Social psychology
CH 1 introducing social psychology
What is social psychology?
Biggest problems modern society is facing:
- state of nature why do we behave in ways that are damaging to us in the long run?
we are very short minded; we live in what is good for us now
is there a way of changing people’s behavior? Yes
- why are people treated differently based on their appearance?
- Why is it so hard for people to follow rules that are essential for human health?
find is hard to change their habits (keeping distance)
- Discussion surrounding safety why is it so hard for victims to speak up?
- If we understand human behavior, we can understand these problems a little bit better.
Personal impacts:
- Why does it feel so bad to be excluded by people?
- Why do we fall in love? very impactful in your life
What is social psychology?
- Psychology: scientific study of the mind (thoughts & feelings) and the behavior of people.
- Social psychology: the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and
behavior are influenced by the presence of others
can be impacted in ways of imitation of intimidation
people who are not actually there, but people in your mind can also impact behavior.
real presence of others (explicit) & imagined (implicit)
- Social influence: The effect that the words, actions or mere presence of other people have on
our thoughts, feelings, attitudes or behavior.
Different approaches to study the mind:
- Clinical psychology and personality psychology individuality
- Social psychology individuality in the context of a social situation (humans are group
animals)
the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world?
Perspectives in social psychology:
Evolutionary perspective:
- Social behavior is explained in terms of genetic factors that are adapted over the centuries to
improve the chances of survival or reproduction
- Natural selection (Charles Darwin) the process in which important features that are
beneficial for survival are passed on to offspring.
applies to all animals
guppy experiment: differences in ponds in soil, predator or not wait and see what
happens. Appearance changes when there was a predator (survival) , appearance changes
but differently because no camouflage was needed, but bright colors to be attractive for the
female (reproduction)
- How does evolution help to explain human behavior? people have a lot in common with
other animals
1
, emotions, displays of power and status
some habits are universal among humans, does not matter where you are from. (Form
relationships essential for humans)
Socio-cultural perspective:
- Difference in people and their behavior based on where they live
- Social behavior is explained in terms of the influence of large social groups
- How does culture help to explain human behavior?
some habits, traditions and behaviors are different depending on the cultural context
- Cross-cultural research conducted with members of different cultures, researchers are
interested whether one variable is difference between members of certain groups?
- We are influenced by our environment
Social-learning perspective:
- Social behavior is explained in terms of learning experiences in the past that predict future
behavior
- How does this explain human behavior?
when you grew up with religion, this habit could be held on over the years
- By showing behavior, you are really affecting your children in terms of parenthood
- People are prone to show behavior that they have earlier witnessed in role models.
There is always an interaction between these perspectives:
- Language is universal (evolution) but different in cultures (social cultural)
- One perspective is not better than others
Person x situation:
What determines our behavior?
- Kurt Lewin behavior is a function of the person times the environment B = f(P XE)
Situation x environment:
- The environment in which your grow op determine development and is very impactful
Person x situation
- Presence of others we show better moral behavior in the presence of others
- The aspect of our personalities differs from the situation were in, (first time meeting parents
in law)
- Situation can also be impacted by one person herdenkingsdag, one person started
screaming and everybody started panicking
- Situation has power over you, but you also have the power over the situation
Person, or situation?
- When something horrible happens we ask ourselves if it was the person of the situation that
triggered it
- Milgram experiment
Gestalt psychology
- What you see differs per persons, depends on your own interpretation of a situation
- People can experience social situations differently causes miscommunication
Naïve realism:
2
, - We are often convinced that the way we see the situation is the only correct way
- Battle over who is right and who is wrong is often the core of human conflicts
- Often there is no correct or wrong answer
Basic human motives:
- Self-enhancement motive people want to feel good about themselves (protect their self-
esteem)
we spin the social world in such a way that is beneficial to us
- Accuracy motive people want to be correct
- These two motives are often competing
we can interpret a situation in such a way that these complement each other illusions:
- Better-than-average effect (misconception about their own capacities)
- Unrealistic optimism
- False consensus (overestimate or how common traits are) effect & the false uniqueness
(underestimate how common traits are) effect we might be aware that some traits are not
actually good for us
CH 2 methodology
Field in crisis
The problems of being a social psychologist:
- The image of a social psychology it is just common sense; all humans can sort of predict
the outcome.
hindsight bias: the idea that once you know the results of a study, you think it would have
been very easy to have predicted this.
- Bad research practices (diederik stapel) fraud made the field reconsider the methods
used to conduct their work.
- Replication: researchers redo work that has been done in the past to see whether the
same results could be obtained
this was not the case, means that conclusions of the original work can’t be contained
- Unethical research participants were really harmed, caused backlash.
Moving forward, improving methods:
- Replication studies
- Meta-analyses: combine several research that had the same goal, to see whether the
hypothesis can be confirmed
- Open-science practices: before we do the research expectations, materials, and data sets are
open
- Ethics: restrictions
- Informed consent explanation and can give consent
- Avoid deception
- Protect participants
- Confidentiality
- Debriefing at the end the researchers tell what the experiment was about
institutional research board
Testing theories
How research works:
- Research question: a question to be addressed by research
3
CH 1 introducing social psychology
What is social psychology?
