Social Psychology Revision Notes
Week 1 – Definitions and Introduction
- The scientific study of how thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influences by
the actual, imagine or implied presence of others (Allport)
- The scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals
perceive, influence and relate to others and situations (Smith and Mackie)
Historical trends
- Became empirical science with studies of social influence
- Even Plato described mob behaviour and a ‘crowd mind’
- Splits from behavioural psychology as it emphasises important of thoughts and feelings
- Behaviour depends on an individual’s life space
Current themes
- Integration of cognitive and social processes
- How memories, thoughts and emotions guide understanding of world and actions
- Social processes how thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by other people, groups
we belong to and personal relationships
Important principles
- Construction of reality subjective reality more influential than objective reality we have
impressions of everything and expect others to share them, but we can discover this is not the
case
- Each person’s view of reality is a construction shaped by cognitive processes and social
processes
- Pervasiveness of social influence others influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviours
regardless of whether others are physically present
Motivational principles
- Striving for mastery we seek to understand and predict social events in order to control
outcomes/obtain reward
- Seeking connectedness belonging seek support, liking and acceptance from individuals
and groups
- Identity and ownership people value ‘me and mine’ and self-esteem seeing oneself and
group in positive light
Processing principles
- Conservatism established views are slow to change
- Accessibility readily available information has the strongest impact on
thoughts/feelings/behaviour
- Superficiality versus depth people can process information superficially or in depth
prefer superficial
,Validity
Week 2 – Perceiving Individuals
- The way people construct, change and maintain their impressions of others
Physical appearance
- ‘what is beautiful is good’
- Male and female university students paired for a night of talking and dancing end of
evening they rated on attractiveness, social skills, intelligence and personality date
satisfaction correlated with physical attractiveness (Walster et al, 1966)
- College students prefer more attractive political candidates (Hart, Ottati & Krumdick, 2011)
- Babyfaced-ness
- Less likely to be chosen for jobs that require ‘mature’ characteristics: competence, leadership
- Less likely to be convicted of violent crimes
- Berry & Mcarthur – baby faced adult males perceived as more naïve, honest, warm and kind
than those with mature facial appearances
- Perceived competence
- Todorov et al (2005) asked ppts which electoral candidate appeared more competent, those
who looked threatening less likely to be voted those chosen as competence more likely to win
elections
- In the workplace good looking and tall men have higher starting salaries
- Attractiveness helped women more when they applied for feminine jobs rather than masculine
- But attractiveness helpful for men in feminine or masculine roles
Nonverbal communication
- Prefer feelings expressed non-verbally
- Body language offers insight into moods and emotions
- Some researchers even concluded that emotional expression is a kind of universal language
but recent findings show that interpretations of expressions differ among cultures
- USA prefer people who orient posture towards us and have dilated pupils
- Interpretations of surprise, sadness and disgust differ across cultures
, - Can be extremely accurate interpretations/first impressions
- Ppts who see only a few behaviours are quite accurate in identifying end-of-semester teacher
evaluations and they can determine status differences between people
- After hearing brief clips of two people talking ppts are quite successful at identifying people’s
voices
Detection of deception
- People tend to use the wrong cues in assessing whether someone is lying
- Best cues = nonverbal e.g. tone of voice, movements of hands or feet
- Research by Rule et al (2013) people are bad at judging how trustworthy someone is by
looking at pictures
- Lie detectors in the legal system not precise enough to correctly detect guilty suspects
The look of love
- When people look directly at us we prefer them and pay more attention
- Mason et al (2005) female and male ppts shown clips of attract women looking towards or
away
- Attention toward = likeability (for male and female) and greater attractiveness (just for males)
Familiarity
- Develop positive feelings towards people we encounter frequently
- Moreland & Beach study women attended lectures those who attended more were
judged as more intelligent, warm and interesting
- Mere exposure effect seeing someone more increases liking, even if no interaction
- See someone a lot and they have caused you no harm = liking
- Works in advertising too but if exposed too much can have adverse effect
Impressions from environment
- Because people select and create environments that reflect and reinforce who they are,
observers can quire accurately form impressions of others from environmental cues like dorm
rooms, single-person offices and social-networking profiles
- Gosling et al (2002) got observers to look round apartments and rate impressions they
were similar to self-ratings of occupiers
Impressions of behaviour
- Many behaviours are strongly linked to particular personality traits
- People’s behaviour is most genuinely useful resource for developing impressions
Noticing and interpreting cues
- Most useful resource for forming impressions is interpreting behaviour
- Salient characteristics capture attention
Automatic interpretation of cues
- None of the cues we use in perceiving people have much meaning in themselves
- Our impressions rely on automatic processes operate superficially without conscious
processing
- Cued associations already learned and accessibility of thoughts influences what type of
processing
The role of associations in interpretation
