psy210 test 1

Self-fulfilling prophecy

"The process by which someone's expectations about a person or group lead to the fulfillment of those expectations."
¨possibly erroneously leading the first person to falsely believe that their prediction was accurate and that they understand the world, when they don't.

Difference bt psychology and sociology

Psychology: focus on individual-level variables such as: Thought processes, Emotional reactions, and Behavioral tendencies

Sociology: focus on group-level variables such as: Status, Norms, and social roles

William Wundt

1862, argued for the development of social psych which he saw as springing from philosophy
Basically the founder of psychology in general

he Wanted to separate physiological psych from social psych

Norman Triplett

conducts the first social psychological experiment in 1895. He Timed cyclists racing individually vs against other riders of the same speed and he found that they went faster when racing against another person

William McDougal

English Psychologist focused on the individual as the unit of analysis.

Edward Ross

American Sociologist focused on groups and the structure of society.

Floyd Allport

In 1924 published a 3rd textbook that moved Psychology clearly in the direction of the individual and the use of the experimental methods of science rather than philosophy

Kurt Lewin

founds Society for the physiological study of social issues (SPSSI). "no research without action, and no action without research" meaning Our leaders shouldn't make policy without researching it first, once you've done the research take action. This is an example of applied social psychology

Stanley Milgram

obedience to authority; had participants administer what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to other participants; wanted to see if Germans were an aberration or if all people were capable of committing evil actions

had influential research programs, searching to explain Nazi atrocities.

Leon Festinger

Developed theory of cognitive dissonance

Three part experient where people did a boring ass task then lied and told other people it was interesting and to sign up, half the students were given a dollar ti recruit others and half were given 20 to recruitThose paid 1 dollar ended up with a greater attitude change

Call this the less is more study, less money lead to more liking for part 1 (rated first part an 8 out of 10)20 dollar people rated it around a 1 or a 2Basically the 1 dollar people felt bad about lying about the experiment so they unconsciously changed their attitude about the first part so they wouldn't be lying about it, if they believe themselves that it was fun then they aren't lying to others. The 20 people didn't feel "cognitive dissonance" because they were able to justify the lie because they earned the 20

How many contemporary approaches to psychology?

6: Psychoanalytic, behavioral (we can only measure observable behaviors), gestalt (the whole is more than the sum of the parts), cognitive (studied thinking, learning, memory, creativity, etc), humanistic (mazlow, all people are motivated to realize their full potential), biological (medical approach, neurotransmitters and what goes on in the brain, neuroscience would be here)

Cognitive Revolution

The shift away from strict behaviorism, begun in the 1950s, characterized by renewed interest in fundamental problems of consciousness and internal mental processes. More emphasis on perception and memory, Interest in cross cultural study and replicating studies in different places

Self awareness

recognizes that the self is separate from others

Self serving bias

Takes credit for your success, so: I got a good grade cause I worked hard for it.
Also deny responsibility for failure (Aka attributional theory)
"We wanna interpret the world in a way that makes us feel good about ourselves"

Dual processing

Social thinking can be deliberate (Richard Lazarus 1984): Consciously aware of what one is saying, careful slow and rational (cold)


Social thinking can also be automatic:
Not consciously aware of what u are saying all the time, Quick/ hot Affect, emotion/mood driven, Effortless and easy, implicit (unconscious bias comes out)

Two key social belief systems

Individualism: Take care of self and immediate family only. Pursues own goals and does not like being influenced by group

Collectivism:
Take care of others within your group. Group goals more important than individual goals. Accept group influence. 70% of population lives in collectivist societies

Martin Seligman

researcher known for work on learned helplessness and learned optimism as well as positive psychology

What is the scientific method?

Set of procedures:
Gather info
Analyze info
Interpret info

Leads to dependable (reliable) generalizations
which means we can generalize and expect it to be repeatable

Basic Research

Increases knowledge for knowledge's sake
Does not attempt to solve a specific problem in the real world
May try to solve technical or scientific problems to help them get info they want but not something like solving crime or poverty

Applied research

Increases understanding of social problems
Starts out with a problem and tries to find solutions using current scientific knowledge
Basic and applied research can inform each other
From early on social psych has leaned towards applied research

Value laden perspective

Social science and social action should be connected
Scientists are morally obligated to try to improve society

6 Basic steps of research

¨1.Select a topic and review past research.
¨2.Develop (or adopt) a theory, generate one or more testable hypotheses, and select a method.
¨3.Obtain approval from the IRB
¨4.Collect data.
¨5.Analyze data and reevaluate theory.
¤Results support or fail to support the theory.
¨6.Report results (papers, presentation, poster).

