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SUMMARY SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
IBP year 1 | semester 2 | block 3
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Contents
Chapter 1: social psychology – the science of the social side of life................................................................4
Social psychology: what it is and is not.........................................................................................................4
Social psychology: advances at the boundaries.............................................................................................5
How social psychologists answer the questions they ask: research as the route to increased knowledge.. .6
The role of theory in social psychology........................................................................................................7
The quest for knowledge and the rights of individuals: seeking an appropriate balance.............................8
Chapter 2: social cognition – how we think about the social world..................................................................8
Heuristics: how we enjoy simple rules in social cognition...........................................................................8
Schemas: mental frameworks for organizing social information..................................................................9
Automatic and controlled processing in social thought..............................................................................10
Potential sources of error in social cognition: why total rationality is rarer than you think.......................11
Affect and cognition: how feelings shape thought and thought shapes feelings........................................12
Chapter 3: social perception - seeking to understand others...........................................................................13
Nonverbal communication: an unspoken language.....................................................................................13
Attribution: understanding the causes of behavior......................................................................................14
Impression formation and management: combining information about others..........................................16
Chapter 4: the self – answering the question “who am I”...............................................................................17
Self-presentation: managing the self in different social contexts................................................................17
Self-knowledge: determining who we are...................................................................................................18
Personal identity versus social identity........................................................................................................18
Social comparison: how we evaluate ourselves..........................................................................................20
Self-esteem: attitudes toward ourselves.......................................................................................................20
The self as target of prejudice......................................................................................................................21
Chapter 5: attitudes – evaluating and responding to the social world.............................................................21
Attitude formation: how attitudes develop..................................................................................................22
When and why do attitudes influence behavior?.........................................................................................23
How do attitudes guide behavior?...............................................................................................................24
The science of persuasion: how attitudes are changed................................................................................24
Resisting persuasion attempts......................................................................................................................25
Cognitive dissonance: what is it and how do we manage it?......................................................................26
Chapter 6: causes and cures of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination....................................................26
How members of different groups perceive inequality...............................................................................27
The nature and origins of stereotyping........................................................................................................27
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Prejudice: feelings toward social groups.....................................................................................................29
Discrimination: prejudice in action.............................................................................................................30
Why prejudice is not inevitable: techniques for countering its effects.......................................................30
Chapter 7: liking, love and other close relationships......................................................................................31
Internal sources of liking others: the role of needs and emotions...............................................................31
External sources of attraction: the effects of proximity, familiarity and physical beauty..........................32
Sources of liking based on social interaction..............................................................................................33
Close relationships: foundations of social life.............................................................................................35
Chapter 8: social influence – changing others’ behavior................................................................................37
Conformity: how groups – and norms – influence our behavior................................................................37
Compliance: to ask – sometimes – is to receive..........................................................................................39
Obedience to authority: would you harm someone if ordered to do so?.....................................................40
Unintentional social influence: how others change our behavior even when they are not trying to do so 40
Chapter 9: prosocial behavior – helping others...............................................................................................41
Why people help: motives for prosocial behavior.......................................................................................41
Responding to an emergency: will bystanders help?..................................................................................42
Factors that increase or decrease the tendency to help................................................................................43
Crowdfunding: a new type of prosocial behavior.......................................................................................44
Final thoughts: are prosocial behavior and aggression opposites?.............................................................44
Chapter 10: aggression – its nature, causes and control..................................................................................45
Perspectives on aggression: in search of the roots of violence...................................................................45
Causes of human aggression: social, cultural, personal and situational......................................................45
Aggression in the classroom and workplace...............................................................................................47
The prevention and control of aggression: some useful techniques............................................................48
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Chapter 1: social psychology – the science of the social
side of life
Human beings are social. We are connected to and influenced by others. Good and bad in our lives involve
others. Connecting with others is predictor of happiness, wellbeing and physical health. Solitary
confinement is very bad for mental health. Even digital forms of connection help satisfy our needs. It helps
define who we are and quality of our existence.
Social psychology: what it is and is not
Understanding how and why individuals behave/think/feel as they do in social situations (actual/symbolic).
How people define themselves and others can alter behavior. Understanding nature and causes of individual
behavior, feelings and thoughts in social situations and ways in which we are influenced by the social
environment, others or our thoughts about them.
