Lecture Notes

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

Scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by other people

o Influences even when you are alone

Question 2

Hindsight bias

Answer 2

once you know the ending of something you think you always knew that ending

Question 3

Norman Triplett

Answer 3

did the first social psych experiment. 1890s.

o He was sitting on his porch and he was watching cyclists past his house, and when he noticed they were in a group they went faster than alone.

o He designed and experiment that had children come into his lab and he gave then a reel of fishing line and measured how long it took them to reel it in if they were by themselves or if they were in a group.

o He found that when they were in a group they reeled it in faster.

Question 4

Max Ringelmann 1880s or 1913[ES1]

Answer 4

In no way a psychologist, he was focused on farming or agriculture
o He wanted to find how many people equaled the strength of one ox, he happened on an important social psychology finding
o When multiple people were pulling on a rope they pulled less hard than if they were by themselves

Question 5

Social behavior

Answer 5

how we act in different social situations

Question 5

Social influence

Answer 5

how others affect us and how we affect others

Question 6

WWII

Answer 6

During this time period there was a lot of influence in two different ways. Because what was happening in Europe you had a large number of psychologists fleeing Europe and coming to America, ideas where social psychology read greater than ever before, we will look at some studies of people who left Europe to America then
o We were presented with a negative view of humanity and wanted to understand why
§ Conformity and obedience were popular[ES2] di, the big names in those fields were inspired by world war two

Question 7

Allport 1940s-60s

Answer 7

father of modern social psych
· Brought modern culture in like prejudice and discrimination and how groups interact with each other

Question 8

Social thinking

Answer 8

how we think about ourselves and others

Question 9

Social achievement

Answer 9

How we can get what we want using social situations. Can be internal – feeling like you are better than someone else or getting satisfaction from a social interaction, or external getting some award or status in a social interaction.

Question 9

Person situation interaction

Answer 9

you as a person are changing the situation you are in, but the situation you are in also changes you as a person. You shape the situation and the situation shapes you – it is a bidirectional relationship

Question 10

Sociocultural

Answer 10

much of a person’s thoughts and behaviors are going to be influenced by their larger culture setting
o Edward Ross (1908) – culture

Question 11

Evolutionary perspective:

Answer 11

how our modern social interactions are rooted in the elements that helped our ancestors survive
o McDougal (1908) – natural selection and evolution

Question 12

Social learning experiment

Answer 12

Past experiences with reward and punishment will influence your current social actions. Learning theory and operant conditioning are important to this. Came during the rise of behaviorism

Question 13

Applied Psychology

Answer 13

Social psych falls here
Seeking to solve or improve some problem or issue out in the world
Because it is so affected by environment, a lot of problems in humanity fall into the topic

Question 14

Social cognitive perspective:

Answer 14

The way we understand a situation and past will influence our social behaviors
o Kurt Lewin – he wanted all schools to get along

Question 15

Basic Psychology

Answer 15

Seeking to gain information just to have more information
Can pigeons tell time

Question 16

Scientific Method

Answer 16

Develop a theory
Generate a hypothesis
Test the hypothesis
Analyze the data
Evaluate and potentially…
Revise the theory

Question 17

methods

Answer 17

Observational -
Focus: trying to describe the experience as it happens in the real world
Question Answered: what is going on with what I am seeing

Correlational
Focus: understand the relationship between two variables
Question Answered: helps us understand a relationship between two variables

Experimental
Focus: determine causality
Question Answered: does x change y
Something like culture can never be determined casualty because we can never control it

Question 18

Operational Definition

Answer 18

How you are defining a variable for your study. When looking at something abstract it may be hard to do. How you take an abstract concept like anger and turn it into something that can be scientifically examined. Ie - by the number of curse words someone says in a given time period.

Question 19

Construct Validity

Answer 19

Does your definition actually represent the construct you are trying to define

Question 20

Confederate

Answer 20

Part of the research team, but the participants are not aware they are involved in the research team
An undercover agent
The learner in the milgram study
Use them to have the highest level of control in the study

Question 21

Correlation

Answer 21

A statistic describing the relationship between two variables-1 to +1
CANNOT DETERMINE CAUSE AND EFFECT

Question 22

Positive Correlation

Answer 22

Drink more coffee heart rate goes up

Question 23

Negative Correlation

Answer 23

Drink more coffee sleep goes down

Question 24

No Correlation

Answer 24

Quantity of coffee and shoe size

Question 25

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 25

Often seen in social psychology
Where the researchers are unobtrusively observing a phenomenon
Can include correlational studies and can include field studies
Festinger, Reicken and Schachter (1956)
They infiltrated a group that thought aliens were coming to destroy the earth, but because this group were true believers they would be safe.
They did so to see how these people would react when the earth was not destroyed
Found that the group came up with an excuse, as true believers there belief was so strong that they saved the whole world

Question 26

Issues in naturalistic observation?

