CHAPTER 1:
Introduction to social psychology:
- Social psychology encompasses multiple different areas of focus
- Social psychology explores how people's behaviour differs due to the presence of others,
whether that presence be imagined or real or implied.
- Behaviour thoughts and feelings are affected by those around us.
- Behaviour can be observed and measured. Understanding feelings, beliefs, intentions and
goals despite not being observable they can be predicted by behaviour
- Social psychology unit of analysis is the individual person within the group.
- Gordon Allport gives social psychology its definition
- No theory on human behaviour is considered true, the validity of the theory is based on
how well it corresponds with facts or evidence. Construct theory from data or previous
theories and then conduct an experiment to gather empirical data to prove the theory.
Know the scientific method
- Important feature is replication (guards against fraud)
- Experimental or non-experimental methods.
- Kurt Lewin = father of experimental social psychology (study of group processes)
- Floyd Allport – for social psychology to flourish, it would need to become an
experimental science.
Experimental method:
- Something is done to see its effect on something else.
- Casual experiments are how we learn about our world.
- Every person is an amateur social psychologist, engaging in casual experimentation to
see whether our hypotheses are correct.
- Research manipulates independent variables to measure the effect on dependent
variables. Independent variables also known as predictor variables and dependent
variables are also known as outcome variable.
- To conduct experiment – experimental group (exposed to independent variable) or
control group
- There may be more than one experimental group in conducting the experiment
- Important to eliminate confounding – some other variable may influence the outcome. It
is thus important to ensure the conditions are exactly the same before beginning the
experiment.
- Experiments have high internal validity but low external validity. Causal relationships.
Fewer confounds.
, - Laboratory experiments – intensely artificial nature and susceptibility to particular biases.
Highly controlled. Cannot be generalised to the less artificial conditions in the real world.
High internal validity but low external validity. Not realistic representations of real
world. Prone to range of biases: demand characteristics (tend to demand a particular
response, allow participants to know how they are supposed to respond) evaluation
apprehension (aware that their performance is being monitored, may influence their
behaviour) social desirability (participant might want to act in a way that they think
makes them appear more socially desirable) experimenter effects (experimenter is aware
of hypothesis, they may inadvertently give cues to the participants so that they know how
they are meant to respond. May be controlled by a double blind procedure – experimenter
and participant is unaware of which condition they are being exposed to.
- Field experiments – observation of behaviour as it occurs. Observer is not involved in
participation. They are basically invisible. High external validity. Participants are usually
unaware that an experiment is taking place. More natural behaviour. Less control and
variables that the experimenter has not anticipated. Random assignment is difficult
meaning participants may not be matched across conditions. Can be difficult to obtain
exact measurements. Greater external validity but lower internal validty.
- Non-experimental methods – examination of correlation between naturally occurring
variables. Not permitting causal conclusions. Correlational. More confounds.
o Archival research: to make comparisons between different groups/cultures.
Shortcoming – researcher has no control over primary date collection
o Case study: in depth analysis of a particular case
o Focus group interviews: gain perspective of a particular phenomenon by
participants who are most likely to represent the group being researched. May rely
on discourse analysis (what people say to whom in which context, what they may
be thinking)
o Survey research: structured interviews, or a questionnaire. Questions can be open
ended or closed questions.
- Research ethics: focus on protecting rights of participants
o Protection from harm – psychological harm must be minimised – must be backed
sufficiently, physical harm is prohibited.
o Right to privacy – participants should remain anonymous. Data that is no longer
useful should be destroyed.
o Informed consent – participants should freely give consent preferably in writing.
Must be able to withdraw whenever they wish. Cannot make it difficult to say no
or to back out
o Deception – certain degree of deception is necessary, requires substantial
motivation on behalf of researcher to motivate necessity
o Debriefing – designed to make sure participants are fully aware of how their data
will be used, deception will be explained.
CHAPTER 2:
,Social cognition and social knowledge
- How we perceive the social world around us. Importance of social cognition in allowing
us to make sense of the social world.
