latency

How long it takes you to access a certain schema in your mind

—> a quicker response may demonstrate a stronger attitude (either positive or negative) towards that subject

Centrality

How important attitude is to a person — measured by measuring a variety of related attitudes and calculating how strongly they are related to each other

Implicit attitude

non-conscious attitude — controversial, but implicit attitudes may impact our behavior without us being aware of it at all — to measure these, we must use indirect measures of attitude that do not include self reporting

Relationship between attitude and behavior

While attitude is often assumed to predict behavior, research has shown that this is not always the case.

• The higher the accessibility, the more likely an attitude is to affect a behavior

• —> also, whether the attitude and behavior are at the same level of specificity

Cognitive dissonance

An unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes an inconsistency between actions and beliefs

When does cognitive dissonance happen?

• When the behavior was freely chosen

• When the behavior was insufficiently justified

• When the behavior has predictable negative consequences

Rationalization

A process that occurs both before and after a choice is made in order to help us feel good about a decision and its consequences

Effort justification

Tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant
EX: a degree, parenting

Self-affirmation

Sure, I did *** awful thing *** but I also did ***great thing***

Forced compliance

Compelling someone to behave in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs — when forced, we tend to act like we wanted to do it all along

• When trying to change someone’s attitude, use the smallest amount of coercion necessary

  • Reward too substantial = won’t change underlying attitude

The self-perception theory

A theory that challenges cognitive dissonance:

• Claims that attitudes are inferred from behaviors instead of introspection

• Used when no existing attitude towards a behavior is present, rather than cognitive dissonance, which is used when a behavior conflicts with a pre-existing strong attitude

Self-knowledge

any of the many descriptions we have for ourselves

Forms of social interaction through which we learn about ourselves

1. Appraisals from others

2. Social comparisons

3. Self perceptions

Appraisals from others

We use both explicit + implicit perceptions to determine who we are

Social comparisons

• Downward comparison

  • Comparing to those worse off

• Upward comparison

  • Comparing to those better off

** Usually, we tend to compare ourselves the most to people we find similar to us

Self perception

We learn about ourselves the most in new/unusual situations

Self concept

All of our self-schemas together + the way they are organized

Integrated self-concept

• Self schemas contain a mix of both positive and negative attributes

  • More level “mood” and self-esteem

Compartmentalized self-concept

• Self-schemas are almost uniformly positive/negative

  • Prone to experiencing “high highs and low lows” depending on which schema is activated