Summary
S&O samenvatting
- Course
- Institution
- Book
summary of the chapters to be studied in the book 'Social Psychology' and 'understanding and managing organizational behavior'
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
More summaries for
-
PYC3701 Assignment 1 (DETAILED ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 (576226) - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED
-
PYC3701 The only Study and Exam Pack you will need! Used for Assignments and Exam period 2023
-
PYC3701 MCQ EXAM PACK 2023
Seller
Follow
evas30
Content preview
Social psychology boekHoofdstuk 1
Social psychology understanding ho wand why individuals behave, think and feel
as they do in social situations.
Field to be considered scientific;
Accuracy commitment to gathering and evaluating information about the
world in as careful, precise and error-free manner as possible.
Licability the same ‘findings’ when performed by someone else may not be
obtained
Objectivity a commitment to obtaining and evaluating such information in a
manner that is as free from bias as possible.
Skepticism a commitment to accepting findings as accurate only to the
extent they have been verified over and over again.
Open-mindedness a commitment to changing one’s views – even those
that are strongly held – if existing evidence suggests that these views are
inaccurate.
Social psychologists adopt the scientific method because ‘common sense’ provides
an unreliable guide to social behavior and because our personal thought is influences
by many potential sources of bias.
Planning fallacy = the strong tendency to believe that projects will take less time
than they actually do or, alternatively, that we can accomplish more in a given period
of time than is really true.
we have a tendency to think about the future when we are estimating how long a
job will take. This prevents us from remembering how long similar tasks took in the
past, and that, in turn, leads us to underestimate the time we need now.
Social behavior is influenced by a wide range of social, cognitive, environmental,
cultural and biological factors.
We try to make sense of people in our social world by attributing their actions to
something about them or something about the circumstances this means we
engage in lots of social cognition.
Aspects of the physical environment can influence our feelings, thoughts and
behavior.
Some suggest that our preferences, emotions and behaviors may be linked, to some
extent, to our biological inheritance.
the view that biological factors play an important role in social behavior has been
emphasized among those who take an evolutionary psychology perspective.
The evolutionary perspective does not suggest that we are ‘forced’ or driven by our
genes to act in specific ways. Rather, it merely suggests that because of our genetic
inheritance, we have tendencies to behave in certain ways that may have enhanced
the chances that our ancestors would survive and pass their genes on to us.
1
,Cultures differ tremendously and this complicates the task of establishing general
principles of social behavior and social thought.
a multicultural approach guides social psychological research so that the
principles uncovered can be applied to humans in all their diverse forms.
All social psychologists agree that there is a complex interplay between social
thought and social behavior what we think about others influences our actions
towards them, and the consequences of these actions influence our emotions and
social thought.
Social neuroscience = efforts to relate activity in the brain to key aspects of social
thought and behavior.
Mirror neurons neurons in our brains that are activated during the observation and
execution of actions, and it has been suggested that they play a key role in empathy.
Our thoughts and actions are shaped by factors and processes of which we are only
dimly aware, at best, and which often take place in an automatic manner, without any
conscious thought or intentions on our part.
Social psychology has adopted a multicultural perspective one that recognizes
the potential importance of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, social
class, religious orientation and many other social group dimensions.
One basic technique for studying social behavior involves systematic observation –
carefully observing behavior as it occurs.
Naturalistic observation observation of people’s behavior in natural settings.
Survey method researchers ask large numbers of persons to respond to questions
about their attitudes or behavior.
Requirements survey;
Participant must be representative of the larger population.
The way in which the items are worded can exert strong effects on the
outcomes
Sampling
An important method of research sometimes used by social psychologists;
correlational method in this approach, social psychologists attempt to determine
whether, and to what extent, different variables are related to each other. This
involves carefully measuring each variable and then performing appropriate statistical
tests to determine whether and to what degree the variables are related.
the existence of even strong correlations between variables does not indicate that
they are necessarily causally related to each other.
