Introduction Flashcards
Levels
Individual, Interpersonal, Group, Intergroup
Social psychology
The scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others
Social processes
our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the people around us, the group we belong to, the teaching of our parents and our culture
Cognitive processes
our memories, perceptions, thoughts and emotions guide our understanding of the world and our actions
William McDougall and Edward Ross
1908: instinct and emotion. No empirical research
Mass psychology
Le Bon (1895), Tarde, Sighele
Early experimental psychology
Triplett, 1897. Empirical
Social psychology as an empirical science
Germany. Ringelmann (1880s), Triplett (1898). First textbooks published 1908.
Shapes the development of social psychology
The rize of nazism. Many psychologists flee to the U.S. Brought other theoretical influences: gestalt psychology, anti-behaviorist, mental processes. Importance of culture and social groups. Study of roots of prejudice and group hatred
Kurt Lewin
“father of modern social psychology”. Refugee from Hitler’s Europe
Theories of cognitive consistency
Congruity (Osgood)
Balance (Heider)
Dissonance (Festinger)
Crisis in social psychology
1960s & 1970s
- social problems in the USa (Vietnam wr, racial conflicts.)
“overproduction” of social psychologists
-experiments and their external validity
- the cognitive approach gains ground + new qualitative methods + applied research
Classical cognitivism
Information processing and the “cognitive miser”
New fields and approaches
- emotion and motivation
- automatic proceses
- social context
- evolutionary psychology
- social neuroscience
New “crisis” in social psychology
Scandals (John Bargh & priming, Amy Cuddy and the “power pose”)
QRP
Replication
Political issues (mostly “lefties)
