Social Psychology Lecture Notes - PDF

Okay, here is the information from the image converted into a structured markdown format: ### Social Psychology * Social psychology - scientific study of the way ppl's thoughts, feelings, + behaviors are influenced by real/imagined presence of others. * Social influence - the effect that words...

Okay, here is the information from the image converted into a structured markdown format: ### Social Psychology * Social psychology - scientific study of the way ppl's thoughts, feelings, + behaviors are influenced by real/imagined presence of others. * Social influence - the effect that words, actions, or mere presence of others have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior. * Fundamental attribution error - tendency to explain our own + other's behavior in terms of personality characteristics rather than individual, unique + different from another or of social info: immediate situation. * **Personality vs. social psych:** study of characteristics that make individuals unique and different from one another. * Sociology: study of groups, organizations + societies, rather than individual. * Philosophy: instigators of human nature. * evolutionary : expl how diff species acquire traits (evolved genetic factors) * Neuroscience/Bio: analyze genes, hormones / physiological processes of the brain. * **Construal** - the way in which ppl perceive, comprehend, & interpret the social world. * Measurement - a theory is developed; specific hypotheses are derived from that theory and are tested. * Independent Variable - variable a researcher changes or varies. * Dependent Variable - variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the IV. * Research methods: * Observational: researcher observes ppl & records measurements/impressions of their behavior * Correlational: 2 variables are measured(systematically measured) & the relationship between them. * Experimental: researcher systematically orchestrates the event so that ppl experience it one way or another. * Ethnography: researcher attempts to understand a group/culture by observing from the inside, w/o imposing preconceived notions they might have. * Archival analysis: researcher examines accumulated documents or archives of a culture. * Self-fulfilling prophecy - ppl have an expectation about what another person, their like, influences how they act toward that person, which causes that person to behave consistently w/ people's expectations. * **Heuristics : Base Rate Info:** * Judgmental heuristics - mental shortcuts ppl use to make judgements quickly/ efficiently. * Availability heuristic - mental rule of thumb where people base a judgement on the ease which they can bring something to mind. * Representative Heuristic - mental shortcut where ppl classify something according to how similar it is typical case. * Base rate info - info about frequency of members of different categories in the population. * "Barnum effect: avg ratings" * Social perception: study of how we form impressions of & make inferences about other people. * Attribution theory: study of how we infer the causes of other people's behavior ### Important Info from Lecture! * Goal of social psych is to find objective answers to questions. * Social cognition - study of how ppl select, interpret, remember, & use info to make judgements & decisions. * How ppl communicate intentionally/unintentionally w/o words! (Nonverbal communication). * Culture is the channel of verbal communications. * Display rules - culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display. * Encode: to express/emit nonverbal behavior ( smiling) * Decode: to interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other ppl express. * Emblems: nonverbal gestures that have clear, well-understood definitions.