Chapter 1 +3 (Intro and Social Perception)

Question 1

Define social psychology

Answer 1

Social psychology is the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals percieve, influence and relate to others

• how does the enviroment influence out thouhghts, emotions and behaviour
• how do our thoughts emotions and behaviour shape our perception of the environment

Question 2

Explain the experiment of the competition machine

Answer 2

Seeing how a presence of an audience influences a skill (weeling in a fishing rod)

• if the subject was dominant in skill then it even faciliates
• if the subject was not, it was the opposite

Question 3

What is the idea of gestalt

Answer 3

the relation between aspects is importnat for the situation

It sought to understand the rules underlying the organization of perception

Question 4

Explain social psychology in the hamburger anaolgy

Answer 4

• the person and the social enviroment are the buns (bread)
• the principles of motivation (people strive mastery, connectedness and value) and processing (people process things with conservatism, accessibility and superficiality/depth) are the ingredients and meat

Question 5

How do we form a first impression on someone

Answer 5

1. on someones physical appearance, behaviour and (virtual) enviroment
2. We form impressions in quickly way

Question 6

Explain the “what is beautiful is good” heuristic

Answer 6

We attribute more positive quailities to attractive people

• attractive students are seen more intelligent,
• attractive men are seen with higher status
• attractive suspects get shorter prison sentences
• -> this largely influences judgement on social and intellecual competence

Question 7

how does holding your phone when taking a selfie influence perception

Answer 7

you look more dominant if you hold it from below

men hold it more on below, women hold it more from top

Question 8

how do face features influence perception

Answer 8

1. masculin –> dominance
2. baby face –> naive
3. saliance –> competence

Question 9

Can we derive personal characteristics from facial characteristics

Answer 9

No, it is very hard
there are some studies that say that it is possible (ceo power in face expression relates to company revenue), but these studies also have

Question 10

What are other explanations for why facial perception is accurate

Answer 10

Self fulfilling prophecy
–> because of the impression people act in the way people, which then influences the liking and interest of the person (basketball)

Question 11

How can lying be detected by percieveing body language

Answer 11

it is very hard to be percieved, many people think that certain things can be seen as an indication for lying, even tho these arent

Question 12

What is the idea about association and accessibility

Answer 12

when a certain schema is activated, people tend to recognize things that are associated with it
They are more accessible if they have recently or frequently been activated
–> storage bin model
This is in a similar working style like priming

Question 13

Explain the correspondance bias

Answer 13

people estimate the attitude of the author of an essay in the way the essay is written, even if it is known that the author had no choice

Question 14

What are social processes

Answer 14

the ways in which input from the people and groups around us affect our thoughts, feelings and actions

Question 15

what are cognitive processes

Answer 15

the ways in which our 
- memories
- perceptions
- thoughts
- emotions
- motives 
influence our understanding of the world and guide our actions

Question 16

What are the two principles which show that social and cognitive processes are very intertwined

Answer 16

1. Social processes affect us even when other people are not present
2. Social processes when others are present depend on what congitive processes we have about them (what we think about them, what our perceptions on them are)

Question 17

How is social psychology different from other sciences like sociology

Answer 17

Social psychology seeks to understand the social behaviour of individuals and its causes, which other studies more or less neglect

Question 18

How did social psychology start

Answer 18

in ancient greece, psychology was considered a part of philosophy (plato: even the wisest individuals might tranform into an irrational mob when in a crowd”
In the late 19th century, social psychology emerged shortly after psychology

Question 19

What were the first studies and questions in social psychology

Answer 19

1. How is behaviour influenced by the presence of others (Tripletts fishing rod said it is faciliated, but ringelmann said the opposite when studying with ropepulling)
2. How do facial expressions and body movements reveal peoples feelings
3. How do people conform to the suggestion of others
4. how does the experimenter influence research with his or her presence
   - -> Overall: How do people influence one another

Question 20

Explain the relation between behaviourism and social psychology

Answer 20

Behaviourists neglected the inner processes of an individual and mostly looked at behaviour
Social psychologist agreed on that the goal is to explain behaviour, but disagreed on the view that inner processes are not important

Question 21

How did Hitler and the second WW influence social psychology

Answer 21

• many scientists fled from europe to america, which influenced their view and the view of america (behaviourists vs Gestalt)
• one of the biggest questions for social psychology emerged: what are the reasons and roots for nazi genocide (and genocide today)

Question 22

In what aspects were social psychologists asked to help the US Government in the war

Answer 22

1. how to convince the population of changing eating habits
2. How to increase morale and performance of troops and military (resistance from propaganda)
3. How to make soldiers brush their teeth regularely)

Question 23

How do the perceptions of motivation behaind behaviour differ between cultures

Answer 23

North american people refer to characteristics of a person for behaviour
East asian people attribute more other peoples social expectations

Question 24

What is evolutionary psychology

Answer 24

It emphasizes that humans as well as other species have evolved processes for solving specific problems from evolution (mating and resourses)

Question 25

What are the 5 areas on the world where social psychology plays the biggest role

Answer 25

1. Health (how do social processes influence health)
2. Education (how to make more effective)
3. Law (how to make more fair)
4. Enviroment (how to be better to earth)
5. Business (how to make more effective and make people buy stuff)

Question 26

What are the two fundamental axioms of social psychology

Answer 26

1. Construction of reality (People construct their own knowledge based on cognitive and social processes)
2. Pervasivness of social influence (Other people influence all of our processes, whether there are physically there or not)

Question 27

What are the three basic motivation principles in social psychology

Answer 27

1. Strive for mastery (Understanding everything to control it in our favour)
2. Seeking connectedness (Everybody wants to create and keep feelings of mutual support, liking and acceptance from those they care about and value (even if it hurts others))
3. People value “me and mine” (the desire to see themselves and others one cares about in a positive way (compared to others))

Question 28

What are the three processing principles in social psychology

Answer 28

1. Conservatism (it is not easy and takes long to change the view on a topic (people like to keep their current one))
2. Accessability (the information that is most easiliy and fast available has the most impact on our thoughts, feelings and behaviour)
3. Superficiality vs Depth (people like to put little efford into processing information, but sometimes they are motivated to consider it in more depth (when it is important or threatening))