Introduicing Social Psychology

Social Psychology - scientific study of how people think about, influence and relate to each other (how individuals' affect each other vs. Personality psych na indiv differences)1. social thinking-how we perceive ourseleves and others-what we believejudgements we make-our attitudes2. social influence-culture-pressures to conform-persuasiom-groups of people3. social relationships-prejudice-aggresion-attraction and intimacy-helping

Social Psychology's Big IdeasA. Social thinking1. We construct our social reality-we explain behavior to attribute it to some cause and therefore to make it seem orederly, predictable and controllable-there is an bobjective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values

2.Our Social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous-dual procession (conscious and unconscious)-instant intuitions shape our fears, impressions and relationships

3. Attitudes shape and are shaped by behavior-same situation, diff people react differently

B. Social Influence4. social influences shaped behavior-culture help define our situations

5.Dispositions shape behavior

C. Social Relations

6. Social Behavior is also biological behavior-mind and body are one grand system-(social neuroscience) An integration of biologicaland social perspectives that explores the neural and psychological bases of social and emotional behaviors.

7. Feelings and actions toward people are sometimes negative and sometimes positive

VALUES-personal convictions about what is desirable and how people ought to behave-differs across time and culture-influences the types of people who are attracted to various disciplines-values obviously enter the picture as the objectof social-psychological analysis. Social psychologists investigate how values form, why they change, and how they influence attitudes and actions

Culture - The enduring behaviors,ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Social Representations - Socially shared beliefs widely held ideas and values, including our assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.

what guides our behavior is less the situation-as-it-is than the situation-as-weconstrue-it.

Value Judgements-defining good life (personal values)-professional advice (advice giver's personal values)-forming concepts (research based)-label reflects judgment

Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms:1.trivial because it documents the obvious2. dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people.

Hindsight Bias

-The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-itall-along phenomenon.-conducive to arrogancce(an overestimation of our own intellectual powers)-outcomes seem as if they should have been foreseeable, we are more likely to blame decision makers for what are in retrospect obvious bad choices than to praise them for good choices, which also seem obvious.- noise - piles of useless information surrounding the rare shreds of useful information.

Common sense is right after the fact.

Research MethodsTheory - an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed eventsHypothesis - testable proposition that describes a rltnshp that may exist between events

field research - research done in natural real-life settings outside the laboratirycorrelational - asking 2 or more factors area naturally associatedexperimental - manipulating some factors to see its effect on another

Correlation and Causation-correlations indicate a realationship but is not necessary to be cause and effect-allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another

Random Sample - survey procedurre in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion

Order of questionsResponse OptionsWording of Questions

Framing - the way a question or an issue is posed, framing can infuence people's decisions and expressed opinions

Experimental Research-independent variables - manipulated variable- cinderrela effect-dependent variable - variable being measured-random assignments- eliminates extraneous variables

Mundane Realism - degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

Experimental Realism - degree to which an expmt absorbs and involves its participants

Deception - effect by which participants are misinformed or msisled about the study;s methids and purposes

Demand Characteristics - cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected

Informed Consent - An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.

Debriefing - In social psychology, the postexperimental explanation of a study to its participants. Debriefing usually discloses any deception and often queries participants regarding their understandings and feelings.

The Self in a Social World (2)

spotlight effect - The belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they really are.

illusion of transparency - The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others.

Interplay of self and social world-social surroundings afect our self awareness-self intererst colors our socual judgment-self concern motivates our social behavior-social relationships define our self

self concept - answers the question who am i

self-schema - beleifs about self that organize and guide the processing of self relevant info

possible selves - images of what we dream of or dream becoming in the future

The self-self concept-self-knowledge-self esteem-social self

Development of the social self (influences)-roles we play-social identities we form-comparisons we make with others-successes and failures-how other poeple judge us-surrounding culture

social comparison - evaluationg one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others

we compare upward - we raise the standards by which we evauate our attainments and compare ourseleves with others doing even better; perceived the competitor as advantage

Self esteem-comes not only from telling children how wonderful they are but also from hard earned achievements-We may overestimate appraisal, infalting our self images-gauge which we monitor and react to how others appraise us

Looking Glass Self-how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiveing ourselves-the way we imagine they see us

Individualism-giving priority to one;s own goals over group goals and defining identity in erms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

-independent self-people in individualistic countries persist more when succeeding,because success elevates self-esteem

Collectivism-giving priority to the goals of one's groups and defining one's identity accordingly-interdependent self - construing one's identity in relation to others-focuses on gaining more social approval and harmonize with

Self Knowledge-we think we know but our inside information is wrong-little relationship betwee their perceptions of how well a fator predicted their mood and how well it really did-if you want to know whether it will last, dont listen to your heart, ask your roommate

planning fallacy - tendency to underestimate how long t will take to complete a task because we remember previous tasks as taking less time.

affective forecasting - reveal that people have greatest difficulty predicting the intensity and the duration of their future emotions

Impact bias - overestimating the enduring impact of emotion causing events (mas prone tayo dito if negative events)

immune neglect - human tendency to underestimate the speed and strength of the psychological immuneystem which enables emotional recover and resilience after bad things happen

*we are more aware of the results of our thinking than of its process

dual attitudes-Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.