Literature review

Once topic is selected, review scholarly literature to see what has already been learned, lit review can take a year or more

Theory

our best explanation for set of observed relationships among 2 or more variables.

A theory should:
1) Have predictive accuracy (support from results)
2) Have internal coherence
3) Be economical (parsimony)
Come up with the simplest possible answer to explain the results
4) Be fertile (heuristic, lead to many testable hypotheses)

A theory advances general knowledge in a specific area, its goal isn't to be right and in fact they are NEVER proven

testable hypothesis

A very specific prediction usually derived from a theory about what will happen in a clearly described study
Much more specific than a theory
Terms (variables) in a hypothesis must be operationally defined.
Defined in clear measurable ways, ex: intelligence being defined by wexler adult intelligence scale

A hypothesis: is a testable prediction based on a theory's explanation

IRB boards

One ethical issue is use of deception
Not fully disclosing nature of study or misleading until it is over
Use of confederates (experimental assistants posing as participants)
Guidelines for research w human subjects:
1)Give informed consent
2)Only use deception only when necessary
3)Allow the right to discontinue
4)Minimize harm
5)Patient confidentiality
6)Debrief
7)Provide feedback if requested

Population

group of interest, group of people being described by the research question or hypothesis

Sample

smaller group of people participating in the study. Subset of the population
It may or may not be representative of the population, but for a scientific experiment it certainly should be

Descriptive statistics

numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups.
summarize the responses of the sample

inferential statistics

estimate the degree to which these responses can be generalized

What does significant mean in relation to data analysis?

Significant\=reliable\=real\=should replicate
Doesn't mean "a lot"

Scholarly Journals

Publish in scholarly journals
Editors and reviewers critique hypotheses, methods, analysis, and conclusions (peer review)
Authors then revise and clarify

Variables

Factor of interest that can potentially have 2 or more levels. Gender is a variable that usually has 2 levels, male and female. While height has an infinite number of levels
A constant is a factor with only one level in the data set.

meta-analysis

Analysis of other analyses

Way of calculating the overall effect size across multiple studies. "The effect size is the true difference in the population"
If men are 4 inches taller than women, 4 inches is effect size

Researchers seek unpublished and published works
Each study is treated like a participant in the meta analysis

Mean and standard deviation for the sample are used to calculate estimates of the effect size
Effect size can be averaged across studies

This is better than "majority rules" literature reviews
Aka better than saying "well 5 studies support this thing and 3 don't so we should support this thing"

Replication

If incorrect results make it into literature others will try, and fail to replicate results and report the contradictions
Replication is important and becoming more important
"Never replicated" is a type 1 error

Correlational studies

a research method that examines how variables are naturally related in the real world, without any attempt by the researcher to alter them or assign causation between them

Experimental studies

studies in which the independent variables are directly manipulated and the effects on the dependent variable are examined

quasi-experiment

An experiment in which investigators make use of control and experimental groups that already exist in the world at large. Also called a mixed design.
Would technically be considered correlational

Social desirability bias

the tendency for people to say what they believe is appropriate or acceptable

Linear Regression

A method of finding the best model for a linear relationship between the explanatory and response variable.

Correlation coefficient

measures the linear relationship between two variables.
Range is ±1.00. Zero means no correlation
Strength also called Magnitude (absolute value).
Direction is indicated by sign.(Positive or Negative)

The Cause and Effect Illusion

When two variables are related (correlated), there is a natural tendency to assume that one causes the other, but correlation does not allow us to infer causality.

Third variable problem

the fact that a causal relationship between two variables cannot be inferred from the naturally occurring correlation between them because of the ever-present possibility of third-variable correlation

Directionality problem

a problem encountered in correlational studies; the researchers find a relationship between two variables, but they cannot determine which variable may have caused changes in the other variable

true experiment

A true experimenter uses random assignment to put people into 2 or more groups or conditions.

