PSYC*2310 Chapter 1: Introducing Social Psychology

Question 1

What is social psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of the way in which a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the real, imagined or implied presence of others

Question 2

What are the three distinct, but inter-related topics that social psychologists address?

Answer 2

• How we think about ourselves
• How we think, feel, and act in the social world
• How are attitudes and behaviours shape the social world

Question 3

What is self-perception?

Answer 3

How we think about ourselves

Question 4

What is self-presentation?

Answer 4

How we convey ourselves to others

Question 5

What is social perception?

Answer 5

How people form impressions of and make inferences about other people and events in the social world

Question 6

What is social cognition?

Answer 6

How we think about others and the social world

Question 7

T or F: Social cognition is a type of social perception?

Answer 7

True

Question 8

What is social influence?

Answer 8

The impact of other people’s attitudes and behaviours on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours

Question 9

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 9

The process by which people’s beliefs about someone influence how they act towards them, which in turn, elicits the expected behaviour

Question 10

What were the three major factors that influenced early research in social psychology?

Answer 10

• Behaviourism
• Gestalt psychology
• Historical events

Question 11

What is behaviourism?

Answer 11

A theory of learning that describes people’s behaviour as being learned through conditioning

Question 12

What does behaviourism fail to explain?

Answer 12

The role of people’s thoughts, feelings, and attitudes

Question 13

What is Gestalt psychology?

Answer 13

A theory that proposes objects are viewed holistically

Question 14

What is a key idea in Gestalt psychology?

Answer 14

We sometimes experience more than what is supplied by our sensory perception

Question 15

What is Kurt Lewin often considered the founder of?

Answer 15

Modern social psychology

Question 16

Which prominent social psychologist focused on the role of social perception in influencing behaviour, group dynamics, and stereotyping and prejudice?

Answer 16

Kurt Lewin

Question 17

Which branch of psychology studies an individual’s strengths and virtues?

Answer 17

Positive psychology

Question 18

The roots of positive psychology are in which branch of psychology?

Answer 18

Humanistic psychology

Question 19

What is the focus of humanistic psychology?

Answer 19

Individual potential and fulfillment

Question 20

What is the focus of cultural psychology?

Answer 20

How culture shapes individuals

Question 21

What is the sociocultural perspective?

Answer 21

A perspective describing people’s behaviour and mental processes as being shaped in part by their social and/or cultural context

Question 22

What is hindsight bias?

Answer 22

The tendency to see a given outcome as inevitable once the actual outcome is known

Question 23

Which branch of psychology focuses on the role of individual differences in explaining how people feel and behave?

Answer 23

Personality psychology

Question 24

What is an area of research that combines social and personality psychology?

Answer 24

The connection between trauma and coping

Question 25

What is the focus of clinical psychology?

Answer 25

Understanding and treating people with psychological disorders

Question 26

What is the focus of cognitive psychology?

Answer 26

Understanding mental processes like thinking, remembering, learning, and reasoning

Question 27

What is the social cognitive perspective?

Answer 27

A perspective that refers to how we think, make judgments, and make decisions about ourselves and the social world

Question 28

What is one way in which the disciplines of social psychology and philosophy are related?

Answer 28

Philosophical conclusions might be used as the basis for a hypothesis that is then tested by social psychologists using the scientific method

Question 29

How do sociologists and social psychologists differ?

Answer 29

- Sociologists: focus on broad, group-level variables (ex. culture, social class and ethnicity) - Social psychologists: focus on the effects of immediate and specific variables on attitudes and behaviour (ex. mood, temperature, other people)

Question 30

What does evolutionary psychology examine?

Answer 30

How biological and evolutionary factors influence behaviour

Question 31

What are the two main focuses of social neuroscience?

Answer 31

- How factors in the social world influence brain activity - How neural processes influence attitudes and behaviours

Question 32

What is behavioural economics?

Answer 32

The study of how social, cognitive, and emotional factors influence economic decisions

Question 33

What were the six dimensions Geert Hofstede proposed to categorize countries?

Answer 33

- Long-term orientation - Uncertainty avoidance - Masculinity/femininity - Power distance - Indulgence vs. self-restraint - Individualism/collectivism

Question 34

Which value dimension focuses on the degree that people are integrated into groups?

Answer 34

Individualism/collectivism

Question 35

What are the 10 basic values proposed by Shalom Schwartz as reflecting human motivations and influence actions?

Answer 35

- Conformity - Hedonism - Universalism - Benevolence - Self-direction - Stimulation - Power - Achievement - Tradition - Security

Question 36

What are the seven factors in the model proposed by cross-cultural psychologists that describe the self-construal concept?

Answer 36

- Self-containment vs. connection to others - Self-direction vs. receptiveness to influence - self-reliance vs. dependence on others - Consistency vs. variability - Self-expression vs. harmony - Self-interest vs. commitment to others

Question 37

How is success defined differently between individualistic and collectivistic cultures?

Answer 37

- Individualistic: defined in terms of individual accomplishments - Collectivistic: defined in terms of interpersonal relationships

Question 38

What is social constructionism?

Answer 38

The view that there is no absolute reality and that our knowledge and what we understand to be reality are socially constructed

Question 39

What is one of the strongest and most influential critiques of the mainstream?

Answer 39

Social constructionism

Question 40

What is "soft" social constructionism?

Answer 40

A view that acknowledges how some psychological phenomena can be tested used a scientific approach, even though some of our reality is socially constructed

Question 41

What are the three commitments involved in the scientific method?

Answer 41

- Collecting accurate and error-free information - Objectivity and bias free data - Verifying information empirically

Question 42

What are the four main principles under which ethical research is performed?

Answer 42

- Respect for the dignity of people - Responsible caring - Integrity in relationships - Responsibility to society