Social Psychology - Lecture Notes 1-10 PDF

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L1: HISTORY AND METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RECIPROCITY: accept a free sample or demonstration and then buy something you really didn’t need? – We are good at co-operating with each other when someone does something for you feel the desire to reciprocate. In evolutionary history if someone in small...

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L1: HISTORY AND METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RECIPROCITY: accept a free sample or demonstration and then buy something you really didn’t need? –

We are good at co-operating with each other when someone does something for you feel the desire to reciprocate. In evolutionary history if someone in small group did something for us it helped us to survive and advance.

GROUP NORMS: Do something silly or dangerous while with a group of friends, something that you never would have done while alone? MOTIVATED COGNITION: base a decision on what car or home appliance to buy after carefully studying the information in a source like Consumer Reports? –

Things that are more relevant to us are more likely to catch our attention and we will be more motivated to pay attention to the details of it.

COGNITIVE MISER: discover that a very negative first impression you had of someone was altogether wrong? –

There is so much information in the world that we have to pick and choose what we pay attention to and think about being a cognitive miser is focusing on few details about interactions from people especially if the interactions do not last long.

INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCE: write something down during a lecture simply because you saw other students doing so? SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: “the scientific study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings” –

SMITH & MACKIE: “the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others” and situations. o

SOCIAL PROCESS: The way in which our thoughts and feelings and actions are influenced by the people around us, the groups to which we belong to our personal relationships the teachings of our parents and cultures.

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COGNITIVE PROCESS: The way in which our memories, perceptions, thought, emotions and motives guide our understanding of the world and our actions.

HISTORICAL TRENDS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BECOMES AN EMPIRICAL SCIENCE Experimental study of social influence

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Mob behaviour and Plato  Wise set individuals if assembled into a crowd might be transformed into an irrational mob e.g. football fan break down gates.

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TRIPLETT (1898) When cycling in front of people he found he would cycle faster –

Brought children in lab had them wind fishing line into reel as quickly as possible with and without others watching 1

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RESULTS: when people were watching the child, they would reel faster than children who did it independently this called SOCAL FACILITATION

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The presence of other motivates us to do the task quicker when individual contributes than we actually would depending on how well you know the activity that you are doing.

RINGLEMAN, 1913 found when people worked together to pull rope or push a cart they put less effort in task than when they worked alone. –

performance reduces when people are “ lost in the crowd”

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SPLITS FROM GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY Rejection of behaviourism –

Behaviourism rejected because it is based on training people to respond to different stimulus and have different responses to different stimuli.

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These studies DID NOT take into account psychological difference, motivational difference from day to day which leads to a lot of variability in our behaviours.

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The effect of any stimulus depends on how the individuals and groups interpret it measuring peoples, beliefs, perceptions and feelings are essential to understanding behaviour.

FOCUS ON IMPORTANT SOCIETAL ISSUES Social psychology is shaped by rise of Nazism –

Desire to understand why NAZISM happened and help prevent it in the future e.g. conformity studies such Milgram study which involves a teacher and learner and they give shocks for not remembering things.

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Conditions in second world war made social psychologist search for solutions to immediate practical problems. o

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Government ask psychologists to change eat habit e.g. to eat less steak and more liver and kidneys.

Shows that people subjective views of reality is the key determinants of their beliefs and behaviours and social influences structure those interpretations and behaviours.

GROWTH AND INTEGRATION  increasing attention to social concerns –

Research dating back to 1950’s has contributed to what we know about self-esteem, prejudice and stereotyping, conformity, persuasion and attitude change. impressions formation etc…

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Social psychologists have developed reliable and repeatable findings in broader explanations of behaviour and externalising integration and increasing attention to significant social concerns.

CURRENT THEMES INTEGRATION OF COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL PROCESSES Cognitive processes (US, German, Dutch) ↔ Social behaviour (European) –

Cognitive themes such as the importance of peoples, interpretations in shaping their reactions to events gained attention on North America. This is just one side 2

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social processes (researched in Europe) including personal and group relationships and social influence effect what we do as behaviour is a function of our perceptions and our attitudes and beliefs (cognitive) as those factors are shaped by our relationships to others (social)

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Social and cognitive processes work together to mould all social behaviour providing explanations of peoples experience and behaviour.

INTEGRATION WITH OTHER RESEARCH TRENDS  more integration of social psychology with, cultural, evolutionary psychology, embodiment principles, neuroscience and many more. –

North Americans explain behaviours by referring to characteristic of the actor, however chines give explanations based on other people’s social expectations.

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Social psychology are now integrating these theories with the principles of their own science to arrive at a fuller understanding of what aspects of social behaviour are especially sensitive to context.

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Evolutionary psychology argues that humans have evolved processes for solving specific problems that have recurred over evolutionary timespans’. e.g. choosing mating partners.