- Thought occupies a pivotal role in social psychology
- Thought and cognition – subtle differences
o Thought: internal language and symbols we use to understand the world around us
o Cognition: Largely automatic mental processing
- Social cognition – how cognition is affected by larger and more immediate social
contexts and how cognition affects our behaviour. Intersection between social
psychology and cognitive psychology.
- 1960s – cognitive consistency model: people are uncomfortable in cognitive
inconsistencies. people are motivated to reduce discrepancies between their cognitions.
People are remarkably tolerant of cognitive inconsistency
- 1970s – naive scientist model of social cognition: people need to attribute causes to
behaviour and events in order to render the world a meaningful place in which to act.
people make rational, scientific like cause-effect analyses to behaviour and events to
make sense of the world. People are limited in their ability to process information, not as
rational in their thinking as they may believe. We often take cognitive short-cuts when
making sense of the social world around us.
- 1970 – cognitive miser model: not very rational and are limited in their capacity to
process information
- Motivated tactician model: people are fully engaged thinkers who have multiple
cognitive strategies available and choose among them based on goals, motives and needs.
Sometimes the motivated tactician may choose wisely or defensively based on speed.
- 2000s – social neuroscience: cognitive activity is monitored using fMRI (functional
magnetic resonance imaging) technology to study localised electrical activity in the brain
associated with specific cognitive activities or functions. Different parts of the brain light
up when ppl are thinking positively or negatively about things.
Impression formation: we spend a lot of time thinking about another ppl. We form impressions
of people we know, people we are told about. Impressions dictate how we feel and act towards
others.
- The configural model (Solomon Asch):
o Central traits: we latch on to specific features of people when making an
impression of them, these traits create a disproportionate amount of the final
impression of someone
o Peripheral traits: other information about the person that have much less of an
impact on the final impression of a person
o Bipolar evaluative dimension of warm and cold are central trait dimensions.
- Stereotype content model (Susan Fiske, Amy Cuddy and Peter Glick):
, o Two main and distinct dimensions for evaluating other people
▪ Good-bad-social (warmth)
▪ Good-bad-intellectual (competence)
▪ High or low in warmth or high or low on competence.
o Four quadrants were formed:
▪ Paternalistic stereotype – high warmth and low competence. Low status,
not competitive (eg. Housewives, elderly, disabled)
▪ Admired stereotype – high warmth and high competence. High status, not
competitive (eg. Close allies)
▪ Contemptuous stereotype – low warmth and low competence. Low status,
competitive. (eg. Welfare recipients, poor people)
▪ Envious stereotype – low warmth and high competence. High status,
competitive. (eg. Rich people, feminists)
- We are exposed to a range of biases when forming an impression of someone:
o Primacy effects – traits we observe first disproportionately influence our final
impression of the person. More common than recent effects. Proving that first
impressions really do matter.
o Recent effects – later information we receive has more impact on the impressions
that we form. Likely to happen when you are distracted.
o Negative information we receive about someone usually has a disproportionate
effect on the way we view someone.
o Biased to notice negative aspects of a person. A negative view of a person is
much more difficult to change considering positive information about the person
than a positive impression is to change considering negative information.
o Negative information is mostly unusual and distinctive – generally not very
common, tend to capture our attention. Such information may signify possible
danger (survival value)
o Person constructs – adaptive forms of person perception, relatively resistant to
change. People will also develop their own personality theories – general
principle as to what types of characteristics go together to form a particular
personality (intelligence and friendliness go together) resistant to change and are
based on experience
o Physical appearance counts – first information we again about someone. First
thing we determine is whether someone is attractive – will have a strong
impression of them if they are attractive. >6ft = 10% higher salaries. Attractive
females appear to have less competence than non-attractive females (did not work
for their promotion)
o Stereotypes – quicker to form impressions of people who fit into a preconceived
stereotype, slower to form impressions of those who violate these stereotypes.
o Social judgeability – ppl will not make stereotype judgements if social norms do
not legitimise these stereotypes. Trump makes it seem okay to judge certain
groups.