Self esteem - a person's overall self evaluation or sense of self worth

self-esteem maintenance - motive predicts a variety of interesting findings, even friction among brothers and sisters

*social rejection lowers our self-esteem and makes us more eager for approval

Narcissism - have high self esteem but no care for others (Dark Triad with Machiavellianism and antisocial psychopathy)

*effortful self control depletes our limited will power reserves*if you want to encourage someone, focus on their self efficacy not on self esteem

Self efficacy - how competenet we feel on a task; grows with hard won achievement

Locus of control-extent to which people perceives outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces

optimistic explanatory style are more likely than pessimists to perform beyond expectations

competence + persistence = accomplishment

learned helplessness - sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human perceives n control over repeated bad events (self determination kapag may mga succes)

uncontollable bad events -> perceieved lack of control -> learned helplessness

self serving bias - tendency to perceive oneself favorably

1. self serving attributions - attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else

2. bias blind dpot sabi natin yung iba biased tapos tayo hindi. na tama tayo and free from bias.

3. defense pessimism - anticipates problems and motivates effective coping

4. false consensus effect-The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.

5. false uniqueness effect- tendency to underestmate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or succesful behaviors

we are motivated to:-assess our competence-verufy self-conceptions-enhance our self image

1. self serving bias is adaptive (helps in depression)2. self serving bias is maladaptive-group-serving bias - Explaining away outgroup members’ positive behaviors, also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions while excusing such behavior by one’s own group

Self handicapping-protecting one's self image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure

Self Presentation-act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals

self-monitoring-Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression.

Social Beleifs and Judgments (3)

Priming - activating particular associations in memory (surface even when stimuli are presented subliminally)

Kulechov effect - director who would sjillfully guide viewer's inferences by manipulating their assumptions

spontaneous trait transference - what we say to others are associate with us.

belief perseverance - Persistence of one’s initial conceptions, as when the basis for one’s belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives.

misinformation effect - incorporating misinformation into ones memory of the event after witnessing an event and receiving misleading onfo about it

Powers of intuition1.controlled processing -Explicit thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.2.automatic processing - Implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness, roughly corresponds to intuition.

Automatic Thinking-schemas-emotional reactions-suffiecient expertise-satisfying choice

Overconfidence-unaware of our flaws (intellectual conceit)

overconfidence phenomenon - tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs (incompetence feeds overconfidence)

confirmation bias - tendency to search for information that confirms one's perception (self-verification)

To lessen overconfidence1.prompt feedback - daily feedback to lessen overconfidence2.unpack a task (planning fallacy)

3. get people to think of one good reason why their judgements might be wrong

heuristics - simple, efficient thinking strategies

representativeness heuristics - tendency to presume sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling a typical member

availability heuristic - cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of thins in terms of their availability in memory (if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace)

counterfactual thinking - imagining alterative scenarios and outcomes that might happened but didn't (feelings of luck) (the more significant the event, the more intense the counterfactual thinking)

illusory thinking - our search for order in random events, a tendency that can lead us down all sorts of wrong paths.

illusory correlation - perception of a relationship where non exists or perception of a stronger relationship can actually exist

illusion of control - idea that chance events are subject to our nfluence

regression toward the average - statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behavior to return toward one's average

*our moods infuse our judgements

*depressed mood motivates intense thinking

mood infuse judgments - good and bad moods trigger memories o experiences associated with those moods

misattribution - mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source

attribution theory - how people explain others behavior

1.internal disposition2.external situations

spontaneous trait inference - effortless automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior

Harold Kelley's Theory of Attributions-consistency-distinctiveness-consensus

Fundamental Attribution Error- we underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the extent to which it reflects the individual's traits and attitudes (aka correspondence bias)

why we make attribution error1. perspective and situational perspective-actor vs observer perspective-camera perspective bias-perspectives change over time-self awareness - makes is self conscious instead of situation conscious2.cultural differences

Self fulfilling prophecy - beleif that leads to its own fulfillment

behavioral confirmation-type of self fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations

Behavior and Attitudes (4)

attitude - favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (rooted in beliefs and exhibited in one's feelings and intended behavior)

ABC's of attitude-affect-behavior-cognition

moral hypocrisy - appearing moral while avoiding the costs of being so

implicit association test - A computer-driven assessment of implicit attitudes. The test uses reaction times to measure people’s automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. Easier pairings (and faster responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious associations.

theory of planned behavior - knowing people's intended behaviors and their perceived self effcacy and control

role - a set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave

role playing - what is unreal can subtly evolve into what is real

foot in the door phenomenon-tendency for people who have firts agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

low-ball technique-A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial mrequest will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.

Killing Begets Killing.-Students who initially perceived themselves as killing several bugs, by dropping them in this apparent killing machine, later killed an increased number of bugs during a self-paced killing period. (In reality, no bugs were harmed.)

Self Presentation Theory-assumes that for strategic reasons we express attitudes that make us appear more consistent

Cognitive Dissonance Theory-assumes that to reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to ourselves

Self Perception Theory

-assumes that ur actions are self revealing

cognitive dissonance theory - we feel tension or a lack of harmony when two simultanoeusly accesible thoughts or beleiefs are psychologically inconsistent

insufficient justification-Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s behavior when external justification is “insufficient.”

3 theories explain why attitude follows behavior-self presentation-self justification-self perception

Overjustification effect-result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.

self-affirmation theory -A theory that (a) people often experience a self-image threat, after engaging in an undesirable behavior; and (b) they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people’s self-concept in one domain, and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain.