SOCIAL Flashcards
Social Psychology
The scientific study of how people’s
THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, and BEHAVIOURS are influenced by the ACTUAL, IMAGINED, or IMPLIED presence of others
Guiding principles of Social Psychology
- The social brain
- The power of the situation
- Levels of analysis
- Critical thinking
The Social Brain
- UNDERSTANDING the SELF and its relations to OTHERS
- Forming JUDGEMENTS about others
- Understanding & making INFERENCES about others’ mental states
- Social DECISION-MAKING
- Perception of socially relevant CUES (faces, eye gaze,…)
- Understanding social categories & our place in them
The Power of the Situation
–> Kurt Lewin (1935): the BEHAVIOURS of people is always a function of the FIELD OF FORCES around them
- FIELD OF FORCES (humans) = the SITUATION they find themselves
- A (person) x (situation) interaction
- I.e –> human behaviour = results from PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES + particular SITUATION
Levels of Analysis
in order of decreasing…
- individual (RS w self)
- INTERpersonal (RS w other individuals)
- INTRAgroup (RS w other people within a same group)
- INTERgroup (RS w people in diff groups)
Critical thinking
Healthy skepticism (doubt towards knowledge)
Challenges in Social Psychology
Scientific rigour and critical thinking:
- CONTEXT is v important (HOW and WHY)
- no one-size-fits-all answer
- not all findings are true in every situation
- BUT… a guiding principle of science is replicability
- (2015) a paper attempting to replicate 100 psychology studies found only 36% replicated
BENEFITS of Social Psychology
- provides insights into our own and others’ BEHAVIOURS
- Helps us UNDERSTAND the causes and consequences of current events (eg: COVID-19, BLM)
- Gives us tools to ACT EFFECTIVELY and HELP OTHERS do the same
Aspects of self-identity
- Personal identity
- Social identity
- Cultural Identity
The Social Self
UNITARY and CONTINUOUS awareness of who someone is
- Many aspects of the self are influenced by social experiences:
- HOW we think of ourselves
- WHAT and WHO we like and dislike
- HABITS we form
- VALUES we adhere to
- How we (learn to) BEHAVE
Personality is affected by social context
Study by Tice (1992) - Have you ever pretended to be more extraverted than you are?
- Present yourself as an extraverted / introverted person
- In public / in private
- Then participants rated their “true selves”
–> Results:
- PUBLIC: people rated themselves as MORE extraverted than they really are
- PRIV: not much diff
Social Identity
Identity is something that BINDS us w others, NOT separate.
Early conceptions of social selves:
–> The Social Me (William James):
- What we know about ourselves from social relationships
* Who a person is in one context (e.g., at work) ISN’T necessarily the same person they are in another context (e.g., at home)
–> Working self-concept (Markus & Wurf, 1987)
- A subset of our self-knowledge is brought to mind in a given CONTEXT
- The self relevant to rs may be the mind’s prime focus in ROMANTIC contexts;
- the self related to competition in sports contexts
SELF-CATEGORISATION theory
–> CATEGORISING OURSELF (basic human process) = the diff/ similarities btwn groups
- We group things together to HELP US UNDERSTAND the world
- At the group level, we categorise people into ‘INGROUPS’ (groups to which we belong) and
‘OUTGROUPS’ (groups to which we don’t belong)
–> CATEGORISING OTHERS (acting differently when in diff contexts)
- The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction
- DIff identities become salient (noticeable) in diff contexts (eg: a psych student in lecture; a mother when homeschooling)
- Shifting the salience of diff identities can make previous outgroup members become ingroup members (e.g., engineering student vs psych student –> Unimelb students)
- ‘Who we are’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves
Cultural Identity (a form of social identity with mostly inborn)
- Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class, etc)
- A form of social identity, but one that is often inborn and encompasses a total way of life & the way we view the world
- Can be fostered DIRECTLY : (thru socialisation efforts) /
INDIRECTLY: thru bg exposure to ways of life, predispositions toward
seeing the world in a particular way)
Culture and the Social Self
- CULTURAL self-construal (Markus & Kitayama,1991)
= Individualist (or independent): the self is an autonomous (govern itself) entity SEPARATE from others;
–> ppl should assert (behave confidently) their independence and celebrate their uniqueness
- “My environment should change to fit me”
* western countries: US, Australia, UK - COLLECTIVIST (or interdependent): the self is fundamentally CONNECTED to others;
–> people should seek to FIT IN a community and fulfil appropriate roles
“I should change to fit my environment”
* East Asian, South Asian, African and Latin American countries
Individualist (Independent)
self-construal
- Separate from social context
- Be unique, express yourself
- Promote your own goals
- Say ‘what’s on your mind
Collectivist (interdependent)
- Connected with social context
- FIT IN, occupy your proper place
- Promote others’ goals
- “read others’ minds”
Culture and the Social Self
Research
‘Who am I’ exercise (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954)
–> Results:
- Americans’ responses mostly context-free about traits and preferences (“I like camping”; “Hard working”)
- Responses by ppl fr interdependent cultures mostly context dependent and refer to RELATIONSHIPS (“I’m serious at work”; “I’m Jan’s friend”)
‘Who am I’ in KENYA:
- Undergraduate students w greater exposure to Western culture & being educated in Western tradition
- Traditional peoples who
had v little contact with Western
principles
- results: responses of undergrads were more ab personal characteristics > roles / groups
Significance of the social
–> Being w others is good for us:
–> Being apart fr others is bad for us:
–> The online context
How can being with others be good for us?
–> Being w others meets basic needs
- basic psychological needs:
(Belonging, Self-esteem, Control,
Meaning) - Connection with others fosters these needs:
- People were asked to rmb they gained / lost an important identity or group membership
- Then reflected on how this event affected basic needs
- results: need satisfaction is greater
gained a grp > baseline > lost a group
The Sociometer Hypothesis
- Things that make us FEEL GOOD about ourselves (self-esteem) are also the things that make others accept and like us (belonging)
- Like a fuel gauge, self-esteem is a readout of our likely standing w others
- High self-esteem = social inclusion
- Low self-esteem = social exclusion
- Self-esteem CUxES us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds
- Leary and colleagues argue we DON’T NEED self-esteem for PERSONAL reasons, just social
reasons
Social Comparisons Theory
–> 2 assumptions:
- We seek to GAIN ACCURATE self-evaluations
- Comparisons w others help us
REALITY-CHECK our own self-evaluations
–> We make 2 types of comparisons
1. Downward comparisons: comparing to people we think r ‘worse’ –>
improves our self-evaluation
2. Upward comparisons: comparing to others we think r ‘better’ –>
worsens our self-evaluation
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
–> 2 assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to MANTAIN / IMPROVE our self-evaluation
2. Comparisons with others INFLUENCE our self-evaluation
–> 2 processes
1. Reflection: Others IMPROVE our
self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation happens when domain is NOT RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation increases cuz self shares in the success
2. Comparison: Others WORSEN our self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation is RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation decreases cuz it invites unfavourable comparison w our own abilities
BIRG-ing
–> basking (take pleasure in reflected glory):
- others’ success becomes OUR success
- aligns ourselves publicly with successful people
- wearing team clothing, saying ‘we’ (football players)
- motive for ENHANCEMENT: we want to feel good
CORF-ing
– > cutting off reflected failure:
others’ failure becomes our failure, unless…
- we distance ourselves publicly from them
- taking down signs of support
- motive for PROTECTION: we want to avoid feeling bad
The Better Than Average Affect
- Most of us tend to view ourselves +vely
- people think they are ABOVE
average on a wide range of positive dimensions - Most drivers said their driving skill was closer to “expert” than “poor”…while hospitalised for being in a car accident
Why is being apart from others is bad for us?