Answer 26

It opens itself up to a lot of potential bias from the researchers who code and make assumptions based on that behavior. A lot of experimenter expectancy effects - when the beliefs of the experimenter change the data they collect.

Question 27

Surveys

Question 28

Social Desirability Bias

Answer 28

A major issue when it comes to surveys. People will oftentimes respond in a way they think is socially acceptable rather than how they are truthfully feeling. Like the survey in the beginning of class
Bogus Pipeline - a way to get around the bias. You tell the participants you have a way to determine if they are being truthful or not.

Question 29

Meta-analysis

Answer 29

Take generally published and unpublished studies looking at the same phenomenon and see if there are agreements

Question 29

Ethnography

Answer 29

Seen a lot in the growth of the sociocultural perspective. If we see that there is a lot of impact of culture on social psychology then we want to go to cultures and make observations of that culture. You can then use those observations to make theories about them. Like anthropology, but rather than the end result of the study it is where we start.

Question 30

Archival Analysis

Answer 30

Look at data that has already been collected and examine it from a different perspective

Question 31

Quasi Experiment

Answer 31

Observing when the experimenter has no control over the variables, ie age or gender

Question 32

Within-subjects design

Answer 32

When you put a participant in each of your experimental groups. It provides you with more control, it is a stronger baseline when you are comparing the participant to themselves.

Question 33

Between-subjects design

Answer 33

Most research we find
When comparing experimental groups to each other and each participant is only in one group
Generally you need more people and less time

Question 34

Confounds

Answer 34

Also known as third variables. Things outside your variable that are causing the relationship you are looking at. Ice cream sales and murder, is it because there is some reason they are related, no, rather it is caused by heat. When people are hot they eat more ice cream and when people are hot they murder more.

Question 35

Stimulus Sampling

Answer 35

When I am choosing an example to give to my participants, do I need to choose a bunch of different examples or can I just choose one. If i want to say green has an effect on anger, which shade of green should I choose, what are the effects the different variations of the same stimulant can have.
This matters often with confederates, oftentimes you have different characteristics in your confederates.
One study was looking at attention and background music, they found that one of the confederates did a lot worse because the confederate was very attractive so people focused on the confederate more than the study. The confederate became the confound

Question 36

Cultural Shifts

Answer 36

Culture changes quickly, culture can be very different before and after major events. If you are trying to look at a concept you need to take into account when they were performed.
Concepts can be very different and concepts can stay very similar over time.
After 9/11 a lot of researchers found differences in their participants pre and post 9/11

Question 37

Replication Crisis

Answer 37

In psychology but particularly in social psychology, previous studies are not giving the same results when they are run again.
Stimula may be different
Time is different
People change
When studies don’t replicant we have to ask why
Review potential reasons with ta or prof

Question 38

WEIRD

Answer 38

Most of the participants used in psychological research come from western cultures, are educated, come from industrialized cultures, rich cultures, and from democratic governments.

Question 38

Student Sampling

Answer 38

Historically we have had a lot of student sampling. Undergraduates won’t respond the same as retirees, we may be making assumptions about humanity but only testing undergraduate students

Question 39

Basic Dilemma of Social Psychology

Answer 39

A tradeoff between internal validity and external validity. How much control you have over your study vs how similar your study is to the real world. Generally there is a negative correlation, generally we prioritize external because as we gain control sometimes the concept disappears.

Question 40

Robin Dunbar (1993, 1998)

Answer 40

Examined brain size to determine common behaviors that showed an increase in brain size
Predictor was that they lived in larger groups and had more complex social behaviors
Humans with larger social networks tend to have a larger brain
A lot of what happens cognitively serves a social aspect. What goes on in my head is deeply connected to what happens with regards to my social interactions and aspects.
Memory, we need it to think about how others interact, how we act, what we bring and how we interact socially. It is a complex process to be as social as we are.
It is not a guarantee that nature will make you social. Various elements of your history can influence how your disposition manifests, even if you have some natural or genetic predisposition to be social, i.e. twins.

