Social Psychology EXAM Notes PDF

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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY EXAM NOTES LECTURE ONE: INTRODUCTION, METHODS AND PARADIGMS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY  the study of social processes  how the presence of others affects the way we think, feel and behave  Social situations can be real or imagined  based on the individual and how they are influenced in social situations GOAL: Explaining and predicting behaviour

SAMPLE SOCIAL PSYCH QUESTION:  How are people influenced by the presence of others?  How do people explain the behaviors of others? How do people make sense of their own behavior?

COMPARING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES: Social psychology Focuses on how social situations can influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of an individual Personality psychology  Focuses on how differences between individuals influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors Sociology  Focuses on behavior of communities and groups, not individuals

POWER OF THE SITUATION:  Situations can often determine behavior despite individual differences Milgram’s study of obedience Experimental set-up: Experiment described as a study of learning Participants instructed to shock another participant for any wrong answers The other participant is a confederate who never receives any real shocks Shock level increased for each wrong answer: levels ranged from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 volts (danger: severe shock) During the experiment, the confederate begins to scream in pain and demand that the experiment end and later, the confederate stops making any sounds, indicating he may be possibly injured or dead The experimenter, wearing a white lab coat, instructs the participant to continue with the experiment Percentage of participants that shocked the confederate to the end: estimate: 1% however actual: over 50% shocked until severe shock and this held true for women, men, people of different ages, different social statues (AKA SITUATION HAS HUGE INFLUENCE) possibly the estimated who would enjoy it, no one enjoyed shocking people but for many reasons they felt they couldn’t disobey the experimenter’s orders Seminarians as Samaritans No help when in a hurry: In one experiment (Darley & Batson, 1973), almost 90 percent of seminary students didn’t provide help to someone in need when they were in a rush But over 60 percent did help when they were not in a rush Fundamental Attribution Error  Tendency to overestimate the role of personality and to underestimate the role of situations when explaining other people’s behavior Channel Factors: Small situational factors can have large influences on behavior by guiding behavior in a particular direction  Often the influences of situational factors aren’t fully recognized

ex. Airport toilets (bathroom designer) – if you use urinals there is backsplash meaning more mess; there was a fly painted on the urinal WHY?? When you see fly your instinct is to spray it which will minimize splash back The Role of Construals  Construal: Interpretation and inferences made about a stimulus or situation  Interpretation is an active process: Interpretations are subjective, not objective - Interpretations may misrepresent the truth we encounter the world with how we interpret it to be  Construals can govern behavior: how we interpret a situation will influence how we act in that situation People are more likely to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma game when the game is presented as a “community game” than as a “Wall Street game” help idk this

Schemas  General knowledge about the physical and social world  Includes expectations about how to behave in different situations  Schemas influence behavior and judgment - Prior expectations influence construals Example: labels like “Estate Tax” vs. “Death Tax” can influence opinions brings in schemas about estate (only for rich) and death (scary) much more likely to agree with estate tax Example: STERETYPES: Schemas about specific social groups Stereotypes can influence interactions with different social groups (i.e. race, gender but also just different groups of people aka UTSC or UTM vs St George Campus)  Stereotypes can make social interactions more efficient - People believe they know what to expect KBut stereotypes may be applied incorrectly  Applied to the wrong individuals or given too much influence on judgments Social information may be processed in two different ways: AUTOMATIC VS CONTROLLED PROCESSING Automatic processing: Automatic, involuntary, and unconscious and often based on emotional responses (ex. Stereotypes) Controlled processing: Conscious, systematic, and deliberate and controlled processing can override automatic responses (ex. Long division; takes mental effort, typically goes step by step that follows rules) “Common Sense”  Situation-specific rules of thumb for navigating the social world - Very useful as guide for how to act in specific situations - Generally poor guide to predicting how others will act (especially if they are different from you) Often contradictory - “Birds of a feather flock together” vs. “Opposites attract” - “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” vs. “Out of sight, out of mind” Golden Gate Bridge515 people stopped and only 5% eventually killed themselves