Scientists do not merely want to describe the world and relationships between
variables in it; they want to be able to explain these relationships too.
experimentation/experimental method; one variable is changes systematically,
and the effects of these changes on one or more other variables are carefully
measured.
2
,If systematic changes in one variable produces changes in another variable, it is
possible to conclude with reasonable certainty that there is indeed a causal
relationship between the two variables.
The factor systematically varied by the researcher is termed the independent
variable, while the aspect of behavior studied is termed the dependent variable
Successful experimentation requires;
Random assignment of participants to experimental conditions all
participants in an experiment must have an equal chance of being exposed to
each level of the independent variable.
All factors other than the independent variable that might also affect
participants’ behavior must be held constant (to avoid cofounding)
Although it is a very powerful research tool, the experimental method is not perfect –
questions concerning the external validity of finding obtained often arise. Further, it
cannot be used in some situations because of practical or ethical considerations.
Mediating variables adds to understanding of how specific independent variables
influence certain aspects of social behavior or social thought.
Meta-analysis is a highly useful statistical technique that permits an assessment of
how well findings replicate – whether the same pattern of results is obtained despite
variation in how particular studies were conducted. It can also point to gaps in
existing research and features of research settings that moderate the strength or
even directions of effects obtained
Moderators are factors that can alter the effect of an independent variable on the
dependent variable. They can also affect the strength of a relationships between two
variables.
One technique seems to be unique to research in social psychology; deception; this
technique involves efforts by researchers to withhold or conceal information about
the purposes of a study from participants.
Ethical questions about deception;
The deception may result in some kind of harm to the persons exposed to it
Participants will resent being fooled and acquire negative attitudes toward
social psychology.
Informed consent giving the participant as much information as possible about
the procedures to be followed before they make their decision to participate.
Debriefing providing participants with a full description of the purposes of a study
after they have participated in it, including an explanation of any deception used, and
why it was necessary to employ it.
together, these two can substantially reduce the potential dangers of deception.
3
, Hoofdstuk 2
social cognition how we think about the social world, our attempts to understand
complex issues, and why we sometimes are less than ‘optimally rational’
we are capable of focusing on a limited amount of information. Any input beyond our
limit puts us into a state of information overload where the demands on our
cognitive system are greater than its capacity. In addition, our processing capacity
can be depleted by high levels of stress or other demands on us.
to deal with such situations, people adopt various strategies designed to ‘stretch’
their cognitive resources – to let them do more, with less effort, then would otherwise
be the case.
Heuristics; simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a
rapid and efficient manner.
Representativeness heuristic the more an individual seems to resemble or
match a given group, the more likely she or he is to belong to that group.
Decision made with this rule tend to ignore base rates – the frequency with which
given events or categories occur in the total population.
Availability heuristic the easier it is to bring information to mind, the greater
its impact on subsequent judgements or decisions.
The more information we can think of, the greater its impact on our judgements.
Anchoring and adjustment the tendency to deal with uncertainty in many
situations by using something we do know as a starting point and then making
adjustments to it.
(court experiment by Englich, Mussweiler and Strach)
Portion size effect the tendency to eat more when a larger portion of food is
received than a smaller portion (example of anchoring an adjustment)
Schemas (mental frameworks); help us to organize social information, guide our
actions and process information relevant to particular contexts.
Schemas influence three basic processes of social cognition;
1. Attention the information we notice
2. Encoding the processes we use to store noticed information in memory.
3. Retrieval how we recover information from memory in order to use it in
some manner.
With respect to attention, schemas often act as a kind of filter information
consistent with them is more likely to be noticed and to enter our consciousness. We
especially tend to rely on schemas when experiencing cognitive load – when we are
trying to handle a lot of information at one time. In this case, we rely on our schemas
because they help us process information efficiently.
In general, during encoding, the information that is consistent with our schemas is
encoded. However, information that is sharply inconsistent with our schemas –
information that does not agree with our expectations in a given situation – may be
encoded into a separate memory location and marked. Inconsistent information is
4
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller evas30. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.91. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
66579 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now