Chapter 1: Introduction Flashcards
Social Psychology
The scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations
Who is Kurt Lewin?
Generally considered the founder of Modern Social Psychology. He emphasized the importance of situational factors external to the individual. (importance of situation)
The Milgram Experiment in relation to the power of situation
The participants believed that the study was about the effects of punishment on learning, “randomly” assigned roles of either the teacher and learner. Yet, the drawing was rigged so that the confederate would always be the learner. The participant was instructed to administer shock each time the learner made an error, ascending 15 volts. Most participants became concerned as they administered increasingly shocks and turned to the experimenter to ask what should be done, and he would say to continue with the experiment.
Results: 80% percent of participants continued past the 150 volt level.
Implication: This has to do with the power of situation due to it being experiment and the participants being aware they were being part of a scientific investigation with the experimenter explicitly taking responsibility for what happened.
John Darley and Daniel Batson Study (1973)
Main idea: about the power of the situation
Procedures: Princeton students first discussed their religious orientation, reporting on whether they viewed religion primarily as a means towards personal salvation or as a source of moral and spiritual values. The participants then had to deliver a short sermon, with some being told that they had plenty of time to arrive at the location while others were told they were already late and should hurry. On the way, each participant passed a man with apparent need of help.
Findings: It turned out that the nature of seminary students’ religious orientations was of no use in predicting whether they would offer. The powerful predictor was whether they were in a hurry or not (power of the situation).
Dispositions
internal factors, such as beliefs, values, personality traits, and abilities, that guide a person’s behavior
Fundamental attribution error
The failure to recognize the importance of situational influence on behavior, along with the corresponding tendency to overemphasize the importance of dispositions on behavior.
Channel factors
circumstances that guide behavior in a particular direction by making it easier to follow one path rather than another
Ex. Instead of checking a box if you want to take part in retirement planning, employees had to check a box if they don’t want to take part in retirement planning thus more employees take part in retirement planning.
Gestalt psychology
Based on the German word, gestalt, meaning, “form” or “figure”, an approach that stresses the fact that people’s perception of objects involves active, usually nonconscious interpretation of what the object represents as a whole.
Construal
one’s interpretations of or inference about the stimuli or situations that one confronts
Schema
A knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of stored information that is used to help in understanding events
consist of generalized knowledge about the physical and social world
What is automatic processing?
One of the ways our minds process information, nonconsciously
Gives rise to implicit attitudes and beliefs that can’t be readily controlled by the conscious mind
Much faster
Stereotyps
A belief that certain attributes are characteristic of members of a particular group.
What is controlled processing?
One of the ways our minds process information is conscious, systematic, and more likely to be controlled by deliberative thought
Results in explicit attitudes and beliefs that we’re aware of
Generally slo
Nisbet & Wilson 1977
Stockings Study
Aim: awareness, nonconscious processing
Procedures: Customers in a mall had to evaluate four pairs of stockings in a row on a table.
Findings: Customers were four times as likely to give the highest rating to the last pair of stockings they examined as to give it to the first pair of stockings.
John Bargh and Paula Pietromonaco (1982)
Flashing Words Study
Aim: nonconscious processing
Procedures: Participants were flashed words on a computer screen for one-tenth of a second (short couldn’t really distinguish the word). Some were exposed to words with a hostile meaning, and some to neutral words. The participants then read about a man named Donald, whose behavior was ambiguous.
Findings: Participants exposed to the hostility-related words rated Donald as being more hostile than did participants exposed to neutral words.
Implications: showing how our judgments and behaviors can be shaped by influences that people are unaware of.
Natural selection
Individuals with certain traits will be better able than others to survive, reproduce, and raise their offspring to the age of viability,
What is the theory of mind?
The ability to recognize that other people have beliefs and desires and that understanding others’ beliefs and desires allows us to understand and predict their behavior.
This could have been prepared by evolution.
Naturalistic fallacy
The claim that the way things are is the way they should be
Independent (Individualistic) cultures
A culture in which people tend to think of themselves as distinct social entities, tied to each other by voluntary bonds of affection and organizational memberships but essentially separate from other people and having attributes that exist in the absence of any connection to others
Some characteristics:
Insistence on ability to act on one’s own
Need for individual distinctiveness
Preference for achieved status based on accomplishments
Conviction that rules governing behavior should apply to everyone
Ex. USA
Interdependent (Collectivistic) cultures
A culture in which people tend to define themselves as part of a collective, inextricably tied to others in their group and placing less importance on individual freedom or personal control over their lives.
Some characteristics:
Preference for collective actions
Desire for harmonious relations within the group
Acceptance of hierarchy and ascribed status based on age, group, membership, and other attributes
Preference for rules that take context and particular relationships into account
Ex. Japan, China
WEIRD
Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic
Societies
