social psychology lectures full/summary exam material
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Course
Sociale Psychologie
Institution
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
lectures verbatim fully written down everything that is relevant, including all the material you need for the exam
english, but maybe here and there some words in dutch
Social Psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, relate to, and influence
one another, either interpersonally or within groups.
Levels of analysis:
- Intrapersonal processes: persoon zelf. Within the mind.
- Interpersonal relations: tussen 2 personen. Emotions between people. Waarom help
je een ander.
- Intra-group processes: groep zelf. Bij een groep met meer dan 2. Hoe werk je binnen
1 groep. Conformiteit.
- Intergroup relations: tussen 2 groepen. Waarom soms conflict tussen 2 groepen, etc.
waarom helpen twee groepen elkaar bij ramp.
Axioms Social Psychology: 1. Human cognition, emotion, and behavior is a function of person
x situation dus: f(Person x Situation). Examples – Different people respond differently to the
same situation – The same person responds differently to different situations.
-Different situations activate different roles of a person. Uni ben je student, thuis ben je
rommelig etc. soms stil, soms extravert.
-People choose situations: so situation isnt independent from the person, je kiest psycho
studeren.
-Situation “chooses” person: je kunt niet overal in komen. of mag niet overal inkomen. Vb:
basketball lengte.
- People change situations: party kun jij gezelliger maken
- Situations change people: which circle in center is bigger? Komt door context dat je denkt
dat eentje groter is. Hoe attractive jij bent ligt aan hoe attractive je vrienden zijn.
Situations influence us automatically: Priming.
The role of the ‘person’: fields associated with social psychology:
- Personality Psychology – Focus on stable psychological traits that shape behavior –
Extraversion, agreeableness, etc
- Social neuroscience – assumption: All our thoughts, emotions, and behavior are
rooted in the physiological matter of the brain • E.g., people who vote conservatively
have a larger amygdala! • Brain structure that is activated when people feel fear
- Evolutionary psychology – Heritability of behavior – assumption: Many psychological
tendencies evolved because they helped our ancestors survive a challenging
environment • Automatic ‘fear’ response to snakes but not flowers • Automatic ‘fear’
response to outgroup men but not outgroup women
The role of the ‘situation’:
- Marketing – Influence of consumer choice – Persuasion via implicit or explicit
processes
- Group Psychology – Crowds make people do things they would not do otherwise:
‘the wave’ – Conformity: vb more violence
- Cultural psychology – How does culture shape our feelings and behaviors? – E.g.,
differences in attitudes towards the death penalty in the Netherlands vs. Texas
,Axioms social psychology: 2. People construct their own social reality – Human cognition,
emotion, and behavior is strongly influenced by the situation, or rather, by people’s
interpretation of the situation
Example: the Thomas Theorem: If people define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences. E.g. a child’s perception about the existence of ghosts will keep him awake at
night, though they don’t actually exist.
people construct their own reality: ons brein kent er betekenis aan toe. We zien er een
verhaal in. Daar zijn onze breinen voor gemaakt, om betekenis en doel te zien.
Consequence of perceptual filter:
- Self-serving interpretations: je interpreteert het op een manier die jou beter uitkomt
- Motivated reasoning: People selectively interpret evidence that supports their
worldview (and ignore evidence that does not support it). Daarom zie je Subjective
beliefs as objective truths.
- Ideological conflict: It is very difficult to compromise when different parties
experience their moral worldview as an objective truth!
Axioms social psychology 3. People are social animals – Others influence most of what
people think, feel, and do.
Why are people social animals?
- “The Need to Belong”: One of the most important psychological needs of
human beings. Why? Evolutionary adaptive. Psychological and emotional well-being.
Early ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers in difficult conditions. Cooperation and group life
essential for survival – Hunting, gathering – Extreme climate variations – Threat of war
– Sexual partners
- The Social Brain Hypothesis: brain size komt door complexity van sociaal leven. Our
complex human brain evolved as a result of our complex social life
- The Herding Instinct. It is in our nature to desire meaningful relationship with others
Romantic partners, But also friends, colleagues, sports teams, etc. – Our brains are
‘programmed’ to have a Need to Belong. Exclusion from social relationships is
therefore painful.
Human responses to it underscore that they are social animals.
Summary: Axioms Social Psychology
– Human cognition, emotion, and behavior = f(Person x Situation): dus stronger the
role of situation the weaker role of person et vice versa
– People construct their own social reality : any reality goes through perceptual filter
(die filter is gevormd door opvoeding persoonlijkheid en vele andere factoren)
– People are social animals: heavily influenced by what others think do ....
Being excluded threatens four needs 1.Belonging 2. Control 3. Self-esteem 4. Meaningful
existence
Being excluded hurts (literally!): dezelfde breinregio’s die bij fysieke pijn worden
geactiveerd.
