week 1 - intro to social psychology Flashcards
Neanderthals had similar-sized brains, so why are we the only species of human left?
- neanderthals had superior visual-motor skills & stronger than homosapiens
- BUT
- homo-sapiens have larger cerebellums associated with increased social ability
- able to form larger groups, share resources more effectively
What are the 3 main principles of qualitative research?
- grounded in interpretivism (how the world is understood, interpreted, experienced in a complex world)
- uses methods that are flexible and sensitive to social context rather than standardised or ‘structured’
- analyses using explanation and argument building, looks for nuance, less concerned with patterns, trends, and correlations
what are the assumptions of positivism
- believes, the nature of reality is objective, tangible, single
- goal of research is explanation, strong prediction
- the focus is on what is general, average, representative
- the knowledge generates is laws, absolute rules
- the subject/researcher relationship is rigid separation
what are the assumptions of Interpretivism
- believes the nature of reality is socially constructed
- the goal of research is understanding
- focus of interest is what is specific, unique
- knowledge generated is meanings, relative rules
- the subject/researcher relationship is interactive, cooperative, participatory
what is social psychology according to Allport (1954)?
the attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings
who was the first social psychology experiment conducted by, and when?
Triplett, 1898
what was Triplett’s (1898) social psychology study?
- social facilitation
- 2 groups of children had to complete a task to operate a pulley system to move a flag four times around a circuit
- faster children = aroused by competitive instincts and the idea of faster movements
- slower children = overwhelmed by the competition of the task
- Triplett believed people try harder when they have the real, or imagined presence of others
what is Cartwright’s (1979) famous and controversial quote about the influences of social psychology?
Cartwright believed that the “most important person in the history of social psychology is Adolf Hitler”
what impact did WW2 have on social psychology?
- Influential European researchers were displaced to USA
- research on group processes & communication stemming from studies conducted by the US army
- research on prejudice, racism, authoritarianism, and fascism stemming from nazism & Holocaust
- also interest in public health and propaganda
what did WW2 demonstrate about the social world?
post-WW2 research (largely in USA) demonstrated the dangers of the loss of individual rationality, judgement, and morality when placed in certain social situations
- e.g. Asch’s line experiment
- Milgram’s obedience experiment
- Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment
what is the meaning of pluralism?
not just one reality, but multiple ways in which people render the world meaningful
what are some problems with past social psychology?
- for too long, research focused on what is rather than what could be
- for too long, we conceptualised a static world (we now know it is dynamic, constantly evolving)
- over-reliance on experimentation only gives you a snapshot of human life
- experimental methods are disconnected from psychological conceptualisations (taking people out of social context to study social behaviour)
what is the replication crisis?
only one third of the experimental studies published in premier psychological journals could be replicated
what is the WEIRD problem?
our knowledge about psychology is based on samples that are mainly Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic, which is not representative of the world’s populations
what is world-making?
- “World-making refers to the fact that humans at both an individual and collective level contribute to the making of societies, social relations, and cognition (i.e., memory aids, distributed cognition).”
how does social psychology world-make?
social psych has theories, ethics, and methods to study people as world-makers. the results describe the world, and contribute to the transformation of societies, social relationships, and cognition
what is bad world-making?
process by which systematically distorted and therefore inaccurate research generates knowledge that informs every day understandings of phenomena, economic decisions, political, educational, and legal policies that are self-interested, incomplete ad do not feed forward into just and empowering world-making
what does ontology mean?
the world is always changing
how does world-making contribute to social psych epistemologically?
social psychologists are not separated from the world, and use interventions and imagination to learn about the world by participating in it
how does world-making contribute to social psych ethically?
researchers have a responsibility to critically consider how people/social psychologists are involved in world-making
how does world-making contribute to social psych methodologically?
social psychology needs methodological pluralism to engage with dynamic social phenomena
What is Intention?
intentions are the mental acts of goal setting
What are the two types of intentions?
- episodic intentions
- semantic intentions
What are episodic intentions?
episodic intentions: achieve outcomes in the context of specific future events
- e.g., “i need to go to the shop on my way home from work to get bread”
What are semantic intentions?
semantic intentions: encompass the setting of more general/abstract goals
- e.g., “i need to think about what i hope to achieve by the end of my degree”
What is planning?
Planning is the organisation of steps/actions towards achieving the goal
What is episodic planning?
the steps needed in order to arrive at a specific episodic future outcome
What is semantic planning?
setting more general or abstract steps needed in order for these goals to arise in the future
Why is planning important?
