Midterm Flashcards
What is social psychology
The study of individuals (thoughts, feelings, actions) in environments. Often empirical and experimental approach.
Aristotle on social psych
To what extent is beauty “in the eye of the beholder”
1900 - Triplett experiment
Noticed that cyclists were faster in the presence of others. Designed experiment to test this. Showed that context shapes our behaviours without our knowledge (even when trying our hardest).
Allport 1924 on social psych
In particular stressed interactions between individuals and social context and focus on experiments.
1930s-40s: Hitler
Social psych is very North American, because people fled here during WWII, and then started studying why these things happen - humans trying to determine how humans could do such things to other humans.
The goal of any science
To slowly accumulate evidence in support of (or refuting) theories about the world. Impossible to “prove” a theory, the evidence in support of it just becomes overwhelming. The “evidence” is studies that people do testing various parts or predictions of theories.
Replication
For evidence to be considered evidence, it is important that independent labs can run the same experiment, and get similar results, over and over again.
Initial Spark experiment
100 participants were showed erotic and non-erotic photos. They guess behind which door was the erotic stimulus. Actual location of stimulus wasn’t there until AFTER participants made their guess. Work was generally considered well done. but no one believed that psi was a thing. So he followed all the rules, and published what many considered to be rubbish. Must mean that the rules allow rubbish… what else is rubbish?
Ingredients that contribute to less replicable science
- Institutional Pressures: “Publish or perish”
- Flashy and significant effects needed to be published: Publication bias
- Lots of ways to analyze data: Garden of Forking paths, p-hacking, intentional and unintentional.
Solutions for replication crisis
Establishing best (statistical and methodological) practices to avoid p-hacking. Revisiting established effects and support for replicating what we though of as real things. Registered reports. Pre-registration of hypotheses. Open data, open code, methods.
Examples of effects proven to be wrong
Power posing: Posing with expansive posture will activate testosterone and lead to more confident behaviour.
Ego-depletion: self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up.
Stereotype Threat
The concern about confirming a stereotype leads to confirmation of that stereotype.
Replication crisis on science in general
The replication crisis generally illustrates that science is working as it is supposed to. Weaker effects, not real effects, don’t replicate, and get dropped from the literature over time.
Experimenter Bias
The experimenter having an effect on the study.
Ultimate goal of science
To understand why things happen. If we have a good understanding, we can predict the future. We want to know to what extend X causes Y.
Experiments
Key is manipulation. Two conditions are exactly the same, except for one thing. If outcome is different across conditions, we can have some certainty that manipulation caused that difference.
Observation vs experiment
There are tons of stuff we can’t manipulate: age, race, tidal waves/earthquakes. So use observation then.
Random sampling
Want to generalize our results to all humans. To do this we have to randomly sample from all humans. It maximizes odds that the we don’t have a “cohert” effect and that our results generalize.
Weird problem of random sampling
Most research comes from western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic places. Most data comes from psych undergrads and rats. This is because of convenience samples.
Random assignment
We want the only thing different between different conditions to be the experimental manipulation. Humans vary in a lot of ways. So we randomly assign people to a condition, and trust that the random participant characteristics even out/is non-systematic enough that it doesn’t influence results.
Control group.
Important for determining direction of effect, and if the effect is actually different from the baseline.
Single-blind
Participants don’t know what condition they are in. Eg. real drug vs. placebo
Double-blind
Participants and researchers don’t know what condition participants are in.
Questions to ask when evaluating claims
- Based on any data?
- Questionable motives of people doing the research?
- How many participants?
- Who were participants?
Self-Concept
First, knowing there is a self. Knowing this is pretty human. Fairly unique to have this idea of “self”. We tend to focus on things that separate us from others.
Self Schema
Templates or ideas for understanding the self.
Ways we can know ourselves (theoretically)
Introspection, perceptions of our own behaviours, comparing ourselves to other people, autobiographical memories.
