Social Psychology (Fifth International Student Edition)
This is a summary of the lectures and the literature for the course Behavior and Environment 1 (social psychology) at Radboud University Nijmegen. Achieved grade: 8.
Introduction to social psychology / methods of social psychology
(1/2)
Kurt Lewin→people underestimate the influence of the situation/environment (example: bystander
effect); the field of forces is the role of the situation in guiding behavior
Milgram experiment is an example in which the situation was effective in getting participants to do
something they normally wouldn’t (62% continued to giving the highest level of shocks possible)
The good Samaritan study→theology students were either in a hurry or not in a hurry on the way
they passed a man who seemed to need help. Students in a hurry only 8% intervened. Not in a hurry
60%.
Fundamental attribution error:
People underestimate external factors and attribute the causes to internal factors (dispositions:
beliefs, personality traits etc.)
1 Step→perceive the behavior “person doesn’t help” automatic unconscious
2 Step→categorize the behavior “person is antisocial” automatic unconscious
3 Step→correct for situation “person was in a hurry etc.” controlled/reflective
Gilbert´s study→people are asked whether the woman has a nervous personality; people that got
told that she was talking about sex, rated the woman as less nervous (correcting for the situation)
-Some people got cognitive load, so they had to remember a number (people cannot make this
correcting for the situation anymore when they are cognitively loaded)
Dual-process models:
System 1 (Automatic): Unconscious, fast, associative, unintentional, effortless
System 2 (Reflective): Conscious, slow, intentional, effort (energy)→depend on motivation
(friend/stranger) and capacity (cognitive load)
Study about competence ratings→let participants rate competence of two candidates; appearance
predicts with 70% certainty the outcome of the elections; competence judgements based on
people´s faces
Power of unconscious processes:
1 Channel factors→small situational changes that channel our behavior (for example: nudging→tiny
change like using smaller plates can influence the behavior of people a lot)
2 Schemas→organized set of knowledge about a stimulus/situation, stored in long-term memory;
Knowledge includes features of the stimulus, connections between the features, and specific
examples; Mental structure that helps to organize knowledge about the world (personality traits,
groups of people) (example: two groups to rank professions on prestige and 1 was told that the
group before ranked politicians bottom; the other was told that the group before ranked politicians
top→this activated different schemas of either “good politician” or “corrupt politician”
3 Priming→automatic and unconscious influence of a stimulus on our decisions and behavior; if you
let people think about elderly people, they start to walk more slowly (controversial)
Payne et al. primed people during black jack with 12 ms “gamble”, so people did not consciously see
it, but it still affected the choice of people (participants were more likely to bet when primed with
gamble)
,Examples of nonconscious processing→people surrounded by red tend to be more aggressive than
the surrounded by green; function of these processing is that it is more efficient→automatic
processes are faster and operate parallel.
Naturalistic fallacy→claim that the way things are is the way they should be, meaning that what we
are biologically predisposed to is what we will do, however that is not logical.
The role of the situation and unconscious processes in everyday behavior and everyday social
behavior:
Functional!!! Unconscious processes are much faster – they enable us to respond effectively to our
environment
The importance of scientific research in determining the real causes of behaviour (e.g. interventions)
,The social self
Paradox of the self
There is a border between what you consider your world and what you consider your environment
(example: in crowded elevator personal space is invaded).
Double-sensation only happens if it´s your own body.
Working self-concept→only a subset of self-knowledge is brought to mind in a particular context
Distinctiveness hypothesis→we highlight what makes us unique in certain situations (example:
American children that define themselves with where they were born)
Two types of consciousness:
Subjective self-awareness→unreflected, more intuitive, in common with other animals, only way
you become aware of it is when it´s violated
Objective self-awareness→self-reflective and evaluating, more cognitive and typically human,
creating self-image (talk, evaluate yourself and create a self-image purposefully)
This lecture is about the objective self-awareness!