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The embodiment perspective argues that peoples, thoughts judgements are deeply intertwined with sensory experiences and bodily movements rather than being based just on abstract knowledge E.g. when we perceive other facial expressions, we subtly mimic those experiences with our own face if this mimicry is blocked our emotion decreases.

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Research in neuroscience has led to the developments of insights into how brains represent and process social information.

Integration of basic science and social problems  Theories designed to provide insight into social problems, have implications for addressing social problems –

E.g., EDUCATION Jigsaw classroom  This changed the motivation for learning so students who had better educational back ground gave them the power to help other in which they worked together.

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HEALTH Social – psychological processes are playing a part in health is about how much stress we encounter form stress of daily struggles, love and acceptance in relationships. This has changed the way in which public health officials promoting exercise to fight drug issue and allowing patients to have more control over treatment.

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LAW  influenced how the police enforce laws, juries weigh evidence and societies try to distribute law.

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ENVIROMENT  changed the way in which individuals are encouraged to conserve energy or recycle used materials. Looking at how to determine ways groups can be convinced to cooperate in harvesting renewable resources instead of overexploiting and destroying them.

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BUSINESS  changed advertising and sales techniques, increased diversity in the workplace, changed ways in which an effective leader can mould diverse individuals into smoothly functioning work teams.

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FUNDAMENTAL AXIOMS CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY: Each persons view of reality is a construction, shaped both by COGNITIVE PROCESSES (the ways our mind work and by SOCIAL PROCESSES ( input from others either actually present or imagined) –

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cognitive processes operate as we piece together fragments of information and draw inferences from them and try to weave them together into a coherent whole. o

Subjective reality more influential than objective reality.

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We are good at gist gathering we tend to get bigger picture of things and not encode the details of things. e.g. image we do not attend to the tree that has gone missing in the picture.

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We construct our reality we get objective facts from reality, but we construct some of it on our own.

social process enables us to influence and be influenced by the view of others we pursue agreement about the nature of reality o

Within the group are important agreement is our standard for interpreting and responding to events. E.g. kissing is normal to westerners but Thonga (African) people were disgusted by what they saw as eating each other’s saliva and dirt

PERVASIVENESS OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE  people influence all of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour whether those ae physically present or not e.g. stopping a behaviour because of what other might think. –

Our membership to groups whether large or small provides a frame and a filter through which we view social events.

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social influence shapes our assumptions and beliefs about the world without realising it

THREE MOTIVATIONAL PRINCIPLES As we construct realities while influencing and being influenced by others they direct thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards three important goals. 1. MASTERY (= accuracy): Understanding and predicting outcomes in order to obtain rewards –

Helps us to form and hold accurate opinions beliefs about the world because accurate beliefs can guide us to effective and satisfying actions.

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Our desire for long term rewards helps us to seek way to enhance skills and knowledge and to improve ourselves in other ways.

2. CONNECTEDNESS (= belonging): Seek support, liking, and acceptance from individuals and groups they care about a value –

E.g. for member is groups in bitter conflict such as Israelis and Palestine’s actions that benefit their group is more important than civil peace and to end the conflict  conforming to group standards fulfils a need for belonging and connectedness.

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3. IDENTITY AND OWNERSHIP (= self-esteem): Seeing oneself other people connected to us and ones group in a positive light. –

Our biased view for those who are connected to us of then explain why members of different groups see the same events in different ways.

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e.g. arsenal vs man united a fan may view broken leg of player as an accident whereas a Man U fan will se it as a vicious tackle. here fans are emphasising positive characters of their own team.

THREE PROCESSING PRINCIPLES Three principles that govern cognitive and social processes, that operate as we construct a picture of reality, influence other people and are influenced by them 1. CONSERVATISM: Established views are slow to change and prone to perpetuate themselves –

E.g. Impression we from of job applicant at first view

2. ACCESSIBILITY: Readily available information has the strongest impact on thought feelings and behaviour –

What come to mind is what we are already thinking.

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We base our judgments on information that is most easily noticed and interpreted e.g. hearing booing when someone is singing means they cannot sing

3. SUPERFICIALITY VERSUS DEPTH: People put little effort into processing information but at times are more motivated to consider information in more depth. –

when we notice events fail to match our expectations or when our important goals are threatened we take time to process information more extensively.

Cognitive miser  motivated tactician Basic principles The two fundamental axioms link to the individual person to the social world. each person constructs his or hers owns picture of social reality which then guides all thoughts feeling and behaviours. At the same time the pervasiveness of social influence also affect the persons thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Three motivational principles and three processing principles determine both the nature of constructed reality and the nature of social influence.

