social psych test 1 Flashcards
What is social psychology?
the scientific study of the way people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
social influence
The effect of the words, actions, or mere presence of other people on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors
Social Psychology vs common sense
Common sense = folk wisdom
- Social psychologists predict behavior by forming hypotheses and testing them scientifically
Social Psychology vs philosophy
Address many of the same questions
- Social psychology explores them scientifically
what is the difference between social psychology and other social sciences?
level of analysis.
Personality Psychology
Studies the characteristics that make individuals unique and different from each other
Social Psychology vs Personality Psychology
Focuses on individual differences
- Ignores the powerful role played by social influence
Social Psychology vs Cognitive Psychology
Focus on sequence of basic internal processes that underlie more complex behavior
- Ignores influence of others/society
Sociology
Focuses on society at large
Social psychology
Focuses on the individual in the context of a social situation
Goal of social psychology
To identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture
Goal of sociology
To identify why a particular society or group within a society produces behavior (e.g., aggression) in its members
what is the major difference between the goal of sociology and social psychology?
Sociology looks toward society at large rather than the individual
Max Wertheimer Gestalt theory
The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces
who is the founding father of Social Psychology
Kurt Lewin
B = f(P, E); behavior is a function of the person and their environment
Applied Gestalt theory to social perceptions
attributions
How we explain behavior
Person (dispositional) variables
Enduring traits (Personality)
Attitudes- Situational variables
Fundamental Attribution Error
Over-estimation of the extent to which people’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors
under-estimation of the role of complex situational factors.
When we underestimate the power of social influence…
we gain a feeling of false security.
- Increases personal vulnerability to possibly destructive social influence
- Lulls us into lowering our guard
By failing to fully appreciate the power of the situation..
we tend to
- Oversimplify complex situations
- Decrease our understanding of the true causes
- Blame the victim when people are overpowered by social forces
social psychology is ___ concerned with the objective nature of social situations and is ___ concerned with subjective
not
more
construal
the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world
social cognition
how people think about themselves and the social world. How they make sense of it. The need to be accurate.
Social cognition motive
Takes into account how people think about the world
We try to gain accurate understandings so we can make effective judgments and decisions
But we typically act on the basis of incompletely and inaccurately interpreted information
what are the goals of scientific research?
describe
predict
explain
Observational method
The technique whereby a researcher observes people and records measurements or impressions of their behavior.
describing social behavior
-What is the nature of the phenomenon?
correlational method
describing social behavior
-What is the nature of the phenomenon?
experimental method
the method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable
answering causal questions
-Is variable X a cause of variable Y?
archival analysis
Can be used as an observational method of examining documents or archives of a culture.
observational method limitations
Frequency with which behavior occurs, where behaviors occur
•Confined to what is observed, that is –
-the people
-the setting
-the activity
•Real world data is extremely messy!
correlation
estimates the relationship between two variables. How much can one variable be known based on the other?
direction
Whether a correlation is positive or negative
magnitude of correlations
Ranges from -1.0 to +1.0
- 1.0 = perfect negative relationship
0.0 = no relationship
+1.0 = perfect positive relationship
The closer to 1 (in either direction) the stronger the correlation.
survey research
the researcher directly approaches subjects and asks them questions.
in the experimental method, the dependent variable…
in the experimental method, random assignment…
the process of assigning participants to levels of your independent variable.
Crucial to true experimental research
basic research
studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave the way they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity.
social cognition is…
how people select, interpret, and remember social information to judge and make decisions
automatic thinking
thinking that is non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless
- Count from 1-10
controlled thinking
thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful
- Count from 1-10 in alphabetical order…starting with eight.
schemas
mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects.
situation ambiguous
Warm/cold labels affected view of lecturer.
- Humorous
- Sociable
- Considerate
How did warm/cold label affect participation?
situation unambiguous
lecturer extremely self-confident
How did warm/cold labels affect view of lecturer?
- Immodest?
- Humorous?
Information that is ____ with our schemas is easier to recall than information that is ____ with our schemas.
consistent
inconsistent
memory is reconstructive
We remember some information and what we do not catch or what we forget, our schemas “fill in” for us.
accessibility
the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds
priming
is the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema
self-fulfilling prophecy
People have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person
and causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations
Judgmental Heuristics
mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently
Representativeness Heuristic
a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case
base-rate fallacy
the tendency to ignore base-rate information
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
a mental shortcut whereby people use a number or a value as a starting point and then adjust insufficiently from this anchor
False Consensus
The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors
False Uniqueness
The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors.
Controlled thinking
thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful.
Requires energy and capacity.
automatic believing
initial acceptance of information
controlled believing
Assess truthfulness of accepted beliefs
Unaccept if necessary
Thought Suppression
the attempt to avoid thinking about something we would just as soon forget.
what are the processes of thought suppression?
Monitoring Process
- scans for unwanted thoughts
Operating Process:
- controlled, attempts to distract from unwanted thoughts
Counterfactual thinking
mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been.
Overconfidence Barrier
the finding that people usually have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgment
- people’s judgments are usually not as correct as they think.
