PSYB10 Social Psychology

What does social psychology focus on? (5 things)

Social psych focuses on social, personality, emotion, and motivation

What are social psychologists interested in? (What do they study)

They are interested in all aspects of personality, social interaction, and interpersonal & group relationships

What IS social psychology?

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the actual, implied, or imagined presence of others

What is the Power of the Situation and how does it work?

The fact that situations often determine behaviour, regardless of what a person truly thinks/feels

It works by the situation guiding someone to act/behave a certain way

Recall the classic study of The Power Of the Situation: Milgram’s study of obedience

-The study was described to participants as a study of learning. The “teachers” introduced shock to the “learner” after wrong answers

- They found that the shock level increased after each wrong answer. Even with the “learners” screaming, the instructor had them continue 

- This experiment was a classic example of the power of the situation: Participants did not intend to harm anyone, yet they behaved in accordance of the situation 

Recall Seminarians as Samaritans:

-A classic experiment by John Darley & Daniel Batson

Sermons were told to go down a route to their destination where they would preach about “the good samaritan”, one group was told that they were late and the other that they were early to their destination. Along the path was a decoy man in need of help. They found that only the sermons not in a rush helped said man.

What is the “Fundamental Attribution Error”:

The failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behaviour, with the tendency to overemphasize dispositions 

What are -”Channel factors” or “nudges”?

Channel Factors/Nudges are circumstances that guide behaviour into a particular path by making it easier to follow one path than another  

• they explain why certain circumstances that seem unimportant can have great consequences

What is Gestalt Psychology

A school of thought and theory of perception stating that the human mind processes entire patterns and configurations rather than treating individual components separately 

Gestalt psychology stresses the fact that people are not passive perceivers of their surroundings; rather, people tend to generate active and unconscious interpretations of what an object represents as a whole.

What is naive realism?:

the human tendency to believe that our perceptions of the world represent objective reality directly and without bias

What is construal?

Construal refers to how we interpret situations and behaviours, often nonconscious, about the contexts and the people we are encountering  

What are schemas?

Generalized knowledge about the physical and social world, such as what behaviour we expect when talking to specific people

How do schemas help us in social situations?:

To understand social situations as immediately and directly as we do, we are actually depending on stored systematized knowledge to understand the most “obvious” situations

What are stereotypes?:

Stereotypes are schemas that we have for different kinds of people.

How do stereotypes work and help us?

We tend to judge individuals based on the schema they fit into in our mind, such as a person's gender, religion, job, etc 

• These allow us to function efficiently and effectively, but are often not true 

Our mind has two ways of processing information, what are the two ways our mind will process info?

1.Automatic and 2.conscious

Automatic processing is:

Automatic and nonconscious, often based in emotional factors

• These occur without our awareness and are faster and can operate in parallel to other processes

Conscious processing:

Conscious and systematic; more likely to be controlled by deliberative thought

• These are slow and only run one step at a time

What type of attitudes and beliefs do automatic processes give rise to?

automatic processes give rise to implicit attitudes and beliefs that cannot be readily controlled by the conscious mind 

(Implicit: unconscious automatic mental associations about people, objects, or ideas that operate outside of our conscious awareness)

What type of attitudes and beliefs do conscious processes give rise to?

conscious processing results in explicit attitudes and beliefs that we are aware of 

(conscious, deliberate evaluations, beliefs, or feelings that a person is fully aware of and can easily report)

Conscious Processes (The Exception):

Situations where we are actively aware of the factors, data, and procedures we are using.

Unconscious Processes (The Norm):

Situations where our minds make decisions, judgments, or evaluations without us knowing the true underlying reasons.

Why do humans have the social behaviors that we do?: “Universals/ universal norms”

Evolution and natural selection explains this: Individuals with certain traits will survive better and produce more offspring, meaning that their traits and genes will be passed on letting a species possess signature traits & adaptations 

(theory of natural selection)

Why do we do group living and communicate?