Hindsight Bias ”I could have told you that” – things that seem entirely unpredictable in prospect seem inevitable in retrospect Social Psychology Methods How do Social Psychologists Test Ideas? Hypothesis: a quantifiable prediction about what will happen under certain circumstances Theory: A body of related propositions intended to describe some aspect of the world Observational Research: Involves observing participants in social situations Attempts to systematically observe behaviors Behaviors may be recorded and categorized: May involve additional measures like interviews and questionnaires Archival research: Involves analyzing social behaviors documented in past records Newspapers, police reports, hospital records, social media posts, etc. Surveys Involve asking participants questions, usually through an interview or a questionnaire Important to consider the number and type of people surveyed - Survey results may be limited if the sample is biased - Surveys can accurately represent a population from a relatively small sample if the sample is unbiased Randomly choosing people from a population will create an unbiased sample (equal chance of participation) Correlational research: Research that examines the relationship between variables without assigning participants to different situations or conditions Third Variable Problem External variables can explain correlations; A correlation between two variables may actually be caused by a third variable Self-Selection Researchers have no control over characteristics, choices, and behaviors of the participants - The participants, not the researchers, determine the levels of the variable being studied Causal Inferences: Experimental Research Research that involves assigning participants to different situations or conditions - Participants should be randomly assigned to different conditions - Experiments allow for causal inferences about how different conditions influence behaviour - Conditions are controlled or manipulated by the researcher - Behaviors are systematically measured - Comparisons of how different manipulations affect behavior allow researchers to determine causal influences of behavior Independent Variable: variable that is manipulated by the research and it is hypothesized to cause changes in the dependent variables Dependent Variable: variable that is measured; often a change in behaviour, feelings or evaluation Control Condition: a condition identical to the experimental condition except for the IV (Independent variable) External Validity: experimental results can generalize to real-life situations because the experimental set-up resembled a real-life situation Internal Validity: confidence that the experimental results were being caused by manipulated variables Internal and external validity are often inversely related: The more closely a situation resembles real- life (external validity), the more difficult it is to tightly control the situation (internal validity)

Reliability: How consistently a test will measure the variable of interest - If you took the same test twice, would it give you the same score? Measurement Validity: The degree that a test accurately measures the variable of interest - For instance, do IQ tests actually measure what people think of as intelligence? Statistical Significance: Measure of the probability that a given result would have occurred if there were no “real” relationship in the population - Results that have a low probability of occurring if there is no real relationship are considered statistically significant Basic research: Concerned with trying to gain knowledge in its own right - Aim is to gain greater understanding of a phenomenon Applied research: Concerned with using current understanding of a phenomenon in order to solve a real-world problem Ethical Concerns in Social Psychology Research Ethics Board (REB) - Research must be approved by the REB; examines all research protocols to determine if it is ethically appropriate Ethical Considerations: Informed consent - Participants should have sufficient information about the procedures to appropriately judge whether they want to participate Deception - Deception may be used in research if properly justified - Participants may be misled to prevent them from guessing the purpose of the study LECTURE TWO: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF AND OTHERS WHAT IS THE SELF? The Social Self The Principles of Psychology (1890): Individual self: beliefs about our unique personal traits, abilities, preferences, tastes, talents, and so forth Relational self: beliefs about our identities in specific relationships Collective self: beliefs about our identities as members of social groups to which we belong Situationism and the Self  Aspects of the self may change depending on the situation Working Self-Concept: Subset of self-knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context Distinctiveness: We highlight aspects of the self that make us feel most unique in a given context - For instance, age seems more important to self- definition if you are surrounded by much older people

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average or not? How many of those statements highlighted the unusual characteristics And they were more likely to say it if it was not the context they were in

Social context: Sense of self may shift dramatically depending on with whom we are interacting - For instance, may feel different about the self when interacting with authority figures than when interacting with subordinates (i.e. friends, parents, professionals) Culture and the Social Self  POLL A example: Independent view of self: Self seen as a distinct, autonomous entity, separate from others and defined by individual traits and preferences  Independent views of self - more prominent in North American and Western European cultures (Individualistic cultures) POLL B example: Interdependent view of self: Self seen as connected to others, defined by social duties and shared traits and preferences  Interdependent views of self - more prominent in many East Asian, South Asian, Mediterranean, Latin American, and African cultures (Collectivistic cultures) Gender and the Social Self  Across cultures, men generally have more independent and women have more interdependent views of self - Women likely to refer to relationships when describing self - Women more attuned to external social cues whereas as men more attuned to their internal responses Differences may be due to socialization: Cultural stereotypes, parental feedback, educational treatment Evolution may contribute to gender differences Self-Esteem  The positive or negative overall evaluation that each person has of himself or herself Measuring Self-Esteem: Rosenberg Self Esteem (RSE) - On the whole, I am satisfied with myself. - I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others. - All in all, I am inclined to feel I am a failure. (R) Contingencies of self-worth: An account of self-esteem that maintains that self-esteem is contingent on successes and failures in domains on which a person has based his or her self-worth Social Acceptance and Self-Esteem  Sociometer hypothesis: More specific than general contingencies of self-worth account Self-esteem is an internal, subjective index or marker of the extent to which a person is included or looked on favorably by others Culture and Self-Esteem  Members of individualistic cultures tend to report higher levels of self-esteem than members of collectivistic cultures  Feeling good about the self as an individual is more valued in Western cultures Members of collectivistic cultures place more value on self-improvement Less emphasis on feeling good about the self and more emphasis on feeling good about one’s contribution to collective goals