Question 41

Social Animals

Answer 41

We are social animals and one of the most social animals, but we are not the only social animals
The great apes have a very strong social element, gorillas have a hard time alone. Wolves, dogs, mole rats, sociality is involved in nature

Question 41

Nature vs Nurture

Answer 41

It is simplicit, not one or the other, it is both (see more in notes)

Question 42

Universal Motivations

Answer 42

Approval
Tends to have the strongest influence

Accuracy

Hedonism
We like to experience pleasure, we don’t like to experience pain

Question 43

Culture

Answer 43

Fairly unique to humans
The complexiality is fairly unique, we do see some in whale songs

Evolution supports it
Why do humans have things like music and literature? How do those things support thriving and reproducing? They serve as markers of cognitive intelligence, some of the things we see as being culturally defined were ways that we could show we could be a good mate because we had high cognitive ability.

Social system
Culture boiled down is just an advanced system of sociality that comes with more and stronger rules and more and stronger similarities than if you are looking at other animals

Question 44

how is culture transmitted

Answer 44

Cultural evolution - internal change

cultural diffusion - exchange and assimilation

cultural transmission - cultural learning

Question 44

Elements of culture

Answer 44

Provides meaning

shared information - internal and external. ie y’all in Texas vs eye gaze

social system - helps connect people, helps the lazy brain

shared practices (see notes)

Question 45

the duplex mind

Answer 45

automative system - quick thought processes you don’t have control over

deliberate system - requires more work and takes more energy

Question 45

why does cultural make it hard to exist

Answer 45

Requirements
Culture puts requirements on existing, if you question or violate those rules there is a risk you will be expelled from that culture

Relating
that risk is hard because we want to relate, if we are exiled it can make that relation really difficult.
Immigrants often time seek out people from their home country

Trade Offs
You are often compared to the culture, and need to give up something for the individual for the sake of the culture.
Many compared to one
Generally we care what benefits us, but because how important culture is we value cultural members even to the detriment to ourselve

Outsourcing information
Because we rely on other cultural members for information, that information is often wrong

Question 46

three parts of the self

Answer 46

Self-Knowledge aka
Self-Concept: the information you know about yourself
I.e favorite food or color, or perceived purpose or morals

Interpersonal Self
Public Self: the image of self you present to the world
Likely influenced by the environment you are currently in, the person you show to your parents is likely different from the person you show to your friends
Changes greatly over time

Agent Self
Executive Function: how you determine what is truly you and what elements you need to use in a given situation. How you determine your interpersonal self and your own specific self.
Not a set of behaviors or thoughts, but a direction of resources

Question 47

Social Roles

Answer 47

In most situations we are engaging in a specific role, right now you are engaging in the role of student, there are certain expectations that come with that role. When interacting with your parents you are interacting with the role of child

Question 48

Looking Glass self

Answer 48

Charles Horton Cooley (1902): we understand ourselves based on how others perceive us. People tend to lie to you because they want to be accepted, people compliment you to make you feel good so you like them and perceive them well so you have a good self image.

Vazire (2010): there was a difference between internal and external traits within this theory, they had people fill out a survey about themselves and they had them bring in a closely affiliated other, and they filled out the same survey about the participant. Then they measured different qualities i.e. extroversion. For more internal traits the participant was more accurate ie anxiety, for external traits like openness the other was more accurate than themselves.

Question 49

Festinger (1954): when do we do it and who do we do it to?

Answer 49

there is a difference between
Upward vs Downward
Comparing yourself to someone who is better than you vs worse than you (in a specific trait)
People who win silver are less happy than those who won bronze. Bronze is comparing themselves to everyone who didn’t make it up. Upward comparisons make you feel worse about yourself generally, downward comparisons make you feel better about yourself.

When do we do it?
We are more likely to do it in a subjective area.
Who do we compare ourselves to?
People who are nearby and people who are similar to us. This gives us more information about ourselves. More utility to comparison regarding similarities.

Question 49

Social Comparison

Answer 49

We understand ourselves by comparing ourselves to others.