Self-image is a social product→knowledge about ourselves derived from social interactions;
determining personal standpoint in a group (social comparison); use social context to present
ourselves to others and use reaction of others to find ourselves, so social context is used as a
platform for self-presentation.
People tend to use downward comparison to make themselves feel better.
Reflected self-appraisal:
Seeing yourself through the eyes of others; third-person perspective of yourself. But we just think
about how others perceive us we have no direct access! Therefore, it is how we think others
perceive us!
Neurology of reflected self-appraisal:
Medial prefrontal cortex is involved in first-person perspective (direct self-appraisal); processing
information about yourself from your own view
Temporoparietal junction is involved in third-person perspective (reflected self-appraisal);
processing social information, so trying to imagine how other people see you
-Adolescents MPFC is active when they have to describe themselves from their own perspective and
from the perspective of others the MPFC is unactive.
-Adults already have a standardized self-image and MPFC is not active while self-reflecting, but the
MPFC becomes active when adults reflect from the perspective of others (suggesting that they use
their own self-image; “if I find myself ok, I think you will find me ok as well”!
-Adolescents use 3rd person perspective (reflected self-appraisal) (TPJ) to understand themselves and
adults think they already know who they are and use 1st person perspective (MPFC) to project their
own self-image to the minds of others
-Thus, adolescents seem to rely more than adults on reflected appraisals when reporting about the
self-views and their sense of self is especially likely to be based on their beliefs about how others
view them
Is the self-knowledge reliable?
-Self-knowledge is essential for behavioral regulation→know what you want and what you are able
to do
-Essential for social adjustment→monitor my own behavior to try to be accepted by others
-Essential for integrating personal experiences→we need a stable self-image to have a sense of
continuity in life
, A positive self-image is more useful than a realistic self-image.
People are egocentric, narcissistic and conservative (open to information that agrees with our own
self-view)
Two basic motives of self-knowledge:
Self-consistency→need to affirm self-image (we want to affirm the self-image that we have of us);
we have self-schemas about ourselves and they try to keep themselves intact→these schemas
represent people´s beliefs and feelings about the self; they help us to navigate through the world.
Study:
People had to assess wether they see themselves as dependent or independent and then after 3
weeks they have to review a list of characteristics and decide as quickly as possible wether they apply
to them. The important thing to measure was the time, because the shorter the time, the more
automatic the decision and therefore the more familiar is the information to you.
→results showed that people are quicker at processing information that is consistent with their self-
image, because people with independent self-image were faster at processing independent
characteristics and people with dependent self-image were faster at processing dependent
characteristics
We distort reality by being selective in the kind of information that we are open for!
Self-enhancement:
need for positive self-image
People want to have a positive self-image and they use:
-Unrealistically positive self-image/self-serving construals→(we are better than the average other
person which is statistically impossible); people tend to judge others on how they are on average
whereas they define themselves in terms of how they behave at their best
-Illusion of control (people want sense of controlling the outcome; rituals to have the feeling of
controlling the outcome of things)
-Unrealistic optimism (about the future for example)
These things contribute to well-being, because it protects the self-esteem and enable people to be
more open to others (better social relations and more attractive) and encourages to focus on
behavior and own goals.
Being optimistic about yourself is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Study:
People fill in questionnaire to test wether they have a positive or negative self-view (low self-
enhancers and high self-enhancers groups). Then people did stressful tasks to measure their baseline
and during the stressful task.
→High self-enhancers are less susceptible to stress than low self-enhancers. So, self-enhancements
make your life easier and make you less vulnerable to stress!
Self-affirmation theory→people can maintain an overall sense of self-worth when they are
confronted with events that threaten a valued self-image
Self-serving attribution bias→tendency to attribute responsibility to yourself when you succeed but
deny when you fail
Balancing self-enhancement and verification:
Step 1: Distinguishing participants with positive or negative self-concept
Step 2: Participants have to give public speech that will be judged
Step 3: Feedback can be positive or negative
Step 4: Participants have to rate feedback in terms of accuracy (cognitive) or positive feeling
(affective)
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