Full lecture notes for Lancaster University Psychology module PSYC113: Social Psychology in the New Digital Age. Includes references, relevant theories explained, diagrams and research findings.
PSYC113 Lent Term – Social Psychology in the New Digital Age
Lecture 1 – Five Big Ideas of Social Psychology
- Social Psychology: the scientific study of how a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour are
influenced by the real, imagined or implied presence of others.
1. Situations are powerful
- They are powerful as they are invisible to observers who do not have context.
- Known situations can influence our perception of others. Eg. Participant that were told photos of
peoples’ faces were taken at a funeral rated them sadder than those given no context (Trope, 1986).
People more likely to say they chance of skin cancer when asked on rainy days vs. sunny days (Gino &
Staats, 2014).
- Past events shape our perception of the present eg. a fight with a partner about pickles encodes the
idea that pickles leads to fights for future experiences.
2. We often don’t know why people do what they do
- Fundamental attribution error: bias in attributing other’s behaviour to internal causes over situational.
- Actor-Observer discrepancy: our own behaviour is due to external influences and other’s internal
- Conscious experience is constructed and not always accurate. This creates empathy gaps.
3. We often don’t know what we don’t know
- We have evolved to have gaps in our knowledge to save us time when processing information. This is a
form of adaption as processing works best when fast and outside of our awareness. Explains biases such
as cultural or social stereotypes.
4. Our judgements are amazingly accurate
- Judgements are very accurate as they are done automatically.
- Ambady et al. (1999) found that thin slice judgements of sexual orientation were 55% accurate when
given a photo and 70% when given a 10-second video without sound.
- Zero acquaintance: A study found 50-80% accurate judgement of emotion between 30ms-50ms of
being shown a face.
- Accurate judgements of threat in 39ms when shown faces, but not intelligence – due to survival instincts.
5. People have 2 fundamental motivations:
a. We want to be liked and need to belong
- Self-esteem is our best guess of how we think others see us.
b. People want to be accurate, authentic and consistent
--Consistent in the eyes of others and ourselves.
- Cyberpsychology
o 81% of the population have internet with 5-7 years of your life spent on social media.
o Social media can act as community groups. These services extract data from us. Our electronics
have become social surrogates.
- Marketing Psychology
o Uses positive and negative framing to present information in favour of you buying the product.
o Cereal packaging mascots have eyes to build a level of trust with children.
o All supermarkets arrange flowers at the front of the stores as research has showed that nice smells
make you spend more money.
Lecture 2 – Impression Formation
Configuration Model (Asch 1946):
- Gestalt-based (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).
- Gave participants a profile list of characteristics (eg. skilful, practical, cautious, warm, cold, polite, blunt).
They were asked to rate the profile on bipolar attributes (eg. ungenerous – generous).
- Profiles with the word ‘warm’ were rated more positively. Suggests that warm vs. cold / polite vs. blunt
are central traits that disproportionally influence impression, while intelligent, industrious, skilful and
practical are peripheral traits.
- Replicated by Kelley (1950) in a real-life situation where he described the speaker as either warm or cold
before and after a presentation, He found similar results to Asch.
- Limitations: Other things can bias our impression, such as:
, o Primacy and Recency effects: info about someone presented first / last can change your
impression.
o Positivity and Negativity Bias: we assume the best of people but we attenuate more to negative
information.
o Personal constructs and implicit personality theories: can be shared within but not cross culturally.
o Physical appearance: evidence of primacy effect and relationship between ‘inner and outer’
beauty.
o Stereotypes: default ideas based on group membership
o Social judgements: social rules dictate when we are allowed to make judgements eg.
employment
Cognitive Algebra
- When we meet someone we are performing average calculations on their attributes eg. ‘funny’ holds a
certain value. We make positive and negative evaluations in three ways:
o Summation
o Averaging
o Weighted average
- The same attribute can weigh differently in one context vs. another. Eg. funny weighs lower for politician
but higher for a friend.
Social Schemas and Categories
- Top down: our previous knowledge drives behaviour; we do not seek new info out. To apply a schema
you need to be able to label a category.