Introspection
How well do we know ourselves? Tests of this: explaining why we did things, or predicting our future emotions in response to events (affective forecasting). But, we are pretty bad at both of these things.
Reasons we are bad at introspection
Impact bias: We overestimate strength and duration of responses.
We also underestimate influence of other stuff.
Perceptions of our own behavior
We know internal states are difficult to interpret. “Watching” our behaviours, and inferring internal states/traits. Only works for traits/states you aren’t sure about.
Self-Perception Theory
Individuals come to “know” their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behaviour and/or the circumstances in which this behaviour occurs.
Over justification effect
When receiving extrinsic rewards, can attribute rationale for activity to reward. Critically, this can make people lose interest in activity when reward is removed.
Comparing ourselves to other people
Tend to describe ourselves in ways that distinguish form one another. Other people help us to define ourselves.
Distinctiveness Theory
To avoid informational overload, we tend to selectively notice aspects of the self that make us distinctive in relation to others. This has more informational value.
Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory
Evaluating our abilities, traits and attitudes in relation to others as a way to learn more about the self. We compare especially when we don’t have explicit feedback on how we are doing.
Upward social comparison
Comparing oneself with someone judged to be better than us. We engage in this when our goal is to improve ourselves.
Downward social comparison
Comparing oneself with someone judged to be not as good as us. We engage in this when our goal is to make ourselves feel better.
Lateral social comparison
Comparing oneself with another who is considered to be more or less equal (similar to us). We engage in this when our goal is to be accurate.
Autobiographical memory
Just as we can “observe ourselves” to determine self-concept, we can draw from memory/older experiences. But we don’t remember all events equally or objectively. Recency effect, first/surprising events, positive events.
Trait and state elements to self esteem
For most, it is pretty stable over lifetime - peaks at 50, then declines. But short-term variation following pos/neg feedback. Some evidence that people fluctuate a lot in response to feedback, making them highly responsive to praise and overly sensitive to criticism.
Higher SE associated with
Higher life satisfaction, lower depression and anxiety, higher self-efficacy, more confidence in being liked by others.
Group differences in self-esteem?
No gender differences. In North America, some minority groups score higher on average. North Americans score higher than East Asians. But, when measured in other ways (not self-reported) we find similar results. All humans seem to care about it more or less.
Actual self
A representation of the traits/attributes that you believe you actually possess
Ought self
Traits you feel you should have, would help you meet duties and responsibilities.
Ideal self
Traits you want to have, that would help you meet your hopes, wishes, and dreams.
Self-Discrepancy Theory
More discrepancy between Actual and both others = Low self-esteem. Specifically: actual vs ought = guilt, shame. Actual vs ideal = disappointed, frustrated, sad.
Two options when feeling bad about ourselves.
- Fix what we are feeling bad about. 2. Stop thinking about it.
Above average effect
People see themselves as better than average on most positive dimensions (and things they personally value).
Dunning-Kruger effect
Everyone tends to overestimate their own abilities. But some do it more than others. Participants with lowest scores on logic, humour, and grammar were the ones most likely to overestimate their own abilities.
Favourable Self-Views
Over-emphasize own skills in estimating percentiles. We use a heuristic - replace a tough question with an easier question to answer. In part a self-serving bias, in part self-focused thinking.
Self-Serving Cognitions
Take credit for success and distance from failure. Intrinsic explanations for successes and extrinsic explanations for failures. Protects our self esteem as we can blame other things for failure. Our ways of thinking have a number of biases that allow us to maintain a positive view of self and our future.
Self-Handicapping
Often make excuses for past performance. Sometimes make excuses for future performance. Behaviours that sabotage performance provide an excuse for failure. Protects SE with failure and enhances SE with success. But increases risk of failure.
Basking in reflected glory (BIRG)
We identify with groups/teams/friends/siblings when they experience success, and distance with failure. Its sibling: Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORF)
Downward Social Comparisons
Comparing self to others important. But we aren’t objective in who we compare ourselves to. Often do it downward. Can’t always avoid going downward.
