PSYC*2310 Chapter 1: Introducing Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology?
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
What are the three distinct, but inter-related topics that social psychologists address?
- How we think about ourselves
- How we think, feel, and act in the social world
- How are attitudes and behaviours shape the social world
What is self-perception?
How we think about ourselves
What is self-presentation?
How we convey ourselves to others
What is social perception?
How people form impressions of and make inferences about other people and events in the social world
What is social cognition?
How we think about others and the social world
T or F: Social cognition is a type of social perception?
True
What is social influence?
The impact of other people’s attitudes and behaviours on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?
The process by which people’s beliefs about someone influence how they act towards them, which in turn, elicits the expected behaviour
What were the three major factors that influenced early research in social psychology?
- Behaviourism
- Gestalt psychology
- Historical events
What is behaviourism?
A theory of learning that describes people’s behaviour as being learned through conditioning
What does behaviourism fail to explain?
The role of people’s thoughts, feelings, and attitudes
What is Gestalt psychology?
A theory that proposes objects are viewed holistically
What is a key idea in Gestalt psychology?
We sometimes experience more than what is supplied by our sensory perception
What is Kurt Lewin often considered the founder of?
Modern social psychology
Which prominent social psychologist focused on the role of social perception in influencing behaviour, group dynamics, and stereotyping and prejudice?
Kurt Lewin
Which branch of psychology studies an individual’s strengths and virtues?
Positive psychology
The roots of positive psychology are in which branch of psychology?
Humanistic psychology
What is the focus of humanistic psychology?
Individual potential and fulfillment
What is the focus of cultural psychology?
How culture shapes individuals
What is the sociocultural perspective?
A perspective describing people’s behaviour and mental processes as being shaped in part by their social and/or cultural context
What is hindsight bias?
The tendency to see a given outcome as inevitable once the actual outcome is known
Which branch of psychology focuses on the role of individual differences in explaining how people feel and behave?
Personality psychology
What is an area of research that combines social and personality psychology?
The connection between trauma and coping
What is the focus of clinical psychology?
Understanding and treating people with psychological disorders
What is the focus of cognitive psychology?
Understanding mental processes like thinking, remembering, learning, and reasoning
What is the social cognitive perspective?
A perspective that refers to how we think, make judgments, and make decisions about ourselves and the social world
What is one way in which the disciplines of social psychology and philosophy are related?
Philosophical conclusions might be used as the basis for a hypothesis that is then tested by social psychologists using the scientific method
How do sociologists and social psychologists differ?
- 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)
What does evolutionary psychology examine?
How biological and evolutionary factors influence behaviour
What are the two main focuses of social neuroscience?
- How factors in the social world influence brain activity
- How neural processes influence attitudes and behaviours
What is behavioural economics?
The study of how social, cognitive, and emotional factors influence economic decisions
What were the six dimensions Geert Hofstede proposed to categorize countries?
- Long-term orientation
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Masculinity/femininity
- Power distance
- Indulgence vs. self-restraint
- Individualism/collectivism
Which value dimension focuses on the degree that people are integrated into groups?
Individualism/collectivism
What are the 10 basic values proposed by Shalom Schwartz as reflecting human motivations and influence actions?
- Conformity
- Hedonism
- Universalism
- Benevolence
- Self-direction
- Stimulation
- Power
- Achievement
- Tradition
- Security
What are the seven factors in the model proposed by cross-cultural psychologists that describe the self-construal concept?
- 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
How is success defined differently between individualistic and collectivistic cultures?
- Individualistic: defined in terms of individual accomplishments
- Collectivistic: defined in terms of interpersonal relationships
What is social constructionism?
The view that there is no absolute reality and that our knowledge and what we understand to be reality are socially constructed
What is one of the strongest and most influential critiques of the mainstream?
Social constructionism
What is “soft” social constructionism?
A view that acknowledges how some psychological phenomena can be tested used a scientific approach, even though some of our reality is socially constructed
What are the three commitments involved in the scientific method?
- Collecting accurate and error-free information
- Objectivity and bias free data
- Verifying information empirically
What are the four main principles under which ethical research is performed?
- Respect for the dignity of people
- Responsible caring
- Integrity in relationships
- Responsibility to society
