L1 - What is Social Psychology? Flashcards
Describe a study that shows humans are social creatures
- Larson et al paged teens/adults at random points in the day
- Ppts wrote whether they were alone or with others
- Results show that the majority of time is spent with others which means social life is important
How are humans social animals?
- Come from primates
- Social behaviour necessary for structure and society
Define Social Psychology by S&M
The scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others.
What is scientific investigation?
- Hypothesis
- Data generation to support/falsify hypothesis
What are the two things in scientific method?
- Theory: A set of propositions to describe certain phenomena
- Experimental research: Random assignment of people into groups, followed by systematic manipulation and measurement of constructs
What predicts liking?
- Interaction: finding similarities during interaction, liking those with whom we interact with
- Similarity: Validation, interaction to those similar
- Liking: normative influence: seeking interaction
Define Social Psychology through Allport
Scientific investigation of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.
What are the three levels of analysis?
- Thoughts
- Feelings: depends on if we embrace them
- Behaviours: tendency to act
What does attitude do/require?
- Requires a concept
- Must be done to LTM episodic memory to activate them as thoughts
- Makes you more prone to acting
- Concepts are attached to feelings, motivating you to act upon them, changing behaviour
- Must influence behaviour to be investigated
Study to describe Social Processes & imagines pressure
- University donation box in cafe
- Some weeks had a flowery band across it others had a pair of eyes across it (like someone is watching)
- People donated more on weeks with the eye band
What are the fundamental principles of social psychology?
- People construct their own reality as perception is shaped by cognitive processes and social processes
- Social Influence pervades all social life, others influence us without being present
What did Triplett do to see social psych as an empirical science?
- Cyclists race faster when competing than alone
- Children turned fishing reels faster when competing than alone
What is social facilitation/inhibition
F:
- Tendency to perform better in presence of others than when alone
- Occurs when task is simple/well learned
I:
- Tendency to perform worse in presence of others than when alone
- Occurs when task is complex/not well learned
What is the role of arousal in social faciliation/inhibition?
- There is a dominant response to an activity
- Presence of others increases our arousal, when the task is easy.
- The adrenaline is better and the activity will go smoother.
- If activity is not well learned there is no dom rep., leading to self consciousness
- After arousal, the rest is physiological processes
What did the Milgram study find?
- Unexpected results
- Perpetrators of evil act on banal motives
- Normal people can be led to perform destructive acts when exposed to pressure form legitimate authority
