Psychology Presentation PDF

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? DEFINITIONS # DISTRIBUTION OF DEGREES TO SUBFIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY # WORK SETTINGS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS # GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY # DESCRIBING WHAT HAPPENS # EXPLAINING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # PREDICTING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # CONTROLLING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # PERSPECTIVES ON...

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? DEFINITIONS # DISTRIBUTION OF DEGREES TO SUBFIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY # WORK SETTINGS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS # GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY # DESCRIBING WHAT HAPPENS # EXPLAINING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # PREDICTING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # CONTROLLING WHAT WILL HAPPEN # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY I # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY II # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY III # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY IV # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY V # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY VI # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY VII # PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY VIII # WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? WHEN PROPHECY FAILS Dorothy Martin, a Chicago homemaker who claimed to receive telepathic messages from the alien planet Clarion warned that the Earth would end on December 21, 1954. Led by Martin, a group of followers gave up their possessions, jobs, and family ties to follow Martin, who told her group that ‘true believers’ in the aliens’ warning would be evacuated from Earth a few hours before the end via flying saucer. (When Prophecy Fails, Festinger, Riecken & Schacter, 1956) # WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? • Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people. • Social psychologists differ by: - developing explanations through experiments - carefully manipulating the variables being studied # SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY VS. OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES • Difference in level of analysis: Other social sciences: - concerned with how broad social, economic, political, and historical factors influence events in a given society Social psychologist: - the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation # SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: AN EXPERIMENTALLY-BASED SCIENCE • Goal: Find objective answers to important questions - What are the factors that cause aggression? - How might we reduce prejudice? - What variables cause two people to like or love each other? - Why do certain kinds of political advertisements work better than others? # SOCIAL SITUATION AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE •Social psychologists explain social behavior in terms of the power of the social situation to shape how one acts. •Aspects of the social situation that may seem minor can have powerful effects •Social influence # RESEARCH METHODS SCIENTIFIC METHOD • Develop theories • Derive hypotheses from theory, personal experience, current events, and literature • Test hypotheses • Based on the results, revise theory • Formulate and test new hypotheses # RESEARCH METHODS • Observational - Goal: Description • Correlational - Goal: Prediction • Experimental - Goal: Answer causal questions # OBSERVATIONAL METHOD • Researcher observes people and systematically records measurements of impressions of their behavior. • It is used to describe behavior • Interjudge reliability • Ethnography • Archival Analysis # OBSERVATIONAL METHOD -EXAMPLE Research Question: How much aggression do children exhibit during school recesses? # LIMITS OF OBSERVATIONAL METHOD • Certain behaviors difficult to observe • Archival analysis is limited by the content of the original material • Does not allow prediction and explanation # CORRELATIONAL METHOD I • Two or more variables are systematically measured and the relation between them is assessed. • Is used to predict behavior • The Correlation Coefficient • Positive Correlation – Change in the same direction • Negative Correlation – Change in opposite directions # CORRELATIONAL METHOD II • Surveys: • Representative sample of people asked about attitudes or behavior • Correlations computed using responses to questions • Random Selection # SURVEYS – ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND LIMITS • Advantages: • Investigate observe relations between variables difficult to • Sample representative segments of population • Disadvantages: • «telling more than you can know» • Limits: • Correlation ≠ causation # CORRELATIONAL METHOD - EXAMPLE Research Question: What is the relation between the amount of violent television children watch and how aggressive they are? # CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION • Three possible causal relations when a correlation is found (e.g., TV violence and aggression are correlated): 1. TV violence causes viewer to become violent. 2. Aggressive kids are more likely to watch violent TV. 3. Correlation is caused by something else (e.g., parental neglect). # EXPERIMENTAL METHOD • Researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions, conditions are identical except for the independent variable. • Is used to answer causal questions • Independent Variable (IV): What manipulate to see if it has a causal effect researchers • Dependent Variable (DV): measure to see if it is affected researchers What • Limitations: Artificial, distant from real life # EXPERIMENTAL METHOD - EXAMPLE LATANÉ AND DARLEY (1968) # EXAMPLE I A researcher is interested in the relationship between caffeine consumption and level of stress. S/he has participants keep a diary for one week during which they count the number of cups of coffee, tea, and cola-based soft drinks they consume, as well as recording consumption of chocolate and medications that have caffeine as an ingredient. In addition, participants complete a measure of “daily hassles” experienced during the week. # EXAMPLE II A pair of psychologists is interested in the effects of mood on helping (based on Isen & Levin, 1972). They give participants free tickets to a feel good movie. They then have a confederate drop papers in front of people who just got out of the movie and people who are just walking by who have not just seen a happy movie for free. The researchers watch to see if the participants help pick up the dropped papers. # ETHICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY • Experiments must avoid causing participants unnecessary stress, discomfort, unpleasantness • Informed Consent • Deception • Debriefing # SOCIAL COGNITION SOCIAL COGNITION III • How people think about themselves and the social world • How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions • Modes of Social Cognition: 1. Controlled Thinking: Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful. 2. Automatic Thinking # STROOP TEST # AUTOMATIC THINKING • Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless. • We engage in an automatic analysis of our environments based on past experiences and knowledge of the world. # # SCHEMAS • Mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects. • Functions