Intro to Social Psyc

Question 1

When did the study of social psych really take off, and where can it also be traced to?

Answer 1

WW2, but can be traced back to ancient Greece

Question 2

What did Aristotle say about the nature of humans?

Answer 2

We by nature, are social animals. We need to be around people.

Question 3

What are some of the main survival aspects to being around other people?

Answer 3

Passing on our genes, survival of our kind.

Question 4

What kinds of brain responses do we see in people who have been isolated from others?

Answer 4

Similar responses to physical pain.

Question 5

What is social psychology?

Answer 5

Scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by those around us. How individuals think, feel, and behave, also studies social context (methods for studying other cultures)

Question 6

What kind of data is collected in social psychology?

Answer 6

Lots of observational and correlational data.

Question 7

What is the heart of social psych and what is the big question it asks?

Answer 7

Science. Why do people influence each other?

Question 8

What are some of the ways we can scientifically study social psychology?

Answer 8

Basic and applied research, correlation research (for things that can’t be studied experimentally), experiments where possible, ethics

Question 9

What is the difference between social psych and sociology?

Answer 9

Social Psych- Experimental studies-focus is on the psychology of the individual (study of individuals in a group).
Sociology- not as experimental, study of groups of individuals-emphasis on the social nature of individuals .

Question 10

Do other people need to be present when we conduct experiments in social psych?

Answer 10

No. Even if the people are implied, digitized, or imagined, the presence of them can still have important effects on an individual.

Question 11

What are some examples of social psych questions?

Answer 11

Where do stereotypes come from, and why are they so resistant to change? Why do we often like what we suffer for? How do salespeople trick us? When is a bystander more/less likely to help?

Question 12

What are some examples of applied social psych questions?

Answer 12

How does social psych help us understand law, business or health?

Question 13

Is social psychology just common sense?

Answer 13

NO. Plenty of examples are not as they appear.

Question 14

What are some examples of how social psychology is not always as it appears?

Answer 14

When upset, how does physical activity affect subsequent aggression levels?-Makes us more stressed in the long term.
Birds of a feather, or opposites attract? (No to opposites)

Question 15

What is the difference between anthropology and social psych?

Answer 15

Anthropology focuses on culture rather than the individual and uses more participant observation. BOTH are interested in evolutionary explanations, but for social psych, this came later.

Question 16

What is personality psych and how does it interact with social psych?

Answer 16

Studies how traits or dispositions affect human behaviour (ex: what kinds of social situations do introverts frequent?)

Question 17

What is developmental psych and how does it interact with social psych?

Answer 17

Examines human growth and change over lifespan (ex: how do relationships and social skills develop in life?

Question 18

What is cognitive psych and how does it interact with social psych?

Answer 18

Study mental processes overall. Social psych looks at mental processes with respect to social information

Question 19

What is social cognition?

Answer 19

Examines perception, memory, language, reasoning, and other cognitive processes in social context.

Question 20

What is clinical psych and how does it interact with social psych?

Answer 20

Seeks to treat people with psychological difficulties or disorders. (ex: how do anxious people act in social situations?)

Question 21

Who were some of the people who created the first social psych textbooks and established it as a field?

Answer 21

McDougall (1908), Ross( (1908), and F. Allport (1924)

Question 22

Who is Norman Triplett and what did he study?

Answer 22

Father of social psych. Looked at social facilitation-cycling alone versus cycling with a group. Found that people perform better in groups and competition enhances performance.

Question 23

Who was one of the people who had the most dramatic impact on social psych?

Answer 23

Adolf Hitler

Question 24

Why did Hitler’s reign have the most dramatic impact on social psych?

Answer 24

• Research needed to help promote morale for, and responses to war
• Many social psychologists fled to North America
• Questions arose about what causes violence, prejudice, conformity, and obedience.

Question 25

Who was Adolf Eichmann and what was his rationale for his behaviour?

Answer 25

Nazi who was sentenced to death, slaughtered around 6 million jews. Escaped Nuremburg by fleeing to South America. Rational was that he got swept up into the Nazi party, and the only thing he was guilty of was obedience.

Question 26

What was Sherif’s social psych experiment?

Answer 26

The Robbers Cave Experiment (looking at ingroup versus outgroup bias). Got children to hate each other, and then like each other again in a very short amount of time.

Question 27

What did Kurt Lewin contribute to social psych?

Answer 27

Applied social psych-looked at the interaction between person and environment. Also looked at advertisements and war, and developed the interactionist perspective.

Question 28

What did Milgram’s experiment cause people to begin to question?

Answer 28

Ethics. Prior to Milgram, ethics wasn’t a huge thing and was left up to the experimenter.

Question 29

What happened to psychology in the 60s and 70s?

Answer 29

Expansion and enthusiasm, heated debate and crisis. Strong reactionas against laboratory experiment as the dominant research method.

Question 30

What is Pluralism? (70s-2000s)

Answer 30

Crisis-Is psychology ethical? Stronger discipline. Acceptance of many different methods of investigation. Integration of emotional aspects of studies and logic perspectives. Development of international and multicultural perspectives.

Question 31

How has modern social psych changed?

Answer 31

The internet has changed things-making things more and more complex. Integration of emotion, motivation, cognition (social cognition). Biological and evolutionary perspectives (social neuroscience).

Question 32

What are the sociocultural perspectives?

Answer 32

Helps us to understand social behaviour in individualist versus collectivist cultures.

Question 33

How can social psych give insights into health maintenance and illness prevention?

Answer 33

Example: the best way to reduce stress is through social support! (men die earlier because they don’t develop close relationships)

Question 34

What are some of the brain imaging techniques?

Answer 34

PET, ERP, TMS, fMRI

Question 35

What does Albert Bandura think about the internet?

Answer 35

That we’ll have to reevaluate everything we know because of the internet.

Question 36

What is Mturk?

Answer 36

Computerized questionnaires that make it faster to collect data and also easier to collect data from other samples. (difficult to obtain good sample, as people become “survey experts).

Question 37

What did Carl Falk’s study on desirable versus undesirable traits reveal about Canadian versus Japanese cultures?

Answer 37

Canadians-far more likely to choose desirable traits about themselves
Japanese-far more balanced between desirable and undesirable.