1 - Introducing Social Psychology

Question 1

Social Psychology?

Answer 1

the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others

Question 2

Behaviour?

Answer 2

what people actually do that can be objectively measured

Question 3

Conformity?

Answer 3

group expectations provide norms with powerful effects on an individual’s behaviour

Question 4

Subject Effects?

Answer 4

effects that are not spontaneous, owing to demand characteristics and/or participants wishing to please the experimenter

Question 5

Radical Behaviourist?

Answer 5

one who explains observable behaviour in terms of reinforcement schedules, without recourse to any intervening unobservable (e.g. cognitive) constructs

Question 6

Neo-Behaviourist?

Answer 6

one who attempts to explain observable behaviour in terms of contextual factors and unobservable intervening constructs such as beliefs, feelings and motives

Question 7

Cognitive Theories?

Answer 7

explanations of behaviour in terms of the way people actively interpret and represent their experiences and then plan actions

Question 8

Social Neuroscience?

Answer 8

Exploration of brain activity associated with social cognition and social psychological processes and phenomena

Question 9

Evolutionary Social Psychology?

Answer 9

an extension of evolutionary psychology that views complex social behaviour as adaptive, helping the individual, kin and the species as a whole to survive

Question 10

Evolutionary Psychology?

Answer 10

a theoretical approach that explains ‘useful’ psychological traits, such as memory, perception or language, as adaptations through natural selection

Question 11

Reductionism?

Answer 11

explanation of a phenomenon in terms of the language and concepts of aa lower level of analysis, usually with a loss of explanatory power

Question 12

Levels of Explanation in Social Psych?

Answer 12

1. intrapersonal - people’s representation and organisation of their experience of the social environment
2. interpersonal and situational - interindividual interaction within circumscribed situations
3. positional - interindividual interaction within circumscribed situations
4. ideological - interindividual interaction that considers the role of general social beliefs, and of social relations between groups

Question 13

Positivism?

Answer 13

non-critical acceptance of science as the only way to arrive at true knowledge: science as religion

Question 14

Völkerpsychologie?

Answer 14

early precursor of social psychology, as the study of the collective mind, in Germany in the mid to late 19th century

Question 15

Behaviourism?

Answer 15

an emphasis on explaining observable behaviour in terms of reinforcement schedules