of Schemas: • Organizing what we know • Interpreting new situations • Helping “fill in the blanks” when trying to remember • Remembering other information that was never there • Stereotypes: A generalized belief about a group of people. # ACCESSIBILITY • The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people’s minds and are therefore likely to be used when we are making judgments about the social world. • Priming: The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. # PRIMING- EXPERIMENT - Experiment (Higgins, Rholes & Jones, 1977): - Memorizing words like adventurous – positive - Memorizing words like reckless and stubborn – negative # THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY • The case whereby people have an expectation about what another person is like, which -Influences how they act toward that person, which; -Causes that person to behave consistently with people’s original expectations # THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY ROSENTHAL & JACOBSON, 1968 # CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SCHEMAS EXPERIMENT Experiment (Masuda & Nisbett, 2006) # CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF SCHEMAS • Analytic Thinking Style: - Focusing on objects without considering surrounding - Associated with Western cultures • Holistic Thinking Style: - Focusing on the overall context, relation between objects - Associated with Eastern cultures • Eastern and Western Cultures: - Are equally capable of using both styles - Environment “primes” one style over the other # SOCIAL PERCEPTION SOCIAL PERCEPTION • The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people. • Thinking about people and their behavior helps us to understand and predict our social world. # NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR • Nonverbal Communication: The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words. • Nonverbal Cues: • Facial expressions • Tone of voice • Gestures • Body position/movement • The use of touch • Gaze # FUNCTIONS OF NONVERBAL CUES • Express emotion • Convey an attitude • Communicate your personality • Can contradict spoken words • Can substitute for verbal message # # FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION • Six major emotional expressions are universal. - Anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness • Other emotions show less universality across cultures and they are closely tied to social interaction # DECODING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION • Three reasons decoding can be complicated: - Affect blends occur when one part of the face displays one emotion and another part, a different emotion. - People may try to mask emotions. - Culture # CULTURE AND NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION • Differences Across Cultures: • Display Rules: They dictate what kinds of emotional expressions people are supposed to show • Display of Emotion • Negative facial expression • Gaze • Personal Space # CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION • Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958) addresses how we infer the causes of other people’s behavior. • Two Types of Attributions: - Internal (Dispositional) Attribution - External (Situational) Attribution # NATURE OF THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS • Good Friends: • Positive behaviors: • Internal attributions “She helped me because she’s such a generous person.” • Negative behaviors • External attributions “He said something mean because he’s so stressed at work this week.” • Friends in Conflict: • Positive behaviors: • External attributions “She helped me because she wanted to impress our friends.” • Negative behaviors: • Internal Attributions: “He said something mean because he’s totally self-centered.” # SELF-SERVING AND DEFENSIVE ATTRIBUTIONS • Self-Serving Attributions: Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors. • Defensive Attributions: Explanations for our behavior that help us avoid feelings of vulnerability or mortality. - Belief In a Just World: The assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get # CULTURAL DIFFERENCES REGARDING ATTRIBUTIONS • Members of individualistic cultures - prefer dispositional attributions - are more likely to do self-serving attributions • Members of collectivistic cultures - prefer situational explanations • «Belief in a just world» is more prevalent in cultures with extreme differences in wealth # THE SELF & COGNITIVE DISSONANCE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN DEFINING THE SELF I • The Self - Independent - Interdependent • Not all Westerners are independent. • Not all Easterners are interdependent. • Within cultures, there are differences in the self-concept. # CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN DEFINING THE SELF II • Independent View Of The Self: A way of defining oneself in terms of one’s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people. • Interdependent View Of The Self: A way of defining oneself in terms of one’s relationships to other people; recognizing that one’s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others. # INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION I • Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures. • Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to engage in an activity because of external reasons, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting. # THE EFFECTS OF A REWARD PROGRAMME # INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION II • Task-contingent Rewards: Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done. • Performance-contingent Rewards: Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task. # SELF-ESTEEM • Self-Esteem: Overall evaluation (positive or negative) that people have of themselves • High Self-Esteem: - Protective function - Motivational function # THE THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (FESTINGER, 1957) • Threats to dissonance self-image induces powerful, upsetting • The ways to reduce dissonance: 1.Change behavior 2.Justify behavior by changing one of the dissonant cognitions 3.Justify behavior by adding new cognitions # EXPERIMENT I - FESTINGER AND CARLSMITH (1958) • Cover story The effect of “interest instructions” on performance on a boring task • Independent Variable = $ for telling a lie $ 20.00 large external justification → “sufficient” $ 1.00, small external justification → “insufficient” control no $, no lie • Dependent Variable = Enjoyment of the task # EXPERIMENT II - FESTINGER AND CARLSMITH (1958) • Students paid $20 for saying that the tasks had been enjoyable - Rated the task as dull and boring - $20 was sufficient external justification for lying - $20 reduced dissonance between positive view of self (honest person) & behavior (lying) • Students paid only $1 for saying the boring task was fun - Rated the task as significantly more enjoyable - External justification was insufficient - Reduced dissonance via internal justification - Changed attitude about task # MINDSETS • Fixed Mindset: Idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change • Growth Mindset: Idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that we can cultivate and grow # SOCIAL COMPARISON • Social Comparison Theory: The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people. • Upward Social Comparison: Comparing to people who are better on a particular trait or ability. • Downward Social Comparison: Comparing to people who are worse on a particular trait or ability. #