PSYC 231 Week 1 Lecture Content Flashcards
What is social psychology?
The scientific study of the causes and consequences of peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviours regarding themselves and other people
What are the ABC’s of Social Psychology?
A is for affect (feelings) reflecting on how we feel around others
B is for behaviour (what we do in social interaction)
C is for cognition (thoughts) how do we think, make thoughts
What are the levels of analysis?
Levels of analysis: The levels of generalization (or abstraction) for observing psychology; the scale of your focus, how broad or how narrow are our questions
What are the levels of analysis for social psychology?
Biology- Physiology, genetic
Individual- Perceiving self/others, attitudes and persuasion
Social Interactions- Social influence, aggression, altruism, relationships
Cultural- Group processes, stereotyping and prejudice, conflict and cooperation
What is an emotion?
A brief, specific response, both psychological and physiological, that helps people meet goals, including social goals.
What is the intrapersonal function of emotion?
Refers to the role that emotions play within each of us individually
-Prepare the body for action
-Influence thought
-Motivate future behaviour
What is the interpersonal function of emotion?
Interpersonal: Refer to the role emotions play between individuals within a group.
-Facilitate specific behaviours in perceivers
-Signal the nature of interpersonal relationships
-Provide incentives for desired social behaviour
Which six emotions are present everywhere in the world?
Six emotions are present everywhere around the world: Anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness
-Facial expressions for these emotions are similar around the world, blind and visually impaired people make these same faces
What do evolutionary approaches to emotion state?
-Emotions are biologically based behavioural adaptations meant to promote survival and reproduction
-Physiological responses to emotions (facial expressions, heart rate, breathing, vocalizations, and so on) should be cross-culturally universal.
-Similar patterns throughout emotions and across cultures.
-Adaptation, emotions are here to help the survival of the species. Signal things to ourselves and others. Provide social information that helps people understand how to interact in groups.
What are two types of correlational research?
Observation- follow a group of people/ a single person and take notes on their emotions
Survey- Make a survey and send it to a group of people, have people speak about emotional experiences
Both describe your observations
What are characteristics of correlational research?
-Examines things you can’t manipulate
-Longitudinal research
-Infers: Generalize results beyond the people that were in the experiment
What does experimental research do to infer causation?
-Manipulate and change situations/contexts (variables)
-Infers: Generalize results beyond the people that were in the experiment
What is a correlation?
-Measures if two or more factors are naturally associated/related with one another
-Strength of an association is reflected by a correlation coefficient
What does a positive correlation entail?
Both variables are increasing simultaneously
What does a negative correlation entail?
As one variable increases, the other variable decreases simultaneously
What are two limitations of correlational research?
Direction of causality- correlation does not equal causation. Unsure which variable is directly causing the other variable to occur.
Third variables- Spurious correlation- a third variable is causing the relationship between both variables that was observed. Two variables seem related even though they aren’t.
What does the Cannon-Bard Theory of emotion state?
James-Lange?
Schacters or Two-Factor Theory?
Cannon-Bard believes that emotions occur simultaneously with physiological response.
James-Lange: Body-first, bottom up process. Physiological response first, psychological response next.
Schacters or Two-Factor Theory: Pattern and label based, top-down process. Once an emotion is labelled, your body physiologically responds.
What is the cognitive-appraisal theory?
The idea that our subjective experience of emotions is determined by a two-step process involving a primary appraisal of benefit or harm, and a secondary appraisal providing a more differentiated emotional experience
- Stimulus -> primary appraisal (benefit/harm) -> secondary appraisal (goals/motivations impact) -> emotion
What’s an appraisal?
Judgement, when an individual consciously or non-consciously makes a decision to come to an understanding of what is going on in a situation.
Which Core Appraisal Content leads to certain emotions?
Other-blame -> Anger
Self-blame -> Guilt
Danger/threat -> Fear
Loss/helplessness -> Sadness
Achievement/success -> Joy
Positive encounters -> Love
What does Dual-Process Thinking consist of?
Automatic processes and controlled processes
What are automatic processes?
Automatic processes- Human thoughts or actions that occur quickly, often without the aid of conscious awareness.
What are controlled processes?
Human thoughts or actions that occur more slowly and deliberately, and are motivated by some goal that is often recognized. Consciously aware of completing these actions
What does a secondary appraisal consider?
What are the basic psychological needs for thriving?
Takes into account our needs, goals, and motivations
Needs:
-Relatedness/belonging
-Competence
-Autonomy
What are goals?
What are the two fundamental psychological motives that guide our behaviour?
Outcomes we strive for in order to meet our needs and desires.
Approach (growth) and avoidance (security)
What is a theory?
An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events. Never 100% certain, not enough information to be 100% proven true or false.
What qualities does a good theory have?
-Organizes and explains observations
-Generative- sparks new hypotheses, new research, practical applications to the world
-Is falsifiable- can be proven wrong
What are experiments? What is the IV?
Laboratory simulations of everyday social processes- principle of control
Independent variable- Every detail of participants experiences are held constant but one/more features of their experiences varied across experimental conditions
What is the DV?
The variable that is impacted by change in the IV.
What is the principle of random assignment? What type of study occurs if random assignment is not an option?
Participants from a study are randomly sorted into conditions, each participant has an equal chance of ending up in either group. Does not take pre-existing differences into account.
-Correlational study
What can determine causality?
Experimental research using random sampling and the principle of control
What is hindsight bias?
What is another common assumption when encountering social psychology?
-Hindsight bias is a psychological phenomenon that allows people to convince themselves after an event that they accurately predicted it before it happened.
-Findings seem to apply to others, not to self
What is each of our perspectives on the world shaped by?
What is the socio-cultural worldview of psychological research
-A unique socio-cultural worldview
-WEIRD- Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries. Most psychological research has been conducted in these countries.
How does social position and socio-cultural worldviews influence our place in society?
-Some groups of people have advantages relative to other groups of people. Access to resources and benefits.
-Marginalized or stigmatized groups are excluded from having access to those advantages.
How is privilege earned? What does having privilege cause?
-Most qualities that afford privilege are unearned.
-Privilege affords people the luxury of not having to think about privilege
-Often causes privileged people to dismiss, or not listen to the voices of stigmatized or oppressed groups
What is system justification?
If there is a system that we live and exist within and are comfortable with, if something comes along to destablize that, our brains try to make it right. Try to explain the system and justify it, instead of confronting it.
