w10 social psyc self Flashcards
social psychology is
the study of how peoples thoughts, feelings and behaviours are infleunced by actual, imagined or implied presence of others
deals with social interactions
floyd Allport vs kurt lewin
FA - actions of all are nothing more than actions of each seperately
(INDIVIDUAL - one surrounded by unique others)
KL - whole is greater than sum of its parts
(SOCIAL WORLD - you and the things around you)
LEWIN
B = F(p,e)
behaviour is a function of the person in their environment
what is person + environment
person - mood, emotions, intelligence, personality, health, beliefs
environment - politics, culture, norms, technology, relationships
social cognition is
thinking by people about people
2 modes of social cognitions:
Controlled
+
automatic
controlled social cognition
CAN BE REPORTED
told
slow, precise, reasoning, serial, logic
‘figure it out’
automatic social cognition
CANNOT BE REPORTED
inflexible, fast
intuition, estimation
‘go with gut’
eg. how are we walking rn?
- social cognition requires _
- both modes can be __
- BOTH
- Biased - we favour ourselves, thoughts are biased
why?
explanations for everyday events are based on…
external or internal factors
weiner 2-dimensional model
self-serving bias
internal - success
external - failure
unstable or stable relation
eg. they did well in test - internal stable = ability
S-I = ability
S-E = difficulty
U-I = effort
U-E = luck
jones+nisbett
actor-observer bias
actors to make external attributions, and observer to make internal attributions
eg. see lady yelling at dog - shes bad person - observer
person yelling - dog is bad - actor
Fundamental attribution error
tendency for observers to attribute others’ behaviour to dispositional causes
+ downplay situational factors
disposition - someones qualities
eg. speeding driver is maniac - internal
situation here - hosptial, or late
Fidel Castro FAE example
essay - half chose pro or anti
other half had no choice
result - people think author was pro-castro even when had no choice
3 factors influencing FAE
consensus information - everyone behave this way? (low, internal)
consistency - do they usually behave this way? (if high, internal)
distinctiveness - behave this way in other situations? (high, internal)
4 theories - why people commit the FAE:
environmental causes:
1. behaviours more noticable than situations
2. language is more biased towards traits than situational qualities
person causes:
3. people insufficient weight to situations
4. people are cognitive misers - shortcuts
3 parts to ‘the self/who am i?’
- self-concept - our self knowledge and awareness
- public self - how we present ourselves interpersonally
- agent self - the decisions we make and actions we take
semi-independent and overlapping
the self
- introspective awareness
- perceptions of others perceptions
- social comparison theory
- introspective awareness
self-knowledge via priveilige access to mental states, cognition
Nisbett +wilson – this knowledge is biased
people are wrong about themselves
self-perceptions show positivity bias
- perceptions of others’ perceptions
cooley - looking-glass self
- imagine how you appear to others
- imagine their judgement of you
- you respond emotionally
all open to bias - people misrepresent, make own perceptions
- social comparison theory
person-environment fit
festinger - examining the difference between self and others
constant comparisons
swam 1km in 45 mins, good?
upward eg olympic swimmers
downward - elderly
make yourself feel good by comparing lower
self – social media
Vogel - social comparison
study 1- correlational
increased facebook use = lower self-esteem
- high upward comparisons
study 2 - experimental
engineered media to see upward (healthy) vs downward (unhealthy) comparisons
- self-esteem decreased with upward comparisons
impression formation - first impressions
very fast <100ms
more positive seen in females
left face - warmer
right - confident aggressive
Social cognition bias
- primacy effect Asch 1946
the tendency for information we learn first is weighted more heavily than later info
eg. Harriet is intelligent, industrious, stubborn
or is stu, intell, ind