Question 50

Self-perception

Answer 50

We gain self knowledge by looking at our behaviors.
You think you hate onions and you have a favorite pizza and you later find out it has onions, you then reconceptualize this idea that you hate onions. By looking at your behavior you change your self knowledge.
If you have a close other usually someone you have a long relationship with, you may incorporate their behaviors with their self knowledge. Usually for more positive behaviors.
Your best friend wins an award and you get a sense of pride
Vicarious (Goldstein and Cialdini, 2007)

Question 51

Facial feedback hypothesis (Laird, 194)

Answer 51

You can make people feel emotions if you make them make the facial expression associated with those emotions

Question 52

Power stance

Answer 52

If you force yourself into a powerful body stance you will feel less stressed before stressful situations. Observed in job interviews and first dates mostly. There has been less support for power stance than for facial feedback hypothesis.

Question 53

Independent vs interdependent (not dichotomous it is a scale)

Answer 53

Independent self: Looking at your behaviors and actions when it comes to self knowledge. Seeing a singular person as a self.
Interdependent self: you start to incorporate others, usually closer others, who you affiliate with changes your self image when it comes to the interdependent self
Trafimow et al. (1991) had American college students and Chinese college students look at 20 I am statements and asked the participants to fill out the rest of the statement. Found that the american college students were a lot more likely to write traits, the chinese students were a lot more likely to write group affiliations, ie brother, chess player. Which fits with this idea of independent vs interdependent

Question 54

Self Knowledge

Answer 54

Overall set of beliefs one has about themselves
Moves from physical to psychological
If you ask young people to describe themselves they will more likely describe themselves in physical traits. As you age you are more likely to describe yourself in psychological traits.
Makes sense because the self is something that emerges, it is not something that we are born with
Move from traits to states/situations
When we are talking about our past self we often use traits. A year ago I was super focused, when we talk about our current situation I am bored.
Self-schemas
Shortcuts for how we understand ourselves. Most people have a typical thing they eat for breakfast during the week, if I asked you what you had for breakfdasrt three months ago you probably wouldnt know, but you ca use your self schema to come up with an answer. Ie if you usually eat bananas you can guess banana. Schemas are used for processing and filling in missing information.

Question 55

Appraisal (weakest)

Answer 55

We want to understand how we stack up, how we compare to other people, understand if we are a good person, in order to do that we need to understand elements about ourselves. We seek self knowledge in order to do this comparison

Question 56

Self-enhancement (strongest)

Answer 56

If we want to feel better about ourselves we need to know what we are good at, or we need to know where to put resources into change to become better

Question 57

Consistency (somewhere in the middle)

Answer 57

Verifying what you already believe, we seek self knowledge to support the beliefs we already have. In your current state when you have self knowledge you may want to verify that by gaining more self knowledge

Question 58

Introspection

Answer 58

Examining your own mind and/or mental state

Humans are incredibly bias
However often times what people think they are experiencing can be as informative as to what they are actually experiencing

Can lead you astray
Our brains are constantly busy, rather than being able to talk about all the things happening in our brains, we single in on one or two of the things our brains are doing to make our mental state seem a lot more simplistic than what it actually is.

Question 59

Self-reference

Answer 59

information related to the self seems to be processed more deeply. We put more resources into thinking about the self.

Question 60

Endowment

Answer 60

when we own something that ownership comes with a value to it. We think an object is more valuable because we own it. That is why garage sales are super overpriced sometimes, people overvalue things they own. When we ask people to give estimates for a price to sell, they put higher estimates on a mug that they own than a mug that they don’t own. Because this thing is connected to my self it adds value. Self matters because it adds value to things.

Question 61

Self discrepancy theory (Higgens, 1987)

Answer 61

this is how Higgins thought the self was split up

You have a conception of your current self
You have a conception of how you ought to be - generally from culture and societal expectations
How you want yourself to end up
The more in line these three lists are, the higher your self esteem.

Question 62

Self-esteem

Answer 62

how we evaluate ourselves. gaged by the discrepancy between the actual, ought and expected self

Question 63

Sociometer theory (Leary and Baumeister, 2000)

Answer 63

We use self esteem as a gauge for how much others like us. If we have a really high self esteem we are going to assume if i meet a stranger on the street there is a good chance they will like me. There are probably people you know who have a high level of self esteem even though they suck which makes sense because they love themselves and ignore how others interact with them