Introduction to Social Psychology

Introduction to Social Psychology

• Social psychology investigates how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence (actual, imagined, or implied) of others
• Examples include relationships and helping behavior

Methods in Social Psychology

• Experimental Methods:

  • Manipulate an independent variable (IV) and observe its effect on a dependent variable (DV)
  • Lab experiments provide high control over extraneous variables
  • Field experiments have high ecological validity
  • Both methods can establish cause-and-effect relationships
  • Disadvantages of lab experiments include low ecological validity and demand characteristics; field experiments have less control over extraneous variables

• Non-experimental Methods:

  • Do not manipulate variables
  • Observe correlations between variables
  • Include case studies and archival research
  • Cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships, but offer in-depth explorations of a single case or aggregated data

Implicit and Explicit Methods

• Explicit: Participants are aware of the research study and have conscious control over their responses.
• Implicit: Participants are unaware of the intended goal of the experiment, and responses are assumed to be automatic

Schemas

• Mental structures organizing and storing information about something.
• Highly accessible schemas are more likely to influence subsequent behavior and decision-making.

Implicit Association Tests (IATs)

• Measure implicit associations by assessing how quickly individuals respond to pairings of different concepts.
• Quicker responses indicate stronger associations.
• Slower responses indicate weaker (or non-existent) associations.

Lexical Decision Tasks (LDT)

• Measure the accessibility of concepts in participants' minds.
• Reaction times to identify target words are used to assess accessibility.

Attributions

• Causal attribution: The process of assigning causes to events or behaviors.
• Dimensions of causal attributions:
  • Locus of causality: Internal (dispositional) vs. external (situational)
  • Stability: Stable (permanent) vs. unstable (temporary)
  • Controllability: Controllable (changeable) vs. uncontrollable (unchangeable)

Heider's Naïve Scientist View

• People attempt to understand the world and the behaviors of others by forming simple, rational explanations (e.g., attributions).

Correspondent Inference Theory

• How people infer that a person's behavior corresponds to an underlying disposition or personality trait.
• Emphasis on factors like choice, expectedness/social desirability, effects of actions.

Covariation Model

• Explains the influences of consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness in making attributions to explain behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error

• The tendency to overemphasize dispositional factors and underemphasize situational factors when explaining others' behavior.

Actor-Observer Effect

• We tend to attribute our own actions to situational factors, but others' actions to dispositional factors

Self-Serving Bias

• The tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.

Stereotypes

• Generalizations about a group of people, often based on inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Can affect how we perceive and interact with others

Stereotype Content Model

• Stereotypes are categorized based on warmth and competence.
• People from higher status groups are viewed as more competent and are viewed by others more favorably.

Illusory Correlation

• Perceiving a relationship between two variables that does not actually exist.

Stereotype Activation and Application

• Activation: The accessibility of a stereotype in memory.
• Application: The use of an activated stereotype in judgments or behaviors.

Why People Stereotype

• Cognitive efficiency: simplifies information processing.
• Justification of social systems: maintain perceived fairness.

Personality Theories

• Psychodynamic Theory: Emphasizes unconscious motives and early childhood experiences.
• Humanistic Theory: Highlights free will, personal growth, and self-actualization.
• Behavioral/Social Cognitive Theory: Examines the role of learning and environmental influences.

Big Five Model of Personality

• Openness: Imagination, feelings, actions
• Conscientiousness: Competence, self-discipline
• Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness
• Agreeableness: Cooperation, trustworthiness
• Neuroticism: Emotionality, volatility

Impression Formation

• Central traits: Traits that have a major influence on our overall impression of a person.
• Configural model: Impression formation involves integrating multiple pieces of information to form a unified impression.

Cognitive Algebra

• Combines positive and negative information and forms impressions based on that totality.
• Suggests people weigh different traits differently, and some traits might have more weight than others if they are perceived as particularly important or influential traits

Social Comparisons

• Evaluating oneself in relation to others.
• Upward social comparisons (comparing to someone better) can inspire motivation, but can also decrease self-esteem.
• Downward social comparisons (comparing to someone worse) can boost self-esteem but can be misguided.

Social Influence

• Conformity, compliance, and obedience are types of social influence, where individuals change their behavior (and/or attitudes) based on the real or imagined presence of others.

• Obedience: Responding to a direct order from an authority figure

• Compliance: Responding to a request from someone without formal authority

• Conformity: Altering one's behavior to match the group's norms, patterns, or behaviors.

Friendship and Love

• Social penetration theory suggests that disclosure of self is fundamental to achieving intimacy in relationships.

This quiz explores the fundamentals of social psychology, focusing on how individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the presence of others. It covers both experimental and non-experimental methods used in research, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. Test your understanding of key concepts and methodologies in social psychology.