Manipulates an Independent Variable (IV)
Measures a Dependent Variable (DV)
Controls all other variables as much as possible

real effect

a statistical significance shows that results will likely replicate in the real world and that the experiment is repeatable

Social Cognition

the manner in which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world

aka social thinking

social perception

the processes through which we seek to know and understand other people

Darwin and Facial expressions

There are 6 expressions. Darwin claimed they weren't learned from culture. Everybody around the world shows the same facial expressions for different emotions, we all have "genetic heritage"

these emotions are: anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, and sadness

Paul Ekman

1975, designed experiment to see if Darwin was right, used actors to display emotions, most people could agree on the emotions shown thru facial expression confirming darwins original idea. Ekman came up w idea that people have at least 18 different smiles

Pupil dilation and attraction

Pupils open and close for emotion, widely dilated pupils are more attractive and you may open up to someone more with dilated pupils

More blinking when lying

we change the way we blink or how much eye contact we make during lying

Posture

Open/rounded posture portrays good, angular pointy sharp posture portrays evil

Emblem

a gesture with a direct verbal translation such as nodding yes

Micro expressions

fleeting expressions that sometimes last a fraction of a second, hard to suppress

inter channel discrepancies

inconsistencies between nonverbal cues from different basic channels

For example keeping steady eye contact may result in being unable to control blinking as well

It is difficult to regulate all channels simultaneously. Some people are very good at detecting this, women are better than this than men usually (picking up a bad aura from somebody could be an indication u picked up on non verbal cues)

paralinguistic cues

Aspects of the voice that convey information, such as tone, intonation, pitch, speech rate, use of silence.

lots of grammatical correction can be an indication of lying

Theory of Causal attributions

a judgement about the cause of someone elses behavior
Ex: u see a girl smile at you and say wow she must be attracted to me

This theory is about how we use others behavior as a basis for Inferring our own stable dispositions:

looking at someones behavior, and using it to infer their stable internal dispositions( internal state) (example would be whether they are nice, or an a-hole)

causal attribution table

Consistency

The extent to which "he" reacts in the same way to the same stimulus over time.

Consensus

the extent to which others react the same way that "he" does to a stimulus.

Distinctiveness

The extent to which the same person reacts in the same way to different stimuli.

The Augmenting Principle

When a factor which might facilitate a behavior and one which might inhibit the same behavior are both present and the behavior occurs, we add weight to the behavior. it is Unexpected therefore holds more weight

The Discounting Principle

The importance of one particular explanation for a given behavior is reduced to the extent that there are other possible explanations for that behavior. It is Expected therefore holds less weight

Fundamental Attribution Error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Only applies when we judge others

The Actor-Observer Effect

the overall tendency to attribute our own behavior to external sources but to attribute the behavior of others to internal sources

it is both self serving bias and actor observer effect combined

Self attribution

We act a certain way because of situation.
Others act a certain way because of "who they are"

Attributional style

The way a person typically explains the things that happen in his or her life

Example: learned helplessness vs learned optimism

The Ultimate Attributional Error

the Actor-Observer effect applied to groups

Impression Formation

studies of factors that influence our assessment of others

Impression Management

looks at things we do to present ourselves favorably.

Primacy effect

tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than the information that follows

Asch's "central traits" theory

Some dimensions like Warm/Cold carry more weight (i.e. are more central to our thinking)

Ex:

Intelligent, skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, cautious.
Vs.
Intelligent, skillful, industrious, cold, determined, practical, cautious

Flattery

Flattery is a method of impression management (self presentation)
flattery is enhancing someone elses perception of you by making other person feel good through things like favors, eye contact, smiling, nodding

May backfire if over done and target may feel manipulated.

Cognitive shortcuts

In an effort to process very large quantities of social information quickly, we have developed cognitive shortcuts that work much of the time, but leave us open to predictable errors in judgment

an example of this would be our biases or images of certain groups of people: for example people with large wealth must be inherently more intelligent , or a prejudice against Mexicans and believing they are lazy

Schemas

Mental frameworks centering around a specific theme that help us to organize social information.

