Social Psychology Intro (Week 1) PDF

Pink : Main topic ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Blue : Definitions Yellow : Topics within the main topic​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Green : Important concepts Slide : Social Psychology Intro (Week 1) -​ Social psychology : Scientific study of how people...

Pink : Main topic ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Blue : Definitions Yellow : Topics within the main topic​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Green : Important concepts Slide : Social Psychology Intro (Week 1) -​ Social psychology : Scientific study of how people think, influence and relate to one another -​ Social thinking : how individuals perceive/think about themselves and others in social situations -​ Eg: I don't fit for this job -​ Social Influence : how others attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors shape us -​ Eg: Everyone is staying late so I should too -​ Social Relations : the connection or bond that people feel toward others in their social environment. -​ Social psychology vs sociology vs personality psychology -​ Sociology : focuses on large groups and institutions -​ Eg: schools, government, etc -​ Social psychology focuses on individual behavior in social contexts -​ Eg: one’s behavioral changes in a group setting -​ Personality psychology studies individual traits. -​ Eg : introversion vs extroversion -​ Social behaviors : Our behavior changes based on how we interpret a situation -​ Eg: ur friend doesn't say hi, u interpret this as her being mad at u → ur behavior changes (u apologize) -​ Social Beliefs : Our beliefs about things/others can shape our reality. -​ Beliefs are self-fulfilling and are important​ -​ Eg: if u believe u will do bad, u will fulfil this and u do bad -​ We construct our social reality -​ Reality, in a sense, isn’t just what happens but also how we interpret and respond to it. -​ Eg: If someone cuts you off in traffic, you might assume they’re reckless or in a hurry, giving the situation meaning. -​ Social intuitions -​ These are intentions/gut feelings we have. -​ Often powerful but sometimes perilous (risky) and often are wrong -​ Shapes our fears, decisions -​ Pros of social intuition -​ Powerful tools for rapid response and mobilization. -​ Eg: covid-19 -​ Cons of social intuition -​ They reveal the dangers of relying too heavily on subjective, uncritical reasoning. -​ Personal attitudes and dispositions shape behavior -​ Our attitudes shape our behaviors -​ Eg: if you think smoking is bad → you don't smoke -​ Eg: if you think smoking is okay → you smoke -​ Personality disposition affects behavior -​ Eg: in the past you thought smoking is bad → you didn't smoke, but now u think it’s okay so u start smoking -​ Social behavior is biologically rooted ​ -​ Our behavior is influenced by both genetics and experience  -​ Social neuroscience : field that integrates biological and social perspectives. -​ Focuses on understanding the neural and psychological foundations of social and emotional behaviors. -​ We are bio-psycho-social organisms -​ Relating to one another is a basic need ​ -​ Relationships can be a source of stress or comfort -​ Feeling excluded = source of pain -​ Relationship with others may be the foundation of self-esteem -​ Self-determination Theory : suggests that relatedness is a core psychological need -​ 2 contradictory criticisms social psychology faces -​ Criticism 1: It's Trivial/unimportant as it documents the obvious -​ Some ppl think social psychology just states things we already know. -​ They feel it’s not offering anything new or useful​ -​ Criticism 2: It's Dangerous. They think it can be used to manipulate ppl -​ Others worry that the findings from social psychology can be used to manipulate people. -​ Is social psychology common sense ? -​ People often think social psychology is just "common sense," but the problem with common sense is that we usually think of it only after we already know the facts. -​ In other words, we say "it makes sense" after the situation happens, but we didn’t always know it before. -​ Hindsight bias : Thinking you knew that would be the outcome only after learning the outcome -​ Eg: I knew that was gonna happen! -​ Theory : an integrated set of principles to explain and predict observed events -​ Hypothesis : a testable proposition that describes the relationship that may exist between events -​ Correlation vs causation -​ Correlation does not infer causation -​ Elements of research design -​ Research design : overall plan for the study -​ Eg: correlational -​ Eg: experimental -​ Research methods : specific activities of participants (methods used) -​ Eg: questionnaire, interviews, lab or field experiments, case-studies etc -​ Correlational research design -​ Looks at association between variables ( observational study) -​ Allows prediction, does not infer causation -​ Example is survey research -​ Get random samples to obtain representative group -​ Concerns of surveys: -​ Unrepresentative Samples: Can skew results and reduce validity. -​ Order of Questions: The sequence can influence responses.  -​ Response Bias and Social Desirability: Participants may answer in a way they think is acceptable rather than truthful. -​ Wording of Questions: Poorly phrased questions can lead to misinterpretation or biased answers. -​ Pros : uses real world settings -​ Cons : correlation does not infer causation -​ Experimental Research design -​ Manipulate independent variable and see how dependent variable is affected -​ Random assignment - The great Equalizer -​ Groups are assigned randomly ( control vs treatment group) -​ Each person has equal likelihood of being put in each group -​ Creates equivalent groups -​ Can conclude observed effects are not due extraneous factors -​ Pors : explore cause and effect by controlling variables and by random assignment -​ Cons : some variables cannot be studied/manipulated -​ In such cases, they have to do observational studies -​ Ethics of experimentation -​ Social psychology experiments often operate in the ‘grey area’ between harmless and risky -​ Researchers need minimize harm and obtain informed consent -​ Generalizing from laboratory to life -​ Social psychologist use hunches gained from everyday experiences as laboratory research -​ Laboratory settings are controlled and may not reflect the actual reality