psychology of the early years Flashcards
social psychology
The scientific attempt to explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human-beings.
triplett
*Task = Fishing reels turned a silk band around a drum which was connected to a pulley by a chord – a flag had to travel around the pulley 4 times.
*Conditions = Children were alone or in pairs
*Results = Children were faster, slower or not impacted by being in a pair
*Faster children “the arousal of their competitive instincts and the idea of a faster movement”
*Slower children were “going to pieces”
19th century psych
-Wilhelm Wundt (1879) – the first dedicated laboratory for experimental psychological research.
-Sigmund Freud – the psychoanalytic school of psychology.
*Early 1900s - Rapid growth of laboratory research in the USA
*Allport (1924) social psychology would only flourish if it became an experimental science
*Murphy and Murphy (1931-1937) published a book called Experimental Social Psychology
social psychology in crisis
*Positivism – the non-critical acceptance of scientific method as the only way to arrive at true knowledge
*Reductionism – Explanation of a phenomenon in terms of the language and concepts of a lower level of analysis, usually with the loss of explanatory power
*Level of explanation – The types of concepts, mechanisms and language used to explain a phenomenon
*Doise (1986) need to construct theories that formally integrate, or “articulate”, concepts from different levels
history of the self
*Medieval times - identity was shaped by family membership, social rank and place of birth, therefore no sense of self and fixed.
*16th century – started to change due to issues including secularisation, industrialisation and enlightenment
*Early 20th century – Psychodynamic self
*1990s - Over 31,000 articles about the self in the previous 20 years (Ashmore & Jussim, 1997). People can now define themselves as they wish.
searching for the self
- Self-assessment – seeking out new information about ourselves in order to find out what sort of person we really are.
- Self-verification – seeking out information that confirms what we think we already know about ourselves.
- Self-enhancement – the motivation to promote a favourable image of self.
Sedikides (1993) Enhancement was found to be stronger than verification which was stronger than assessment.
looking glass self
the self-derived from seeing ourselves as others see us. How we view ourselves should be closely shadowed by how others view us
van gyn et al
Participants assigned to one of 4 conditions:
1.Power training on a bike + imagery
2.Power training on a bike without imagery
3.No power training + imagery
4.No power training without imagery
Findings: Power training improved performance & Using imagery also improved performance
Conclusion = Imagery improves self-conception which improved performance
harre et al - driving
medic et al - social comparison and self-knowledge
Coded the facial expressions of medal winners at the Olympic Games and found that the bronze medallists expressed noticeably more satisfaction than the silver medallists. Medvec and colleagues argued that silver medallists were constrained to make unfavourable upward comparisons with gold medallists, whereas bronze medallists could make self-enhancing downward comparisons with the rest of the field,
*This is known as social comparison theory - Comparing our behaviours and opinions with those of others to establish the correct or socially approved way of thinking and behaving.
*To prevent upward comparisons, we use the self-evaluation maintenance model, this is when people who are constrained to make esteem-damaging upward comparisons can underplay or deny similarity to the target, or they can withdraw from their relationship with the target.
meta perspective
*Shrauger and Schoeneman (1979) reviewed 62 studies
*People did not tend to see themselves as others saw them
*Instead, people saw themselves as how they thought others saw them
self awareness
*Awareness is a state in which you are aware of yourself as an object, much as you might be aware of a tree or another person (Duval & Wicklund, 1972)
*Carver and Scheier (1981): 2 forms of self
*1. Private self – try to match behaviour with internal standards you hold
*2. Public self – presenting yourself in a positive light
Steele (1975)
Mormon women received 2 phone calls:
1. Called to ask if they would list everything in their kitchen to help with a new community food cooperative project (Baseline 50% agree)
2. A few days earlier they had been called by a ‘pollster’ and told one of 3 things:
A. uncooperative with community projects (95%)
B. Not concerned about driver safety (95%)
C. cooperative with community projects (65%)
self discrepancy theory -Higgins
we have three types of self-schema:
- actual: how we are now
- ideal: version of ourselves we want to be
- ought - what we feel we are obligated to be like
discrepancies
People with a high actual idea and actual ought self-discrepancy experienced:
*An increase in dejection emotions after being primed to focus on their ideal self
*An increase in agitation after being primed to focus on the ought self
social cognitions
cognitive processes and structures that influence and are influenced by social behaviour:
1. Impression formation
2. Schemas
3. Stereotypes
4. Heuristics
5. Attributions