Schemas influence:
1)Attention (selective attention)
2)Encoding (selective memory)
3)Retrieval (selective recall)

Heuristics

Mental Shortcuts
and Potential Sources of Error
(Fallacies and Biases)

Availability Heuristic

More readily available information carries more weight.


One of the reasons for the primacy effect
Ex: if someone says "those dirty immigrants" we are primed to think of people from negative backgrounds

Recency effect: we pay more attention to events that have happened recently

Representative Heuristic

Make best guess based on similarity to typical patterns or general types. Assumes people fit neatly into a relatively few clear cut categories. If she looks like a librarian, she is probably quiet, intelligent, serious, and unpopular

Priming

A situation that occurs when stimuli or events increase the availability in memory or consciousness of specific types of information held in memory

Unpriming

refers to the fact that the effects of the schemas tend to persist until they are somehow expressed in thought or behavior and only then do their effects decrease

Ex: you hear someone talk about how immigrants are ruining america and responsible for all rape and murder in the country, you repeat this to a friend and after speaking with them and hearing yourself say it realize how dumb of an idea that was and you unprime yourself

Cognitive capacity

We have great long term memory storage, short term is very small and we can't pay attention to the massive amount of stimulus we encounter

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

accommodation

adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Social neuroscience study on controlled and automatic processing

Controlled \= reasoning and logical occurs in the prefrontal cortex.

Automatic is emotion based and occurs in the limbic system (old brain)

illusory correlations

correlation appears to exist, but either does not exist or is much weaker than assumed

Counterfactual thinking

the tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not

Attitude

Attitudes are lasting general evaluations of people (including self), objects, or ideas

They are heuristics in that they reduce information overload and simplify life at a price, prejudices don't let someone fully think objectively in a situation

•Every attitude can be structured in the ABC model, attitudes have an Affective (emotional), behavioral (is an action usually, but sometimes thinking), and cognitive (thought) component

Classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Attitudes can be learned this way

operant conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. Attitudes can be learned this way

modeling/observational learning

Attitudes can be learned through observation and imitation of the behavior of other individuals and consequences of that behavior

Function of attitudes

1. Knowledge, they aid in processing new information
b. Identity, help express central values and communicate them to others
c. Self-Esteem, maintain and enhance self-worth
Some people base attitudes on self esteem
d. Ego-Defense, protect self from unflattering views of self
e. Impression Management, we express views to create the desired effect

AB problem

The AB problem asks to what degree do attitudes determine behavior? showed that attitudes don't always match behaviors

To test this in 1934 LaPiere took a well dressed Chinese couple to many restaurants (Chinese were discriminated against at the time) and was refused service only 1 time, later when asked if people would not serve chinese people, 92% said they wouldn't.

•Problems were: demand characteristic and social desirability
basically they thought that person wanted to hear that Chinese wouldn't be served because it was the socially acceptable thing to say (social desirability)
(Demand char): have to be careful to not ask things in a way that lead to a specific answer

Vested Interest

A personal concern about the outcome of a project, business venture, etc.

Attitudes tend to be stronger when one has a vested interest in the topic

Pluralistic Ignorance

A situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes"

When we collectively misunderstand what attitudes others hold and believe erroneously that others have different attitudes than ours.

•Pluralistic ignorance may help to explain the bystander effect. If no-one acts, onlookers may believe others believe action is incorrect, and may therefore themselves refrain from acting.

Self-Perception Theory

The theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs

This theory says we don't initially know our attitudes about something, and that attitudes are developed from our behavior and actions

this challenged cognitive dissonance which meant: a person may engage in a behavior that is "attitude discrepant" meaning you act differently sometimes than your beliefs

Role playing

Role playing can help people understand someone elses perspective and change attitudes through behavior

BA model of attitudes

Model of attitudes where behavior influences attitudes

Brain washing

•Brain washing is based on cognitive dissonance
•Getting people to slowly do things, write things, or say things, they initially might not do

Facial Feedback effect

•position of ur face affects your internal state
•Pencil study, depending on how u hold pencil in mouth u might be forced to smile, those who were smiling were happier