Introduction to social psychology:
- Social psychology encompasses multiple different areas of focus
- Social psychology explores how people's behaviour differs due to the presence of others,
whether that presence be imagined or real or implied.
- Behaviour thoughts and feelings are affected by those around us.
- Behaviour can be observed and measured. Understanding feelings, beliefs, intentions and
goals despite not being observable they can be predicted by behaviour
- Social psychology unit of analysis is the individual person within the group.
- Gordon Allport gives social psychology its definition
- No theory on human behaviour is considered true, the validity of the theory is based on
how well it corresponds with facts or evidence. Construct theory from data or previous
theories and then conduct an experiment to gather empirical data to prove the theory.
Know the scientific method
- Important feature is replication (guards against fraud)
- Experimental or non-experimental methods.
- Kurt Lewin = father of experimental social psychology (study of group processes)
- Floyd Allport – for social psychology to flourish, it would need to become an
experimental science.
Experimental method:
- Something is done to see its effect on something else.
- Casual experiments are how we learn about our world.
- Every person is an amateur social psychologist, engaging in casual experimentation to
see whether our hypotheses are correct.
- Research manipulates independent variables to measure the effect on dependent
variables. Independent variables also known as predictor variables and dependent
variables are also known as outcome variable.
- To conduct experiment – experimental group (exposed to independent variable) or
control group
- There may be more than one experimental group in conducting the experiment
- Important to eliminate confounding – some other variable may influence the outcome. It
is thus important to ensure the conditions are exactly the same before beginning the
experiment.
- Experiments have high internal validity but low external validity. Causal relationships.
Fewer confounds.
, - Laboratory experiments – intensely artificial nature and susceptibility to particular biases.
Highly controlled. Cannot be generalised to the less artificial conditions in the real world.
High internal validity but low external validity. Not realistic representations of real
world. Prone to range of biases: demand characteristics (tend to demand a particular
response, allow participants to know how they are supposed to respond) evaluation
apprehension (aware that their performance is being monitored, may influence their
behaviour) social desirability (participant might want to act in a way that they think
makes them appear more socially desirable) experimenter effects (experimenter is aware
of hypothesis, they may inadvertently give cues to the participants so that they know how
they are meant to respond. May be controlled by a double blind procedure – experimenter
and participant is unaware of which condition they are being exposed to.
- Field experiments – observation of behaviour as it occurs. Observer is not involved in
participation. They are basically invisible. High external validity. Participants are usually
unaware that an experiment is taking place. More natural behaviour. Less control and
variables that the experimenter has not anticipated. Random assignment is difficult
meaning participants may not be matched across conditions. Can be difficult to obtain
exact measurements. Greater external validity but lower internal validty.
- Non-experimental methods – examination of correlation between naturally occurring
variables. Not permitting causal conclusions. Correlational. More confounds.
o Archival research: to make comparisons between different groups/cultures.
Shortcoming – researcher has no control over primary date collection
o Case study: in depth analysis of a particular case
o Focus group interviews: gain perspective of a particular phenomenon by
participants who are most likely to represent the group being researched. May rely
on discourse analysis (what people say to whom in which context, what they may
be thinking)
o Survey research: structured interviews, or a questionnaire. Questions can be open
ended or closed questions.
- Research ethics: focus on protecting rights of participants
o Protection from harm – psychological harm must be minimised – must be backed
sufficiently, physical harm is prohibited.
o Right to privacy – participants should remain anonymous. Data that is no longer
useful should be destroyed.
o Informed consent – participants should freely give consent preferably in writing.
Must be able to withdraw whenever they wish. Cannot make it difficult to say no
or to back out
o Deception – certain degree of deception is necessary, requires substantial
motivation on behalf of researcher to motivate necessity
o Debriefing – designed to make sure participants are fully aware of how their data
will be used, deception will be explained.
CHAPTER 2:
,Social cognition and social knowledge
- How we perceive the social world around us. Importance of social cognition in allowing
us to make sense of the social world.
