Full typed lecture notes for the module Social and Developmental Psychology (C82SAD). Includes lectures on social cognition, attitudes, group processes, obedience, prejudice, aggression, motivation.
“The scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the
actual, imagined, or implied presence of others” Allport (1935)
Still as if we are in a social environment even when alone.
- Social constructivist
- Humanistic
- Deduces from observations
- Language and culture.
- Inductive/ Qualitative
- Gergen (1973), Shotter (1975)
SOME IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS / ASSUMPTIONS
Social psychologists don’t study animals
People don’t behave in a social ‘vacuum’
The individuals is the unit of analysis
Other people, social contexts, the groups we belong to all affect our decisions and behavior in social
contexts,.
Experimental psychologists use ingenious experiments to look at social phenomena.
Observable behavior
Non-observable phenomena: thoughts opinions, attitudes, beliefs, intentions, goals etc.
What makes social psychology social is that it deals that real implied presence.
We think with language – social construction – jargon – certain terminology – forms a group which
excludes others. Language is with us all the time.
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Scientific methods
Hypotheses formed on the basis of knowledge, assumptions and causal or systematic observation.
Careful control of independent variables and its effect on a dependent variable.
Deci and Ryans (1985): experiments on intrinsic motivation- whether you do a behavior without external
rewards like hobbies - you choose to do them.
- Effects of rewards on puzzle solving
- IV: Reward / no-reward conditions
- DV: Amount of time spent on puzzle in free choice paradigm and enjoyment.
, - Hypothesis: people who were given reward spend longer on puzzle later when alone than those who
did not receive a reward.
- People with no reward spent longer- had intrinsic motivation – doing it themselves not for the
reward.
- People who got a reward spent less time as they were thinking about the reward.
Experimental methods in field
Naturalistic settings outside laboratory
Field experiments have high external validity but less control over extraneous variables.
More difficult to obtain subjective measures as usually relies on observed behavior.
Dutton & Aron (1974):
- Examined the mis-interpretation of arousal according to environmental feedback
- Male pps crossed either a wobbly suspension bridge high over a canyon (high anxiety) or a solid
bridge 10 feet high.
- As they crossed the bridge an attractive female research assistant approached and administered
questionnaire about some ambiguous pictures of people and gave her phone number in case they had
any questions.
- PPS who crossed the dangerous bridge misinterpreted fear for sexual arousal and found more sexual
themes in pictures and were also much more likely to call the woman.
Case studies: rich data but less generalisable to population.
Survey: generalisable but cannot infer causality because data is correlational.
THEORIES
Evolutionary social psychology: important behavioral tendencies evoked a survival benefit and therefore
became part of human genetic makeup. Sexual selection.
Behaviorism: In decline, neo behaviorists need to evoke unobservable constructs to explain behavior
Cognitive Psychology: most popular, representations and cognitive consistency.
Personality: stable, generalized, heritable traits that influence behavior in a number of contexts, little
evidence for true heritable traits, acquired through genetics,
Social cognition: information processing is central to the theory, examines the effects of social
information on decision making and behavior. Assumes all individuals process information in the same
manner, assumes a rational, reasoned decision maker, the same process for everyone.
C82SAD: SOCIAL COGNITION AND SOCIAL THINKING
Social Cognition is how attitudes, perceptions, judgments and expectations influence our beliefs,
intentions and behavior.
Assumes a rational, reasoned decision maker
Information processing perspective.
Compromises a set of cognitive structures and processes that affect and are affected by social context.
Cognitive misers – adopting cognitive shortcuts – stereotypes – enable us to be economical with decision
making. Making decisions with limited info so frees up working memory – efficient.
The world provides too much information – we need to attend to certain things.
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