Contact with other cultures can influence views of the self - For instance, Asians with greater contact with Western cultures report higher levels of self- esteem than those with less contact Dangers of High Self-Esteem Inflated self-esteem can be counterproductive - Many psychopaths, murderers, rapists, and violent gang members have very high self- esteem - High self-esteem may allow individuals to be satisfied with the self despite poor life outcomes People with high self-esteem can be more sensitive to threats, insults, and challenges - If high self-esteem is unwarranted, these can make the person feel insecure - Those people react more aggressively when self-esteem is threatened When do we compare?  Social comparison theory: The hypothesis that we evaluate ourselves through comparisons to others - Downward social comparisons can boost self- esteem by making us feel better about the self - Upward social comparisons can motivate self- improvement Self Enhancement  Benefits of positive illusions - Elevate positive mood and reduce negative mood - Foster social bonds by making people more outgoing - Promote pursuit of and persistence at goals Cultural and Positive Illusions  Positive illusions about the self are more common in individualistic cultures - Members of collectivistic cultures are less likely to report enhanced feelings of control, less likely to rate themselves as better than average, and less likely to be unrealistically optimistic Individualistic cultures place greater value on positive views of the self than collectivistic cultures - Positive illusions promote feelings that the self is unique, independent, and good The “Outward” Self: Self-Presentation  - Presenting the person that we would like others to believe we are ¤Impression management Public face: Awareness of what others think of us Private face: Awareness of our own internal feelings, thoughts, and preferences Self-monitoring  - The tendency to monitor and scrutinize one’s behaviors when in a public situation - High self-monitors try to fit their behavior to the situation, but low self-monitors are more likely to behave according to their internal preferences Protecting Other’s Face  May strategically communicate in ways to preserve the public faces of ourselves and others On-record communication - Direct, honest language meant to be taken literally - Did you like the movie? Actually, I didn’t think it was very good. Off-record communication - Indirect and ambiguous language that hints at ideas and meaning without explicitly stating them - Did you like the movie? Umm—it was very interesting. Behaviors like flirting and teasing are examples of off-record communication and we want the other person to infer meanings from what we say without saying it directly

SOCIAL ATTRIBUTION: EXPLAINING BEHAVIOUR Explaining Events  Attribution theory: General term for theories about how people explain the causes of events they observe Inferring the Causes of Behaviour: Causal Attribution  Explanation for the cause of your or another person’s behaviour Other’s Behaviour: The Importance of causal attributions: the type of attribution made will influence how you respond to a situation Internal Attribution: Behaviour is explained by aspects of the person External Attribution: Behaviour is explained by aspects of the situation Your Own Behaviour  Explanatory style: - A person’s habitual way of explaining events Explanatory dimensions: - Internal versus external: Degree that cause is linked to the self or to the external situation - Stable versus unstable Degree that the cause is seen as fixed or as something that is temporary - Global versus specific: Degree that the cause is seen as affecting other domains in life or is restricted to affecting one specific domain Pessimistic attribution style: Internal, stable, global attributions habitually made for negative events - It’s my fault - I’m never going to be able to, - I’m no good at anything Pessimistic attribution styles predict lower grades and poorer physical health later in life The Processes of Causal Attribution  Covariation principle: Behavioral attributions are made by weighing information about the potential causes of the behavior - Perceiver as “lay scientist”: we are trying to make attributions and we are trying to come up with an accurate unbiased story to why things happen; we are trying to reason about the world; when we are trying to explain an outcome we weigh different things that may have been the cause Augmentation and Discounting Prior knowledge about the world allows us to infer the likely cause of a behavior Discounting principle - Principle that less weight should be given to a particular cause of behavior if there are other alternative causes present Augmentation principle - Principle that more weight should be given to a particular cause of behavior if the other causes present would have produced an opposite result Make more inferences about people when they act in ways that are unexpected for the situation

Self- Evaluation and Imagined Alternatives Counterfactual thinking - Thoughts of what might have been, could have been, or should have been if only something had been done differently Imagining Alternatives  Emotional amplification - Emotional reactions to counterfactual thoughts increase depending on how easy it is to imagine the alternative - Feel more personally responsible for failure depending on how easy it is to imagine the alternative Errors and Biases in Attribution  Self-serving bias (own behavior): Tendency to attribute failures to external causes & success to internal causes - For instance, students may attribute bad marks to poor teaching & good marks to talent and hard work - Self-serving biases can boost and maintain positive self-esteem Fundamental attribution error (others’ behavior): Tendency to believe that a behavior is due to a person’s traits or disposition despite the situational causes present Causes of the Fundamental Attribution Error Motivation to believe in a just world - Motivated to believe that people get what they deserve in life Perceptional salience - Often attribute things to what appears to be most obvious cause Automatic and controlled cognitive processing - Dispositional attributions are often made automatically AND Situational attributions require more cognitive thought after weighing information about the context interpret behaviour in relation to the context BUT we see behaviour and we automatically make assumptions because we insufficiently adjust for the context

Actor-Observer Differences  - The actor explains behavior as due to the situation - The observer explains behavior as due to dispositional qualities of the actor Causes of actor-observer differences: - Perceptual salience - Lack of information about the intentions and past behaviors of the actor Culture and Causal Attributions The fundamental attribution error is less prevalent in collectivistic cultures - Individualists more likely to attribute behaviors to dispositions - Collectivists more likely to attribute behaviors to the situation Differences in attributions between some American subcultures

LECTURE THREE: HEURISTICS AND BIASES Deciding Well: Decisions are easier when we...