chapter 1: introduction Flashcards
what is the definition of social psychology
-What is social psychology, and how is it different from other disciplines?
definition: It is the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (i.e., the study of social influence).
-Another important aspect of the field is attitudes, we will look at how these things influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
social psychology vs. philosophy
Address many of the same questions
-Or same topics
Social psychology explores them scientifically (empirically)
-Difference in how we approach these topics, empirically means based on research or observable evidence
Philosophy uses reasoning
-Example of philosophy:
-Does life have meaning?
Example of social psychology:
-What effect does believing that life has meaning have on your health?
empirical vs. non-empirical questions
-Social psychology is concerned with “empirical” questions
-Empiricism: knowledge should be based on objective evidence
-It’s ok to have thoughts and ideas about non-empirical things, but that’s not psychology
why not learn about the world through common sense
common sense is often contradictory
explain a common sense being contradictory example
Birds of a feather flock together
-Empirical evidence shows that this statement is more true than opposites attract, human beings tend to pair off with people who are more similar to them
Opposites attract
-Research found that opposites work well together is when one person is very frugal and the other member is someone that spends a lot more money, this makes the relationship work because the couple ends up being financially responsible
-But other than that, people tend to flock towards those who are similar
how do social psychologists predict behavior
Social psychologists predict behavior by forming hypotheses and testing them empirically
-Give people online dating information about potential relationship partners
-See if they are more attracted to similar partners
where did social psychology come from
behaviorism
how did social psychology come from behaviorism and the problems with behaviorism
-Studied observable stimuli’s effect on behavior (what this field of psychology studies)
Chooses not to deal with cognition, thinking, and feeling (Skinner stated these things exist but do not have causal influence on the world around us and are too vague to study)
-Thinks these concepts are too vague
Behaviorism ignores construals of the situation (the way that people understand the situation they are in which is important for behavior), view of human nature is complete
-Inadequate for understanding the social world!
-Did not really get anything wrong, just an incomplete view
what is gestalt psychology
A school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds (the gestalt or “whole”) rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object
-How the whole is more than the sum of its parts
-When you apply this to social situations, this is what social psychology really is
-Emphasis on construal, the way people interpret the social situation, has its roots in Gestalt psychology
explain the founding of Gestalt psychology
Gestalt Psychology was founded in Germany
-early 20th century
-Late 1930s, several of these psychologists emigrated to the U.S. to escape Nazi regime
-The reason we do not have Gestalt psychology today because it was founded in Germany in the early 20th century, many of the psychologists were Jewish, when the holocaust came many of them were killed, in concentration camps, or fled
explain Kurt Lewin
Among the émigrés was Kurt Lewin
-Founding father of modern experimental social psychology
-Applied Gestalt principles to social perception
-Stressed the importance of taking perspective of the people in any social situation to see how they construe social environment
-Importance of how people understand the social environment they are in
sociology vs. social psychology vs. personality psychology
Sociology: the study of groups, organizations, and societies rather than individuals
-Instead of focusing on people in general you are focusing on societies and organizations
-The study of groups is also included in social psychology
Social Psychology: the study of the psychological processes people have in common that make them susceptible to social influence
Personality Psychology: the study of the characteristics that make individuals unique and different from one another
explain fundamental attribution error
-When we do something we blame it on the environment, when someone else does something we assume it is in internal trait
explain how situation can impact how you act and example
The situation that you are in is very influential over you and more important than you realize, it is easy to think that we are individuals who do what we want, but this is at odds with what we know about human nature
Study: took RAs, identified people who were cooperative or competitive in nature (had the tenants on the floor identify who was cooperative or competitive), took all the people into a laboratory and had them play a game, game could be played in two ways (either win the most tokens for yourself and screw the people you were playing with over, or help out the people you are playing with), the one difference was the name of the game “The Community Game” or “The Wall Street Game”
-Results: the percentage of people who chose a cooperative strategy was the same in both Community Game and The Wall Street Game, people were more likely to cooperate in the community game and less likely to cooperate in the wall street game independent of their personality type
explain naive realism
The conviction that we see things accurately
-We have this idea that “I am seeing the world correctly and everyone else is extremely wrong”, people who think opposite things also have this idea in their head
example of naive realism with Israelis and Palestinians
-Israeli peace proposals labeled as Palestinian proposals
-Palestinian peace proposals labeled as Israeli proposals
-Israel and Palestine often fight with one another
Psychologist ran a study: he believed that the terms of these contracts are not necessarily unfair, it seemed that people did like the terms because of the people who were offering them
-Did a study where he took people from Israel and took terms for peace that were being offered by the Israelis and labeled them as Palestinians and then labeled the Palestinian plan the Israeli plan
-People had to choose which one they found the most acceptable, people chose the Palestinian plan just because it was labeled Iranian; showed that people cared more about who was offering the terms rather than the terms themselves
explain online echo chambers
-There are people out there that have really crazy views
-But when people are seeking out the beliefs that align with theirs
-It is very easy to find people that share your beliefs even if they are incredibly bizarre
-When you get feedback from other people and you discuss with people who view things the same way, your belief sounds more reasonable and it gets stronger, things become more polarized
what are the major themes in social psychology that drive behavior
self-esteem, desire for accuracy, and desire for socialization
explain the theme of self esteem and the hazing example
Self-Esteem: we want to feel good about ourselves
-Why do we put up with hazing from fraternities?
-One reason that has been proposed is that from the perspective of a group, hazing people to give them access to a group is actually healthy (not that it is good for individuals, but for the groups) because people who went through a lot to get into a group are more likely to stay (because they had to do a lot to get into it and saying and feeling like you are an idiot for putting up with the stuff you did just to get into the group is not a good feeling, try to avoid this feeling) think about the situation in a way that protects their self-esteem
explain cognitive dissonance and how it relates to self esteem
-Cognitive dissonance: dissonance is the unpleasant state of arousal you feel so to avoid the unpleasant state, you cannot change the fact you went through the hazing process, but you can control how you feel about the group and the people in the group
-Protects self-esteem and makes us feel good about ourselves.
explain the desire of accuracy
Desire for accuracy: we want to feel correct, but we’re often not
-Why are we afraid of shark attacks?
-These things are easy to think about because they are so captivating so this is likely where our fear of them comes from
-Ties into naïve realism
-We try to convince ourselves that we are accurate even though we are not
explain socialization and how it presents in the brain
Desire for socialization: we want to have friends
-Social rejection and physical pain look similar in brain scans
-Why prisoners get messed up for being in solitary confinement, human brain is wired for socialization
research about socialization
Research that has been done where people create a laboratory situation where people think they experience social rejection
Ball Toss Paradigm/Cyberball: going into an experiment, people pick up a ball and include you in the catch in the beginning, and then the two confederates in the study stop including you in the ball tossing game (Cyberball is the same thing but virtually, so you can have someone in an fMRI tube while they are doing this)
-The part of your brain that lights up is the same part of the brain that lights up when you experience physical pain
-Tells us how important socialization is and how painful rejection is
