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Social Psychology
Baron, R. A., & Branscombe, N. R. (2017). Social Psychology (14th editon). Pearson.
Chapter 1: Social Psychology
Social psychology: Social Psychology is the scientic ield that seeks to understand the
nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situatons.
Looking for principles that apply very generally, in all cultures and setngs.
It is scientic in nature because it adopts values and methods used in scientic science.
Science is (1) a set of values and (2) several methods that can be used to study a wide range
of topics. Science refers to a set of basic values (e.g. accuracy, objectvityy)
Core values adopted by social psychology science:
Accuracy commitment to gathering and evaluatng informaton about the world in
as careful, precise, and error-free manner as possible. this wouldn’t be present in
an experiment that lacks replicability.
Objectvity commitment to obtaining and evaluatng such informaton in a
manner that is as free from bias as possible e.g. people watching may lack
objectvity because of the diferent perspectves that they may have.
Skeptcism commitment to acceptng indings as accurate only to the extent they
have been veriied over and over again. replicaton is important
Open-mindedness commitment to change view if existng evidence suggest its
inaccuracy.
Social Psychologists adopt the scientic method because “common sense” provides an
unreliable guide to social behavior, and because our personal thought is infuences by many
potental sources of bias
Common sense ofen suggests a confusing and inconsistent picture of human behavior.
Only a scientic approach that examines social behavior and thought in difering contexts
can provide holding principles and generalizatons: it yields more conclusive evidence.
Planning fallacy = A strong tendency to believe that projects will take less tme than they
actually do.
Actons are performed by, and the thoughts occur in the minds of individuals, although they
may be infuenced by other people. - Social Psychology focuses on the behavior of
individuals and seeks to understand the causes of social behavior and thought, which can
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involve the behavior and appearance of others, social cogniton, environmental factors,
cultural values, and biological and genetc factors.
- We ofen react to others based on their characteristcs (appearance)
- We cannot ignore other´s appearance even when we are trying
Cognitive procvessves (e.g. reactons are infuenced by memory), Eniironmvental iariablves
(temperature), biological factors (genes) play a crucial role in social behavior and social
thought.
Eiolutonary psychology perspectve the view that biological factors play an important
role in social behavior. suggest that our species, as others, has been subject to the
process of biological evoluton which is why we have evolved psychological mechanisms
that help us lead with problems and survival.
Eiolutonary Psychology is a new branch of psychology that seeks to investgate the
potental role of genetc factor in various aspects of human behavior.
Evoluton involves 3 major components:
- Variaton organism vary in many ways
- Inheritance some of these variatons are heritable, variatons are passed on by
generatons.
- Selecton variatons that are adaptve become increasingly common in the
populaton. (crucial outcome for evoluton)
Evolutonary perspectve DOES NOT suggest that we inherit speciic paaterns of social
behavior; rather we inherit tendencies to act in a certain way depending of our
environment.
Social Psychology seeks to establish basic principles of social life that are accurate across
huge cultural diferences and despite rapid and major changes in social life. E.g. some
cultures interdependent some independent
Important causes of social behavior and thought include the behavior and characteristcs of
other people, cognitve processes, emotons, cultures, and genetc factors.
Social Psychology: Advances at the boundaries
Social Psychologist currently recognize that social thought (= how people aatempt to make
sense of the social world and to understand themselves and others) and social behavior (=
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how people act in social situatons) are two sides of the same coin, and that there is a
contnuous, complex interplay between them.
There is an interest among social psychologist in the role of emoton in social thought and
social behavior positve emotons increase out tendency to ofer help to others; our
impressions of others are infuenced by our current moods.
No division between studying social behavior and social cogniton anymore.
Interest in emotons and mood. (- mood infuences behavior tendencies and
impressions of others.)
The formaton and development of rvelatonships is another major trend in the ield of social
psychology.
Rvelatonships: Our social tes with other persons, ranging from casual acuuaintance or
passing friendships, to intense, long-term relatonships such as marriage or lifetme
friendships.
Past 20 years: powerful tools (fMRI, PET) in social psychology = Used to uncover social
thought and behaviour in our brains and to ind out what potons in the brain are involved.
Connecton to Social Neuroscience – relate actvity in the brain to key aspects of social
thought and behavior.
Experiment showed we process info. If statement of disagreement: uuick response
(250ms afer hearing) and intensiied processing
our brain shows a certain paatern of actvity (N400 – event-related-potental)
= Attudes and values exert powerful and far-reaching efects on actvity within our brains
and on our overt actons.
Mirror nveurons actvate during the observaton and executon of actons (vempathy)
located on the frontal opverculum more actvity when empathy
Our behavior and thought are ofen shaped by factors which we are unaware of
Nonconscious processes infuence our actons however, we cannot know if the
impression we have of others is accurate or not on irst instance.
Individuals culture, ethnic key of their conceptons of themselves reason why (social)
psychology adopted multcultural pverspvective (recognizes gender, age, ethnicity, sexual
orientatons, disabilites, social class, and other group dimensions) behavior change
depending on which category is used to deine the self at any moment. research indings
of one culture does not necessarily generalize to others.
Multcultural pverspvective: A focus on understanding the cultural and ethnic factors that
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infuence social behavior.
How social psychologist answer the question they ask: research to
increase knowledge.
Basic mvethods of rvesvearch in social psychology:
- Accomplish a task though systematc research.
- Systematc observaton careful and accurate measurement of a partcular
behavior across people.
o Naturalistc obsveriaton simply recording what is happening in a natural
setng observer simply records, avoids infuencing the people being
observed
o Surivey mvethod researchers ask large number of people about their
behavior to asses a variety of social issues especially useful to capture
large samples
Criteria reuuirements for surveys:
The person that partcipates must be representatve of the larger
populaton sampling if this conditon is not met serious errors
Way in which the items are worded big efect on outcome
Systvematc obsveriaton A method of research in which behavior is systematcally
observed and recorded.
Surivey mvethod A method of research in which a large number of people answer
uuestons about their attudes or behavior.
Corrvelatonal Mvethod:
Correlaton: tendency for one event to be associated with changes in the other. If known
that correlaton exists: predictng one variable from info about the other.
The stronger the relatonship – the more accurate the predictons.
correlatons range from -1 to 1; the greater the departure from 0 the
stronger the correlaton.
Positve correlaton as one variable increases, the other increases too.
Negatve correlaton as one variable increases, the other one decreases.
Hypothvesis: An as yet unveriied predicton concerning some aspects of social behavior or
social thought.
The fact that two variables are correlated doesn’t guarantee that they are
causally related (that changes in one cause changes in the other), a third