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ASKING AND ANSWERING RESEARCH QUESTIONS What is a scientific theory? SCIENTIFC THEORY: A statement that satisfies three requirements. It is about constructs; it describes casual relationships and it is general in scope although the range of generality differs for different theories. Three requirements: 1. THEORIES ARE STATEMENTS ABOUT CONSTRUCTS: construct validity –

CONSTRUCTS: are abstract (e.g. anxiety) and general concepts that are used in theories and that are not directly observable.

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E.g. “The knowledge of other’s attitudes” and the “evaluation of one’s own attitudes” are two constructs that feature in the social comparison theory, each construct is abstract in that it cannot be directly observed.

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Researchers have to be sure the specific observations they make in their studies are relevant to constructs e.g. studying social comparison “affect adjustment to illness” must have some way to measure “adjustment”.

2. THEORIES DESCRIBE CAUSAL RELATIONS: internal validity –

Theirs describe causal relationships among constructs stating that a change in one construct (the cause) leads to change in the other (the effect).

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If we know that one state causes another we can take steps called INTERVENTIONS to change behaviour or solve problems.

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Researchers have to be sure they know all causes of any change in behaviour e.g. cancer patient adjustment is due to comparison they make rather than to some other extraneous cause.

3. THEORIES ARE GENERAL IN SCOPE: external validity –

Theories are intended to be in general scope applying to many people in different settings and times

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They range of applicability may vary from one theory to another. E.g. Social comparison theory intended to be broadly applicable about how all people evaluate many aspects of their life. However, reaction to the comparison may different in different cultures.

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The more general applicable a theory is the more useful it is because it will hold for may different kinds of people, in different situations at different times

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Researchers have to be sure that they have learnt something about people in general not just the individuals, E.g. effect of social comparison would be valuable f they held for many types of people not just for patients hospitalised.

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EVALUATING THEORIES CONSTRUCT VALIDITY: the extent to which the independent and dependent variables used in research correspond to the theoretical constructs under investigation Threats to construct validity: 

SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIAS: People tendency to act in ways that they believe other find acceptable and approve of. –

This means results are not a true reflection of the construct we are trying to measure.

Ensuring construct validity:  Using multiple measures  the best way to do research is do multiple types of observations e.g. self-esteem through observational measures, performance measures, physiological measures (EEG, fMRI), self- report etc... o

The more measures you have a the better you have confidence in that contrast because you are showing self- esteem through multiple measures so show that the construct is adequality measured.

 Researchers must choose the right measurements as an effective way of assessing constructs. INTERNAL VALIDITY: The extent to which it can be concluded that changes in the independent variable actually caused changes in the dependent variable in a research study. –

Whether or not conclusions can be drawn depends upon the REASERCH DESIGN: a plan that specifies how research participants will be selected and treated

Threats to internal validity 

Factors other than changes in the dependent variable may be present and may be causing the observed changes in the dependent variable

Ensuring internal validity  Doing EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS that two things 1= RANDOMLY ASSIGNED which gives every participant in the experiment the same chance of ending up in any given experimental group (getting rid of personality/ history differences) –

2= The researcher MANIPULATES or intentionally varies the independent variable so that participants in different group are exposed to a different treatment.

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Good manipulations must cause changes in the desired theoretical construct but not in other intended constructs.

EXTERNAL VALIDITY: Results can be generalised to other appropriate people, times and setting. Threats to external validity

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Type of Research participants using people who are unrepresentative to whom the theory is intended to apply to.

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Culture differences both content and process differ for different cultures westernised societies like to think of themselves as separate from other people and to define themselves in terms of uniqueness which is INDIVIDUALIST CULTURE. –

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In japan they have COLLECTIVIST CULTURE where people tend to think of themselves as linked to others and they define themselves in terms of relationship to others.

Laboratory research  participants pay much more attention to information in the lab than they would in any other context. –

short time span in lab studies is an artificial quality of manipulations and measures

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DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS: cues in the research environment ta lead to the participant to make inferences about what researchers expect or desire and that therefore bias how the participants acts. This also affects construct validity

Ensuring external validity  If the goal is to generalise some specific target population and setting the participants and setting must be representative of the target.  If the goal is to generalise arcos people, places and times the best way to do so is to repeat the research in multiple settings and with multiple populations including people from different cultures. THE INFERENTIAL CHAIN To test a theory, researchers must follow a logical chain for the theory to be supported with CONFIDENCE it must have: 1. HIGH CONSTRUCT VALIDTY 2. STRONG INTERNAL VALIDTY 3. GOOD EXTERNAL VALIDTY Any weak links will break the inferential chain.

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L2: PERCEIVING INDIVIDUALS LO’s 

Explain whether we use multiple cues when forming impressions (i.e., raw material of impressions).

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Explain the process of impression formation.

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Determine whether and how the processing principles of conservatism and accessibility influence impression formation.

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