- psychological distance: loneliness
- social distance: social network centrality
- induced distance: rejection and discrimination
Loneliness
–> Feeling of distress when social relations are not going how we wld like:
- Diff btwn connectedness level - we want to hv & what we currently hv
- We can be surrounded by others AND still be lonely / be alone BUT not feel lonely
- lonliness is affected by
rs quality > rs quantity
Social Distance in Social Networks
–> A way of quantifying social structures
- Characterises networked structures in terms of nodes (individuals within the network) and the ties that link them
- Yields several measures– who knows whom in a network, popularity within a network, closeness between people in a network etc
- Lack of inclusion in a social network is detrimental for health
Social Networks and Physical
Health
Greater social integration is
associated with lower mortality.
* The fewer social ties people had, the more likely they were to die over the next 9 years
* Same pattern for men and women and across age groups
Social Networks and Mental Health
Loneliness is transmittable !
- study found ppl directly connected to a lonely person
in a social network were 52% more likely to be lonely
- Loneliness grows in networks over time
- Growth is particularly strong when the lonely tie is close - (friend / family member)
–> 3 explanations for this:
* Induction: Emotion contagion within a network
* Homophily: Similar ppl are connected (like w like)
* Shared environment: Exposure to the same social challenges and upheaval
Ostracism
- In modern terms, refers to social shunning
- Any act of ignoring & excluding of an individual / group by an individual / a group
- Why do we ostracise?
Group reasons, Individual reasons
Cyberball
- Online version of a ball-tossing game
- Effects of being EXCLUDED in cyberball are similar to “in person” ostracism
- v effective method of inducing ostracism
o-Cam
A modern experimental paradigm that increases the realism of the
ostracism experience
Ostracism Hurts
- ostracism signals DANGER (no access to social resources)
- As a result, being excluded or ostracised HARMS basic psychological needs and makes us FEEL BAD
Discrimination
–> How others treat us on the basis of our group membership impacts on our mental & physical health
- Discrimination can lead to ill-health through:
* Stress and emotional reactions
* -ve coping responses (smoking, substances…)
* Reduced access to resources (education, medical care)
* Physical injury via racially-motivated assault
Is Social Media Good or Bad for Us?
–> Stimulation hypothesis
–> Displacement hypothesis
Stimulation Hypothesis
Social media can strengthen social ties:
- Active use to connect with others
- Online communication can stimulate self-disclosure, which improves rs and well-being
Displacement Hypothesis
–>Social media can weaken social ties:
- Passive use is associated with less perceived social support & worse well-being
- easier than f2f communications
–> Social comparison is problematic
- frequent users think others are happier / better lives
- comparison anxiety predicts
greater depression
The Impact of Social Media Depends on Us
How we use social media matters
- Active vs. passive: engaging socially vs. lurking
- Motives for use: connect with others vs. avoid social anxiety
Dale Carnegie’s Golden Rules for Becoming FRIENDLIER
- Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain
- Give honest, sincere appreciation
- Arouse (cause) in the other person an eager want
- Become genuinely interested in other people
- Smile
- Rmb that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound
- Be a good listener; encourage others to talk about themselves
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
- Make the other person feel important - do it sincerely
Person Perception and Interpersonal Relationships
- Making a first impression
- Updating a first impression
- Getting to know someone
Making a First Impression
Snap judgements
Thin slices
Person perception
Snap judgements
- Lack of sufficient info RARELY stops us from making judgements
about others - snap judgements: quick impressions based on the most brief of glances
–> a study showed ppl faces and had them rate those faces on a range of traits –> some at own pace, others rated after seeing the faces for 1s, 1/2s, or 100 ms
- traits assesses: attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness
Impressions that make a difference
–> Our judgements of others predict consequential decisions, (voting behaviour)
- Politicians with faces judged to be more competent after 1s exposure = 69% MORE LIKELY to win their election
- Replicates when the faces are shown for 1/10 s
- Snap competence judgements made B4 an election accurately predict who will win that
election in 70% of cases