Group living is evolutionarily adaptive, as living and working together gave us an evolutionary advantage - and to do this, we had to learn how to communicate with one another

Language acquisition ability may have been shaped by evolution and it is believed that infants are born with their brains ‘prewired’ to acquire language because of its importance to humans living in groups 

What is langauge acquisiton:

the natural, subconscious process by which humans develop the capacity to perceive, comprehend, and use a language to communicate

This consists of dropping all the “wrong” phonemes– the ones that are not used by the language the child hears as an infant and can no longer be able to use them even though we are born with the ability to do so

Evolution may have provided us with ‘Theory of mind”:

Theory of mind is the “understanding that other people have beliefs and desires” - it varies in ‘ability’ level

What is Naturalistic Fallacy?:

The idea that the way things are, are the way they should be 

What is social neuroscience?:

Studying the role of the brain in Social behaviour. 

• Usually with fMRI’s as specific areas are more active (recieving more blood flow) during different cognitive tasks 

What’s unique about our brain that other mammals don’t have:

The size of our neocortex which consists of the layers of neurons on top of older regions of the brain

• The neocortex region is involved in reasoning, abstract thought, and memory 

What makes our human behaviour/scoialization special?

Humans have a great flexibility to adapt to different circumstances/contexts and environment

• This likely led to massive differences between human cultures 

What is an Independent Culture: Europe and the Americas

Cultures in which people tend to think of themselves as distinct, individual entities 

• Social bonds and membership  are voluntary, but we view ourselves as separate holistically 

What is a Collectivist Culture: Asia, Middle East, Latin Ameria

Cultures in which people tend to define themselves as a part of a collective group

Two important cultural factors in determining independent social orientations: 

How income is earned : cultures based in economic cooperation and interdependence.

• If people make money through economic cooperation and interdependence, they have to rely on other people to survive and succeed.

Kin associations: cultures organized along lines of families, clans, tribes interdependence.

• In cultures where extended families/clans/tribes are very important, people may be expected to help and depend on their relatives.(interdependent)

“Tight” Socities:

Societies where there tends to be strict rules governing behaviour, and conformity to those rules is demanded

“Loose” Socities:

Societies where there are less rules that are less strictly enforced. 

What is hindsight bias?:

People’s tendency after learning about an outcome to be overconfident about whether they could have predicted it

(ex. When we hear a new fact, it’s easy to think of many reasons why it might be true, making us feel like we could have predicted that fact when we often wouldn’t have)

What are thought experiments?:

Thinking about and creating an idea as to how an experiment could be conducted (used when an experiment is too pricey or not ethical to actually do)

What is a theory?:

Well supported explanation of how or why something happens

What is a hypothesis?:

A prediction about what will happen under particular circumstances 

Types of Social Psychology research~ Observational Research:

When social psychologists observe situations, take notes, and interview participants

• Conclusions should be made with caution and should be combined with experimental methods

Types of Social Psychology research~ Archival Research:

Analysis of social behaviours documented in the past. Ex,newspapers 

• This can be used to test theories about social behaviour 

Types of Social Psychology research~ Survey Research:

Asking participants questions via interview or questionnaire (usually online) 

• The number and type of people surveyed is very important

• Survey results can be limited if the sample is bias

How to ensure unbiased sampling?

By using random sampling: When every person has an equal chance of being studied 

Types of Social Psychology research~ Correlational Research:

Correlational research examines the association/relationship between two or more variables without randomly assigning participants to different conditions. It tells us whether variables are related and how strongly, but NOT whether one variable causes the other. (Correlation does NOT establish causation )

Correlational research can tell us how strongly two variables are associated.

• 0 = no association → variables are unrelated

• Closer to 1 = stronger association

• 1 = perfect association/covariation

Why can’t correlation establish causation?

• Reverse causation: We cannot tell which variable causes the other.

  • Example: Anxiety ↔ poor sleep

  • Does anxiety cause poor sleep, or does poor sleep cause anxiety?

• Third variable: A separate variable may cause changes in both variables.

  • Example: Stress → anxiety AND poor sleep

  • Stress is the third variable influencing both.

• Self-selection: Participants determine their own level/category on a variable rather than being randomly assigned.

  • Example: Researchers compare people who already have anxiety with people who don't. The researchers did not assign participants to “have anxiety” or “not have anxiety.”

Correlational Research Advantages:

It can aid in developing causal hypotheses about some aspect of the world (our best option when resources or ethical limits won't let us do the experiment)

Types of Social Psychology research~ Experimental Research:

Experimental research is research where researchers randomly assign participants to different conditions and manipulate a variable to determine whether it causes a change in behaviour.

Theyr important because because random assignment helps researchers make stronger conclusions about causation—specifically, whether one variable causes a change in another.

In Experimental research, what does the indepedent variable do?