- Family resemblance: defining property of category membership
- Prototypes: cognitive presentations of typical / ideal defining features of a category
- Schema types: person (parents or best friend), role (pilots, doctors), scripts (events), content-free (a
general set of rules for information processing), self
Forming impressions from faces
- Faces have three dimensions:
o Intentions: judgements of trustworthiness, honesty, morality
o Ability: competence, confidence, dominance
o Attractiveness
- Brown eyes are seen as more dominant and trustworthy than blue eyes. Behavioural evidence shows
blue eyed boys are shyer than brown eyed peers. Researchers found that it as was not the eye colour
that caused stronger perceptions of trustworthiness but rather the facial features associated with brown
eyes.
- Eye colour is not correlated with attractiveness or dominance, but positively correlated with trust.
- Smooth skin is seen as more trustworthy, competent, attractiveness and healthy. But the presence of
blemishes was stronger and undid the positive evaluations.
- Sexual orientation can be accurately perceived in 40-50ms as it is likely to have evolutionary benefits.
Instant reaction has better accuracy than deliberation. 61% for men, 54% for women.
- AI tech accurately guessed male and female sexual orientation from faces. 81% for men, 71% for
women. Researchers believe it is due to makeup, structural differences and expressions in the face.
There are ethical implications to building a machine that detects information you have a right to
disclose or not disclose.
Forming impressions from handshakes
- Firm handshake makes a good impression. Negatively correlated to shyness and neuroticism and
positively correlated to extraversion and emotional expressiveness. Also positively correlated to
openness to experience but only for women.
Forming impressions from voices
- 64 people recorded saying ‘hello’, which lasted 390ms. Participants were asked to rate the voice on
one attribute eg. honesty, valence, dominance and attractiveness. Results showed a high degree of
consistent perceptions across participants
, Forming impressions from context
- Participants had a 10-minute conversation over the phone with a stranger.
They rated each other on the Big-5 and had a familiar person rate them
on personality. Accuracy was dependent on the trait (extraversion,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness). Visible traits judged better in
person. Context shapes relevance.
Forming impressions from glasses
Forming impressions from shoes
Impression management and the extended self
- Behavioural residues: our personality leads us to make certain choices or behave in certain ways.
- The things we own become part of us and reflect us.
o Wearing a watch: Ellis & Jenkins (2015) studied personality and watch wearing. Asked participants
to come to the lab at a specific time then observed whether they wore a watch, whether they
showed up late, early or on time. Found that people who wear watches are more
conscientiousness, scored lower on extroversion and openness. Correlated to punctuality.
o Shoes: participants made judgements about photos sent in of people’s most worn shoes and
rated them. Those that sent in photos filled in measures of the Big-5, demographics, attachment,
politics and 17 measures for shoes. Results found mixed accuracy for personality but was accurate
for demographics and attachment.
o Glasses: seen by others as conscientious (but not really). Evolutionary theory suggests poor
eyesight = less extraverted and less open to experience. Personality may influence the willingness
to wear glasses (some may choose to wear contacts).
o Romantic partners: Profile pictures from Facebook were rated on 10 bipolar measures. Results
found high level of rater agreement, highest for attractiveness and extroversion, lowest for
calmness and reliability. Smiling and being alone vs with others had significant impact. Shows not
all choices reflect the person.
- We are engaging in increasingly more peer-to-peer marketing, so your reputation is key. Ert et al found
that those with more trustworthy looking people in their profile charged more for AirBnB rooms.
Lecture 3 – Attraction
- We want to attract people as we all feel the need to belong. There are 4 motivations to be with people:
o Social attention – seeking praise or approval
o Social comparison – seeking information
o Stimulation – seeking entertainment
o Emotional support
Why we isolate ourselves
- Psychological well-being: creativity, freedom of expression, relaxation and spirituality
- Privacy Regulation Theory (Altman, 1975): describes privacy as a dialectic and dynamic boundary
regulation process where you selectively control access to the self or to the group. Dialectic refers to
openness and closeness of self to others, while dynamic indicates the desired privacy level. Both vary
due to individual and cultural differences. When actual privacy exceeds desired we feel lonely; when
actual privacy is less than desired we feel annoyed or crowded.
- Social Affiliation Model / Homeostatic model (O’Conner and Rosenblood, 1996): homeostatic model
where we seek out interactions in a manner consistent with an internal optimal range.
- Sociotropic vs Solitropic orientation (Leary, Herbst, McCrary, 2003):
o Sociotropic: preference for engaging with others
o Solitropic: preference for being alone
o Inclination to engage in and enjoy solitary activities is more a function of the solitropic pull of
aloneness rather than to low sociotropic tendencies
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