Week 1 – Definitions and Introduction
- The scientific study of how thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influences by
the actual, imagine or implied presence of others (Allport)
- The scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals
perceive, influence and relate to others and situations (Smith and Mackie)
Historical trends
- Became empirical science with studies of social influence
- Even Plato described mob behaviour and a ‘crowd mind’
- Splits from behavioural psychology as it emphasises important of thoughts and feelings
- Behaviour depends on an individual’s life space
Current themes
- Integration of cognitive and social processes
- How memories, thoughts and emotions guide understanding of world and actions
- Social processes how thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by other people, groups
we belong to and personal relationships
Important principles
- Construction of reality subjective reality more influential than objective reality we have
impressions of everything and expect others to share them, but we can discover this is not the
case
- Each person’s view of reality is a construction shaped by cognitive processes and social
processes
- Pervasiveness of social influence others influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviours
regardless of whether others are physically present
Motivational principles
- Striving for mastery we seek to understand and predict social events in order to control
outcomes/obtain reward
- Seeking connectedness belonging seek support, liking and acceptance from individuals
and groups
- Identity and ownership people value ‘me and mine’ and self-esteem seeing oneself and
group in positive light
Processing principles
- Conservatism established views are slow to change
- Accessibility readily available information has the strongest impact on
thoughts/feelings/behaviour
- Superficiality versus depth people can process information superficially or in depth
prefer superficial
,Validity
Week 2 – Perceiving Individuals
- The way people construct, change and maintain their impressions of others
Physical appearance
- ‘what is beautiful is good’
- Male and female university students paired for a night of talking and dancing end of
evening they rated on attractiveness, social skills, intelligence and personality date
satisfaction correlated with physical attractiveness (Walster et al, 1966)
- College students prefer more attractive political candidates (Hart, Ottati & Krumdick, 2011)
- Babyfaced-ness
- Less likely to be chosen for jobs that require ‘mature’ characteristics: competence, leadership
- Less likely to be convicted of violent crimes
- Berry & Mcarthur – baby faced adult males perceived as more naïve, honest, warm and kind
than those with mature facial appearances
- Perceived competence
- Todorov et al (2005) asked ppts which electoral candidate appeared more competent, those
who looked threatening less likely to be voted those chosen as competence more likely to win
elections
- In the workplace good looking and tall men have higher starting salaries
- Attractiveness helped women more when they applied for feminine jobs rather than masculine
- But attractiveness helpful for men in feminine or masculine roles
Nonverbal communication
- Prefer feelings expressed non-verbally
- Body language offers insight into moods and emotions
- Some researchers even concluded that emotional expression is a kind of universal language
but recent findings show that interpretations of expressions differ among cultures
- USA prefer people who orient posture towards us and have dilated pupils
- Interpretations of surprise, sadness and disgust differ across cultures
, - Can be extremely accurate interpretations/first impressions
- Ppts who see only a few behaviours are quite accurate in identifying end-of-semester teacher
evaluations and they can determine status differences between people
- After hearing brief clips of two people talking ppts are quite successful at identifying people’s
voices
Detection of deception
- People tend to use the wrong cues in assessing whether someone is lying
- Best cues = nonverbal e.g. tone of voice, movements of hands or feet
- Research by Rule et al (2013) people are bad at judging how trustworthy someone is by
looking at pictures
- Lie detectors in the legal system not precise enough to correctly detect guilty suspects
The look of love
- When people look directly at us we prefer them and pay more attention
- Mason et al (2005) female and male ppts shown clips of attract women looking towards or
away
- Attention toward = likeability (for male and female) and greater attractiveness (just for males)
Familiarity
- Develop positive feelings towards people we encounter frequently
- Moreland & Beach study women attended lectures those who attended more were
judged as more intelligent, warm and interesting
- Mere exposure effect seeing someone more increases liking, even if no interaction
- See someone a lot and they have caused you no harm = liking
- Works in advertising too but if exposed too much can have adverse effect
Impressions from environment
- Because people select and create environments that reflect and reinforce who they are,
observers can quire accurately form impressions of others from environmental cues like dorm
rooms, single-person offices and social-networking profiles
- Gosling et al (2002) got observers to look round apartments and rate impressions they
were similar to self-ratings of occupiers
Impressions of behaviour
- Many behaviours are strongly linked to particular personality traits
- People’s behaviour is most genuinely useful resource for developing impressions
Noticing and interpreting cues
- Most useful resource for forming impressions is interpreting behaviour
- Salient characteristics capture attention
Automatic interpretation of cues
- None of the cues we use in perceiving people have much meaning in themselves
- Our impressions rely on automatic processes operate superficially without conscious
processing
- Cued associations already learned and accessibility of thoughts influences what type of
processing
The role of associations in interpretation