The Independent variable is manipulated and hypothesized to be the cause of a particular outcome 

In Experimental research, what does the depedent variable do?

Variable that is measured and not manipulated. It is affected by changes in the IV

Types of Social Psychology research~ Natural Experiment:

Naturally occurring events with variable conditions

What is “The social me”?:

The parts of self-knowledge that come from social relationships 

• Our sense of who we are is forged largely by our social interactions

What is Introspection?:

“Know Thyself” - The process of looking inward to examine your own conscious thoughts, feelings, sensations, and mental states

• People often go past basic introspective to construct complex stories about themselves 

Is Self-Knowledge Accurate?:

Introspection can be accurate self-knowledge BUT for some aspects of the self, other people are often more accurate perceived/judgers about who you are 

• This is because we often lack insight 

Our lack of self-insight can be self-protective, what does this mean?

There are things many of us would rather not know about ourselves 

• Most of the time we draw inaccurate conclusions about ourselves because we don't have access to certain mental processes

What are “Self-schemas”?

 Cognitive structures about ourselves

• Formed via our past experiences

• Vary by situations

• They are the basic units of organization of self-knowledge

Origins of Self-Knowledge: A social psychologist would say:

A social psychologist would say: The origins of self-knowledge depends on varying ways in which the social situation shapes the nature of the self 

Other Socialization Agents that affect our outlook on ourselves: (looking-glass self)

The “self” is also captured by the notion that we come to know ourselves by imagining what others think of us

• This is known as “Looking-glass self” to refer to the idea that other people's reactions to us serve as a mirror of sorts 

• This shows that self knowledge is derived in part from “reflected self-appraisals”: belief about what others think of us

  • We internalize how we think others perceive us, not how they actually do 

Our self holds “distinctiveness”:

Aspects of the self that make us feel unique in a given context are privatized 

How does evolution take part in the differences in Gender and the Social Self:

An Independent self view= Historically advantage in males (Hunting)

An Interdependent self views= Historically advantage in females (Caregiving)

What is “social comparison”?:

The idea that we compare ourselves to other people in order to obtain an accurate assessment of our own opinions, abilities, and internal states

Two types of social comparison~ Downward social comparisons:

(Looking down on someone else) This boosts self-esteem by making us feel better about the self

Two types of social comparison~ Upward social comparison:

Motivating yourself to self-improvement by making us feel worse about the self 

What is Self-Esteem?:

The overall positive or negative evaluations that we have of ourselves 

Trait self-esteem:

A person’s enduring level of self-regard across time. Studies indicate that trait self-esteem is fairly stable.

State self-esteem:

The dynamic, changeable self-evaluations a person experiences as momentary feelings about the self 

What is Contingencies (dependent on) of Self-Worth:

The idea that self-esteem is dependent on successes and failures in domains on which a person has based his or her self-worth 

Sociometer hypothesis:

Self-esteem is an internal marker of the extent to which a person is included or looked on favorably by others

What reports of self-esteem do collectivistic vs individual cultures report?

-Members of collectivistic cultures report lower levels of self-esteem as feeling good about the self as an individual is valued more in Western cultures than Eastern cultures.

-Contact with other cultures can influence our views of ourself 

• Ex. Asians with greater contact with Western cultures report higher levels of self-esteem

What is Self-enhancement:

The desire to maintain, increase, or protect one’s positive self-views 

Self-affirmation theory:

People can maintain overall sense of self-worth following psychologically threatening information by affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat 

• Ex. After failing a test, you can feel good about yourself by looking at your other grades 

Self-Verification Theory:

The theory that we strive for stable beliefs about ourselves because we have a need for coherence 

• We selectively recall information that is consistent with our self views (and therefore verifies it)

Self-Discrepancy Theory~ Multiple Types of Self-

1. Actual Self: the self that people believe they are

2. Ideal Self: the self that embodies an individual’s wishes and aspirations

3. Ought Self: the self that is concerned with the duties, obligations, and external demands an individual feels compelled to honor

For the Self-Discrepancy Theory, which self is our behaviour motivated for reflecting?