- Thought occupies a pivotal role in social psychology
- Thought and cognition – subtle differences
o Thought: internal language and symbols we use to understand the world around us
o Cognition: Largely automatic mental processing
- Social cognition – how cognition is affected by larger and more immediate social
contexts and how cognition affects our behaviour. Intersection between social
psychology and cognitive psychology.
- 1960s – cognitive consistency model: people are uncomfortable in cognitive
inconsistencies. people are motivated to reduce discrepancies between their cognitions.
People are remarkably tolerant of cognitive inconsistency
- 1970s – naive scientist model of social cognition: people need to attribute causes to
behaviour and events in order to render the world a meaningful place in which to act.
people make rational, scientific like cause-effect analyses to behaviour and events to
make sense of the world. People are limited in their ability to process information, not as
rational in their thinking as they may believe. We often take cognitive short-cuts when
making sense of the social world around us.
- 1970 – cognitive miser model: not very rational and are limited in their capacity to
process information
- Motivated tactician model: people are fully engaged thinkers who have multiple
cognitive strategies available and choose among them based on goals, motives and needs.
Sometimes the motivated tactician may choose wisely or defensively based on speed.
- 2000s – social neuroscience: cognitive activity is monitored using fMRI (functional
magnetic resonance imaging) technology to study localised electrical activity in the brain
associated with specific cognitive activities or functions. Different parts of the brain light
up when ppl are thinking positively or negatively about things.
Impression formation: we spend a lot of time thinking about another ppl. We form impressions
of people we know, people we are told about. Impressions dictate how we feel and act towards
others.
- The configural model (Solomon Asch):
o Central traits: we latch on to specific features of people when making an
impression of them, these traits create a disproportionate amount of the final
impression of someone
o Peripheral traits: other information about the person that have much less of an
impact on the final impression of a person
o Bipolar evaluative dimension of warm and cold are central trait dimensions.
- Stereotype content model (Susan Fiske, Amy Cuddy and Peter Glick):
, o Two main and distinct dimensions for evaluating other people
▪ Good-bad-social (warmth)
▪ Good-bad-intellectual (competence)
▪ High or low in warmth or high or low on competence.
o Four quadrants were formed:
▪ Paternalistic stereotype – high warmth and low competence. Low status,
not competitive (eg. Housewives, elderly, disabled)
▪ Admired stereotype – high warmth and high competence. High status, not
competitive (eg. Close allies)
▪ Contemptuous stereotype – low warmth and low competence. Low status,
competitive. (eg. Welfare recipients, poor people)
▪ Envious stereotype – low warmth and high competence. High status,
competitive. (eg. Rich people, feminists)
- We are exposed to a range of biases when forming an impression of someone:
o Primacy effects – traits we observe first disproportionately influence our final
impression of the person. More common than recent effects. Proving that first
impressions really do matter.
o Recent effects – later information we receive has more impact on the impressions
that we form. Likely to happen when you are distracted.
o Negative information we receive about someone usually has a disproportionate
effect on the way we view someone.
o Biased to notice negative aspects of a person. A negative view of a person is
much more difficult to change considering positive information about the person
than a positive impression is to change considering negative information.
o Negative information is mostly unusual and distinctive – generally not very
common, tend to capture our attention. Such information may signify possible
danger (survival value)
o Person constructs – adaptive forms of person perception, relatively resistant to
change. People will also develop their own personality theories – general
principle as to what types of characteristics go together to form a particular
personality (intelligence and friendliness go together) resistant to change and are
based on experience
o Physical appearance counts – first information we again about someone. First
thing we determine is whether someone is attractive – will have a strong
impression of them if they are attractive. >6ft = 10% higher salaries. Attractive
females appear to have less competence than non-attractive females (did not work
for their promotion)
o Stereotypes – quicker to form impressions of people who fit into a preconceived
stereotype, slower to form impressions of those who violate these stereotypes.
o Social judgeability – ppl will not make stereotype judgements if social norms do
not legitimise these stereotypes. Trump makes it seem okay to judge certain
groups.
