SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS ppt

Social Psychology

Definition: The scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others, societal norms, and culture.

Person Perception Concept: Ongoing process of forming impressions about others. Involves piecing together clues about individuals’ characteristics. Many impressions may be inaccurate due to biases and fallacies.

Attribution:

• Definition: The process of explaining behavior.

  • Internal Dispositional: Belief that behavior is due to long-lasting personality traits.

  • External Situational: Belief that behavior is influenced by situational factors.

    • Examples: Passed an exam due to intelligence (internal). Failed an exam due to a bad teacher (external).

• Types of Attribution:

  • Stable vs. Unstable:

    • Dispositional: Factors like intelligence and willpower.

    • Situational: Factors like economics or circumstances.

    • Examples: Saying someone is not a good singer due to talent (dispositional). Attributing failure to external environmental factors (situational).

Explanatory Styles:

• Definition: Tendency to explain life events.

  • Pessimistic Style: Views setbacks as personal, permanent, and pervasive.

    • Example: Believing failures will continue indefinitely.

  • Optimistic Style: Views setbacks as temporary and isolated.

    • Example: Attributing negative outcomes to bad luck.

• Factors:

  • Permanence: Permanent vs. temporary causes.

  • Pervasiveness: Generalization of explanations to other events.

  • Personalization: Internalizing vs. externalizing responsibility.

Fundamental Attribution Error:

• Definition: Tendency to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences when judging others’ behavior.

• Example: Assuming the waitress is careless for serving the wrong meal without considering external circumstances.

Actor-Observer Bias:

• Definition: Tendency to attribute others' actions to their character while attributing our own actions to situational factors.

• Example: Labeling another's mistake as indicative of their intelligence while justifying one's own mistake based on circumstances.

Self-Serving Bias:

• Definition: Tendency to attribute successes to personal factors and failures to external factors.

• Example: Taking credit for winning a race, blaming a bad day for losing.

Locus of Control:

• Internal Locus of Control: Belief that individuals control their own fate.

  • Example: "If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me."

• External Locus of Control: Belief that external forces dictate outcomes.

  • Example: "I didn’t study enough."

Social Influences on Perception:

• Mere Exposure Effect: Increased liking due to repeated exposure to novel stimuli.

  • Example: A person begins to like a song after hearing it multiple times.

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Beliefs affecting one's behavior resulting in confirming the belief.

  • Example: Expecting to fail an exam leads to inadequate preparation.

Social Comparison:

• Definition: Evaluating oneself by comparing with others.

  • Upward Comparison: Comparing oneself to someone perceived as better.

  • Downward Comparison: Comparing oneself to someone perceived as worse.

  • Relative Deprivation: Feeling worse off compared to others.

Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination:

• Prejudice: Attitude toward a person based on perceived group membership.

• Stereotype: Generalized belief about a group of people. May not accurately reflect individual traits.

• Discrimination: Unjust treatment of different categories, often based on race, age, or sex.

Implicit vs. Explicit Attitudes:

• Implicit Attitudes: Automatic, unconscious evaluations formed through experience.

• Explicit Attitudes: Deliberate evaluations that involve conscious reasoning.

In-Group vs. Out-Group:

• In-Group: Group with which an individual identifies, feeling belonging.

• Out-Group: Group with which an individual does not identify.

  • In-Group Bias: Favoring one's group over others.

  • Out-Group Homogeneity: Assuming uniformity among those in the out-group.

Just World Phenomenon:

• Definition: Belief that individuals usually get what they deserve, leading to victim-blaming.

Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism:

• Ethnocentrism: Belief that one's culture is superior to others.

• Cultural Relativism: Understanding that all cultures have value in their own context.

Overcoming Prejudice and Stereotypes:

• Multiculturalism: Emphasizes understanding and respecting cultural differences.

• Robber’s Cave Experiment: Demonstrated how intergroup conflict can be resolved through cooperation on superordinate goals.

  • Example: Groups were divided but worked together when facing common challenges, leading to improved intergroup relations and reduced hostilities.

Cognitive Dissonance:

• Definition: State of tension when attitudes do not match actions. Leads to a change in either beliefs or actions to resolve the dissonance.

• Examples of Resolving Dissonance: Rationalizing decisions to align attitudes with actions.

Obedience and Conformity:

• Obedience: Following orders from an authority figure.

• Conformity: Adjusting behaviors or beliefs based on peer pressure.

• Asch’s Experiment: Investigated how group pressure can influence individuals to conform, demonstrating that people may go against their own perceptions to align with a group, highlighting the power of social influence in decision-making.