Lecture 1

Question 1

What is social psychology

Answer 1

Attempt to understand & explain
-how thoughts, feelings, behaviours of individuals are influenced

by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings

Question 2

What are the 5 influences on social and personality psychology

Answer 2

Social cognitive
Evolutionary
Cultural
Social neuroscience
Existential

Question 3

What are social cognitive influences

Answer 3

Focus on how people perceive, remember, and interpret events and individuals, including themselves, in their social world

(rose in 1970s) stuff like Pavlov’s dog. External stimuli cause us to act in a certain way. Stereotypes are a simple way to represent a complex group, can be used to justify prejudice

Question 4

What are evolutionary influences

Answer 4

Focus on how humans are a species of animal and that their social behaviour is a consequence of particular evolved adaptions

humans are social animals. Evolutionary reasons for being social groups

Question 5

What are cultural influences

Answer 5

Focuses on the influence of culture on thought, feeling, and behaviour

promotes certain social norms and traditions which then results in different behaviours (cultural influences link to implied presence of other humans beings)

Question 6

What are social neuroscience influences

Answer 6

Focuses on the neural processes that underlie social judgement and behaviour

We don’t talk about it in this module :(

Question 7

What are existential influences

Answer 7

Focuses on the cognitive, affective, and behavioural consequences of basic aspects of the human condition such as the knowledge of mortality, the desire for meaning, and the precarious nature of identity

by being aware that we exist, we begin to think about things like the meaning of life and being forever alone, free will, stuff like that. Existential influences dictate social behaviour to reduce our existential concerns (culture provides life meaning to compensate for existential concerns).

Question 8

What’s an empirical investigative methods used by social psychologists

Answer 8

Experiments

Question 9

What are the two types of experiments social psychologists use (with examples)

Answer 9

Randomised (true experiments): children exposed to violent programme vs. athletics race (Liebert & Baron, 1972)

Quasi-experiments: survey people who had just seen a violent vs. non-violent movie (Black & Bevan, 1992)

Question 10

What are common features of social psychology experiments

Answer 10

Confederates - accomplice who is presumed to be another participant

Cover stories - a false story about purpose of experiment that masks true aims (i.e. deception)

Priming - exposure to one stimulus increases accessibility of related stimuli and behaviours

Question 11

Famous experiments bruh

Answer 11

yeah alright man

Question 12

What’s another empirical investigative method used by social psychologists

Answer 12

Survey research – investigate associations (correlations) between constructs – e.g., does personality predict social media use?

Question 13

What are non-empirical investigative methods used by social psychologists

Answer 13

Qualitative

Archival research

Case studies

Question 14

What is qualitative research

Answer 14

collection of non-numerical data often interviews/focus groups

Examine what people think and why in rich detail

Question 15

What is archival research

Answer 15

examining existing data collected by
others (often historical documents)
▪ Examine specific events (e.g., Bay of Pigs Fiasco)

Question 16

What are case studies

Answer 16

single case (either a person or group) which may employ a range of methods (e.g., surveys/interviews).
▪ Useful for rare/unusual phenomena e.g., cults, disasters