Biggest problems modern society is facing:
- state of nature why do we behave in ways that are damaging to us in the long run?
we are very short minded; we live in what is good for us now
is there a way of changing people’s behavior? Yes
- why are people treated differently based on their appearance?
- Why is it so hard for people to follow rules that are essential for human health?
find is hard to change their habits (keeping distance)
- Discussion surrounding safety why is it so hard for victims to speak up?
- If we understand human behavior, we can understand these problems a little bit better.
Personal impacts:
- Why does it feel so bad to be excluded by people?
- Why do we fall in love? very impactful in your life
What is social psychology?
- Psychology: scientific study of the mind (thoughts & feelings) and the behavior of people.
- Social psychology: the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and
behavior are influenced by the presence of others
can be impacted in ways of imitation of intimidation
people who are not actually there, but people in your mind can also impact behavior.
real presence of others (explicit) & imagined (implicit)
- Social influence: The effect that the words, actions or mere presence of other people have on
our thoughts, feelings, attitudes or behavior.
Different approaches to study the mind:
- Clinical psychology and personality psychology individuality
- Social psychology individuality in the context of a social situation (humans are group
animals)
the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world?
Perspectives in social psychology:
Evolutionary perspective:
- Social behavior is explained in terms of genetic factors that are adapted over the centuries to
improve the chances of survival or reproduction
- Natural selection (Charles Darwin) the process in which important features that are
beneficial for survival are passed on to offspring.
applies to all animals
guppy experiment: differences in ponds in soil, predator or not wait and see what
happens. Appearance changes when there was a predator (survival) , appearance changes
but differently because no camouflage was needed, but bright colors to be attractive for the
female (reproduction)
- How does evolution help to explain human behavior? people have a lot in common with
other animals
1
, emotions, displays of power and status
some habits are universal among humans, does not matter where you are from. (Form
relationships essential for humans)
Socio-cultural perspective:
- Difference in people and their behavior based on where they live
- Social behavior is explained in terms of the influence of large social groups
- How does culture help to explain human behavior?
some habits, traditions and behaviors are different depending on the cultural context
- Cross-cultural research conducted with members of different cultures, researchers are
interested whether one variable is difference between members of certain groups?
- We are influenced by our environment
Social-learning perspective:
- Social behavior is explained in terms of learning experiences in the past that predict future
behavior
- How does this explain human behavior?
when you grew up with religion, this habit could be held on over the years
- By showing behavior, you are really affecting your children in terms of parenthood
- People are prone to show behavior that they have earlier witnessed in role models.
There is always an interaction between these perspectives:
- Language is universal (evolution) but different in cultures (social cultural)
- One perspective is not better than others
Person x situation:
What determines our behavior?
- Kurt Lewin behavior is a function of the person times the environment B = f(P XE)
Situation x environment:
- The environment in which your grow op determine development and is very impactful
Person x situation
- Presence of others we show better moral behavior in the presence of others
- The aspect of our personalities differs from the situation were in, (first time meeting parents
in law)
- Situation can also be impacted by one person herdenkingsdag, one person started
screaming and everybody started panicking
- Situation has power over you, but you also have the power over the situation
Person, or situation?
- When something horrible happens we ask ourselves if it was the person of the situation that
triggered it
- Milgram experiment
Gestalt psychology
- What you see differs per persons, depends on your own interpretation of a situation
- People can experience social situations differently causes miscommunication
Naïve realism:
2
, - We are often convinced that the way we see the situation is the only correct way
- Battle over who is right and who is wrong is often the core of human conflicts
- Often there is no correct or wrong answer
Basic human motives:
- Self-enhancement motive people want to feel good about themselves (protect their self-
esteem)
we spin the social world in such a way that is beneficial to us
- Accuracy motive people want to be correct
- These two motives are often competing
we can interpret a situation in such a way that these complement each other illusions:
- Better-than-average effect (misconception about their own capacities)
- Unrealistic optimism
- False consensus (overestimate or how common traits are) effect & the false uniqueness
(underestimate how common traits are) effect we might be aware that some traits are not
actually good for us
CH 2 methodology
Field in crisis
The problems of being a social psychologist:
- The image of a social psychology it is just common sense; all humans can sort of predict
the outcome.
hindsight bias: the idea that once you know the results of a study, you think it would have
been very easy to have predicted this.
- Bad research practices (diederik stapel) fraud made the field reconsider the methods
used to conduct their work.
- Replication: researchers redo work that has been done in the past to see whether the
same results could be obtained
this was not the case, means that conclusions of the original work can’t be contained
- Unethical research participants were really harmed, caused backlash.
Moving forward, improving methods:
- Replication studies
- Meta-analyses: combine several research that had the same goal, to see whether the
hypothesis can be confirmed
- Open-science practices: before we do the research expectations, materials, and data sets are
open
- Ethics: restrictions
- Informed consent explanation and can give consent
- Avoid deception
- Protect participants
- Confidentiality
- Debriefing at the end the researchers tell what the experiment was about
institutional research board
Testing theories
How research works:
- Research question: a question to be addressed by research
3