,Does exclusion decrease performance on intelligence test? Experiment 3 conditions: je krijgt
een blaadje met wat ze based on the personality test verwachten van je leven
• Social connection: je hebt veel vrienden en zult het altijd hebben • Social exclusion: je zult
later alleen blijven, geen echte relaties hebben • Accident-prone: je zult veel ongelukken
krijgen, arm breken ofzo.
Conclusie: not Any negative experience, but only specifically exclusion harms participants
performance on intelligence test. likely to be a very short effect but nevertheless so even if
only briefly this feedback that they might end up alone later in life so apparently this
occupied the thoughts and feelings to such an extent that they couldn't think straight
anymore.
Bij 1 experiment: raten de buitengesloten mensen negatiever.
Bij een ander experiment: als ze worden buitengesloten, zelfs niet door die personen maar
door een ander, dan ben je sneller geneigd een hardere noise blast straf te geven.
Feeling left out can have real consequences: e.g. school shootings.
School shootings typically were conducted by social outcasts so feeling excluded, feeling left
out can have real consequences. people are social animals and the need to belong is very
important to people and therefore feeling excluded hurts people, in fact it hurts him quite
literally in the brain and it threatens a lot of different needs. feeling excluded has
implications for emotions and also in their behaviour people get a little bit more aggressive
and that makes social exclusion an excellent illustration of the phenomenon that people
really find it important to belong to social groups.
Lecture 2
Humans form groups. Two or more people who interact with and influence one another.
And: perceive one another as “Us”. Dus in trein zelfde cabine is geen groep, of mensen die
vechten.
Groups are dynamic: - Members influence each others’ performance - Members influence
each others’ opinions - Members influence each others’ decisions
Groups are dynamic: Also: differences in: hierarchical vs. egalitarian
Power differences – Leaders vs followers
Status differences – Valued vs. Nonvalued members
Small Group Processes: How do groups influence individual members?
– Performance – Opinions – Decisions - Leadership
1The influence of groups on performance
Social facilitation: Beginning of social psychology. Fietsers zijn sneller als ze samen
fietsen. First experiment in social psychology (Triplett): in one condition people were
spinning the fishing wire as fast as possible alone and in a second condition they
were together and doing it in competition. people were faster when in competition =
social facilitation = sometimes the presence of others can make us perform better on
certain tasks. However, the presence of others not only improves performance it
, can also deteriorate it, sometimes people display social inhibitions, sometimes
actually the presence of others make people perform worse on certain tasks.
Hoe kan dat? solution was offered by Zajonc: social facilitation model:drive theory:
the presence of others whether its audience or whether it is in competition produces
a sense of arousal (=the heart starts beating faster etc so agitated feeling). This
facilitates the dominant response and inhibits the non-dominant response. the
dominant is the behaviour you would naturally do when you would rely on your
autopilot. Non-dominant response : that you need to do more careful, requires
mental effort. So: particularly easy tasks or well learned tasks get facilitated due to
the presence of others because in those cases the dominant response is to produce
a correct response. more difficult tasks that are not well learned or require more
efforts people starts performing worse due to the presence of others. Dus social
facilitation vs inhibition.
Arousal is part of performance: Yerkes-Dodson law: some arousal is actually
necessary to perform well. you can be too aroused but you can also be too under-
aroused so too relaxed. there's some sort of optimal arousal level that keeps you
sharp , makes you perform better. however the optimal arousal level - consistent
with the drive theory - depends on whether or not the task is difficult or easy: for
easy tasks the optimal arousal level is higher than for difficult. when the task is
difficult it is better for our performance if we are a little bit relaxed not too agitated,
bij easy task better of if we are a little bit activated: so the level of arousal that’s
optimal depends on how easy a task is.
Why do people feel arousal when others are watching? Explanations:
1. “Evaluation apprehension”– People care about how others judge them. When
people feel watched they have these metacognitions in which they start
imagining how others perceive them and people care how others judge them.
• Male joggers started running faster when a woman was sitting next to
the road. But: NOT when she had her back turned towards the road!
2. “Mere presence”: zelfs als je niet gezien wordt, Only other’s presence is
sufficient to create arousal.
Die social facilitation en inhibition kun je zelfs zien bij kakkerlakken. Zegt ons iets over hoe
basaal en instinctief dit is.
Social facilitation versus social loafing
- Social facilitation or inhibition in the context of individual performance
- What if people work together as a team towards a common goal? Social loafing:
People try less hard individually when group size is bigger. Individual performance
impairs if people (believe to) work on a collective task. E.g. rope pulling. Also hand-
clapping
Why do people commit social loafing? 1.Often no ‘evaluation apprehension’ : vaak is
uiteindelijk niet duidelijk wie wat deed. 2.Also diffusion of responsibility: wie is
verantwoordelijk? Waarom zou ik het initiatief nemen? 3.Prioritizing short-term self- interest
over long-term collective interest: Social dilemmas! E.g. paying taxes.
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