Our behaviour is motivated by standards reflecting the ideal self. Falling short of these behaviours lead to negative related emotions for actual-ought discrepancies 

Self-Discrepancy Theory~ Promotion focus:

Self-regulation of behavior with respect to standards of the ideal self standards; a focus on attaining positive outcomes and approach-related behaviors

Self-Discrepancy Theory~ Prevention focus:

Self-regulation of behavior with respect to ought self standards; a focus on avoiding negative outcomes and avoidance-related behaviors

Implementation Intentions:

-f-then plans to engage in goal directed behaviours 

• Ex. Goal: Don’t smoke. If someone offers me a cig, then I will say no

What is Self-Presentation?:

Presenting the person that we would like others to believe we are

What is “face”?

The public image of ourself that we want others to believe

What is “Self-Monitoring:” in a situation?:

The tendency to monitor one’s behavior to fit the current situation

• High self-monitors fit their behavior to the situation 

• Low self-monitors behave according to their internal preferences

What is “Self-Handicapping”?:

A psychological strategy where people create obstacles or excuses for themselves so that if they fail, they can blame external factors instead of their own ability

What are some things a social judgement researcher may investigate?:

-How we make decisions

-How we interpret past events

-How we understand current events 

-How we make predictions for future events 

• The Social Judgements (outcomes of above) will influence how we behave 

Are social judgements accurate?

Social judgements are often inaccurate as we can make errors and are susceptible to many biases 

• Mistakes here can produce consequences that may be either harmless or very consequential 

What are Snap judgements?:

Judgements we make with very little information 

Dimensions of Snap Judgements:

We perceive trust and dominance based on our initial thoughts of someone’s face 

-Certain facial features have different amounts of trust and dominance which they give off 

What is the evolutionary benefit of snap judgements?

it was for survival: if we could trust someone or should immediately obey them for our safety 

How do they test snap judgemnets and how accurate are they?:

They test snap judgements by taking a part multiple parts of the face and seeing how people rate them by trust/dominance 

-They found that snap judgements made 10 seconds after meeting someone were very similar to their judgements of the person after knowing them for a good while 

(though consistency does not always = accuracy)

The Processes of Causal Attribution:

The event of deciding why an event occurred or why someone behaved a certain way

• We often try to figure out if other’s behaviours are caused by their traits/dispositions or by situational factors

What is the Covariation principle:

The idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the behaviour

Types of Covariation- Consensus:

What most people would do in a situation

“Do OTHER people behave this way in the same situation?”

• High consensus → Yes, lots of other people do it.

• Low consensus → No, mostly this person does it.

Types of Covariation- Distinctiveness:

What an individual does in different situations:

Is their behaviour unique to this situation?

Does this person behave this way ONLY in this particular situation?”

• High distinctiveness → They behave this way only in this situation.

• Low distinctiveness → They behave this way in many different situations.

Is it because of a situational attribution? then we’d have

High consensus + High distinctiveness → Situation

ex. Sarah gets extremely nervous during a particular professor's lectures.

• High consensus: Other students also get nervous during this professor's lectures.

• High distinctiveness: Sarah normally isn't nervous in other classes.

Is it because of a dispisitonal attribution? then we’d have

Low consensus + Low distinctiveness → Person

ex. Sarah gets extremely nervous during this professor's lecture.

• Low consensus: Other students aren't nervous.

• Low distinctiveness: Sarah gets nervous in lots of different situation

What is the Discounting principle?:

People should assign reduced “weight” to a particular cause of behaviour if there are lots of other plausible causes 

Causal attributions VS Counterfactual thoughts:

Causal attribution: You can compare the actual outcome with a counterfactual alternative to help determine the cause

Counterfactual thoughts: You imagine what could have happened differently.

What is Emotional Amplification?:

The easier it is to imagine that an event could have turned out differently, the stronger our emotional reaction tends to be.

What is the The Self-serving Attributional Bias:

Our tendency to attribute bad events to external circumstances + good events to ourselves 

Why are we prone to the fundamental attribution error?:

when we're watching another person, the person is right in front of us, so they stand out. The situation/background is often less noticeable. So we focus more on their dispositional attributions

There is a difference in attribution based on who is making the causal attributions :

ACTOR = person doing the behaviour

• Actors are more likely to make situational attributions.

OBSERVER = person watching the behaviour

• Observers are more likely to make dispositional attributions.

Causal attribution also depends on culture (interdependent vs indepdenet)

In a independent culture, they are more inclined to attribute behaviour to dispositions and internal causes (What is this person like?)

In collectivistic culture, they are more inclined to attribute behaviour to the situation (What was happening around this person?)