Plans are often necessary for intended behaviours to be carried out in an effective manner, as it allows for the opportunity to decide how we will behave in future situations
Do the four modes of prospection function independently of eachother? why?
- NO
- people may draw on simulations and predictions in order to formulate intentions and plans
- people can base their predictions on their aility to engage in episodic simulations of the future
What is the Imagination Inflation Paradigm?
- Individuals increase their confidence in fictitious events occurring after imagining that event, with this confidence/belief increasing the more times the event has been imagined
- Repeated simulation means it becomes more familiar and comes to mind more readily when later asked about it
Do simulations and Predictions interact? use a study as an example
- Simulation of possible future event affects one’s predictions regarding whether the event will actually occur
- Participants imagined either Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford winning the 1976 Presidential election
- People who imagined that Jimmy Carter would win the election were then more likely to predict he would win, and vice versa (Carroll, 1978)
- The impact of simulation has also been extended to predictions about actions
- More times people imagined performing a certain action, the more likely they were to believe that they would later carry out that action (Anderson, 1983)
- Imagining oneself completing a behaviour increases the likelihood of that behaviour later being accomplished (Libby et al, 2007)
Why is simulation useful for planning?
- Episodic simulation is useful in the planning of effective strategies
- Participants then were asked to simulate the process of working through a stressful event and others were asked to simulate a successful outcome
- One-week later simulating the process of working through the problem = more positive affect & more active coping strategies
What is the function of prospection in emotion?
- Positive episodic simulation has been shown to enhance mood
- Participants either imagined four positive, negative, or neutral events that could happen to them the next day.
- Using the “subjective happiness scale”, participants who had to imagine positive events were significantly happier two weeks later
What is the function of prospection in psychological wellbeing?
prospection is important for psychological wellbeing
- Found by actively generating positive hypothetical future scenarios reduced the worry associated with an upcoming event (Brown, MacLeod, Tata, & Goddard, 2002)
- Focusing on positive hypothetical situations may provide individuals with a sense of relief (Szpunar, 2010)
What is the function of prospection in pro-social behaviour?
- Participants had to either imagine a vivid scenario of helping a person in need or complete a maths problem
- Participants were more inclined to help a person in need after constructing a vivid personal episode of helping that person
- Imagine themselves helping the person in need in the future or imagine someone else helping the person
- Imagining themselves helping someone in need increased intentions to help compared to imagining someone else
What is the function of prospection in Guiding Behaviour?
- Participants who predicted success at finding work as highly likely, received more job offers and had higher salaries, compared to those who passively thought about them
- Participants who predicted the start of a successful relationship as likely to happen, found themselves in a successful relationship
What is Beck’s Cognitive Theory Of Depression?
- Beck’s Cognitive theory of depression: Biased thought processes are a primary cause of depressive symptoms
- Central to Beck’s theory is a triad of negativity, whereby individuals hold negative views of the self, the world and the future.
What is the function of Schemas in Beck’s Cognitive theory of Depression?
- individuals vulnerable to depression have maladaptive schemas
- when dysfunctional schemas are activated, they skew the information processing system, directing attention to negative stimuli, causing the experience to be interpreted in a negative way
How does depression impact autobiographical memory?
- causes overgeneral memory
- individuals have trouble recalling specific or episodic events from their past
- can recall categoric or repeated events
main effects:
- Content biases: Negatively valenced thought content (Dalgleish, Hill, Golden, Morant, & Dunn, 2011)
- Overly attentive to negative situations and remember more negative information (Kessler, 1997)
- Take longer to recall positive autobiographical memories
- Less specific when describing pleasant memories (e.g. Dickson & Bates, 2006).
- Recollect using an observer perspective (Lemogne et al., 2006)
- Lower vividness for positive events, however not for negative events (eg. Pusowski, Schmid, & Holmes, 2011)
How do memory issues impact those with depression?
- Autobiographical memory is argued to serve a self-regulatory function (provide narratives of the self; promote continuity elicit a sense of identity)
- Self-regulation also involves the use of autobiographical memory to regulate emotion (Retrieve positive memories in order to modify sad moods (Josephson, Singer, & Salovey, 1996).
- Recalling positive autobiographical memories did not improve mood in a dysphoric sample (Joorman & Siemer, 2004)
- Depressed individuals showed a significant worsening of their current mood state after recalling positive autobiographical memories (Joorman, Siemer, and Gotlib, 2007)