Social psychology is scientific in nature
Science: set of values and methods to study topics. Core values:
Accuracy: gathering and evaluating information, as careful, precise and error-free as possible
(replicability).
Objectivity: obtaining and evaluating information as free from bias as possible.
Skepticism: accepting findings as accurate only to extend they have been verified over and over
again (replication).
Open-mindedness: changing views when evidence suggests the views are inaccurate.
Relying on own experience and intuition is inconsistent and unreliable. Every experience is unique. People
are unaware of what influences them, biased by wishful thinking. Only objective research can provide clear
answers about contradictory ideas. Informal observations seem plausible but often imply opposite
conclusions. Common sense suggests confusing and inconsistent picture. Scientific approach examining
social thought and behavior in different contexts and populations provide such information (when, whom,
which, why) and yields more conclusive evidence. Thinking is subject to several types of biases, s.a.
planning fallacy: believe that projects will take less time than they do. Tendency to think about future
prevents us from remembering similar times.
Social psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals
Explain why individuals perform actions or refrain from them, address thought and emotional processes
underlying them. Acknowledgement of cultural and other contextual factors. How groups influence
individual behavior, how culture becomes internalized and affects preferences and how emotions and
moods affect decisions. Nonsocial factors have powerful effects, influencing emotions and social thoughts.
How social situations shape actions. How ethnicity and social class shape our “selves” and social behavior.
Different life experiences and selves among those with different social class origins. Social
context/experiences self-identities social behavior.
Social psychology seeks to understand the causes of social behavior
Understanding many factors and conditions that shape social thought and behavior (actions, beliefs,
memories and judgements).
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The actions and characteristics of other persons
Other people’s emotional expressions often have powerful impact on us. We are affected by others’
appearance, we even can’t ignore it. We rely on it as a guide to their characteristics, not always wrong.
Cognitive processes
Reactions depend upon memories of someone’s past behavior and your inferences. Cognitive processes
play crucial role in social behavior. Make sense of people by attributing their actions to something about
them or the circumstances.
Environmental variables: impact of the physical world
Aspects of physical environment can influence feelings, thoughts and behavior.
Biological factors
Some suggest our preferences, emotions and behaviors are linked to biological inheritance. Social
experiences may interact with genetic factors. Their operation is not unidirectional. Environment and social
experiences can influence behavior via epigenetic processes (turning genes on/off). Evolutionary
psychology perspective: biological evolution, we possess large number of evolved psychological
mechanisms to help with important problems related to survival. Variation: organisms of a species vary in
many ways. Inheritance: some variations can be passed on through complex mechanisms. Selection: some
are more likely to survive, pass these variations on. Change in characteristics of species over time. Applies
to at least some aspects of social behavior. “Good genes”, finding good mates, preference for people with
that aspect. We don’t inherit specific patterns of behavior, but tendencies/predispositions. Because of
genetic inheritance, we have tendencies to behave in ways that promote survival.
The search for basic principles in a changing social world
Culture differs greatly, world is constantly changing. Complicates task of finding general principles (s.a.
independence vs. interdependence). Influence of social media, find partners in different ways. However,
same basic principles apply. Goals remain same: uncovering basic, accurate knowledge about social side of
life that applies in wide range of contexts and situations. Understanding causes, identifying factors, use of
scientific methods. Social behavior is influenced by social, cognitive, environmental, cultural and
biological factors.
Social psychology: advances at the boundaries
Cognition and behavior: two sides of the same social coin
Social behavior: how people act in social situations. Social thought: how people attempt to make sense of
the social world and understand themselves and others. Intimately and continuously linked, complex
interplay.
The role of emotion in the social side of life
Emotions and moods play key role in many aspects of social life. Positive moods increase tendency to help
others. Impressions of others are influenced by current moods.
Social relationships: how important they are for wellbeing
Connections to others are critical. People tend to see only the good in their partner. Good, only if restrained
by healthy degree of reality. Positivity, perceived similarity and accuracy contribute to happiness. Single
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people often belong to more groups, which predict better psychological wellbeing, are important part of
"who we are", provide psychological resources and help to cope with adversity.\
Social neuroscience: the intersection of social psychology and brain
research
Everything we do/feel/imagine/create reflects activity in our brain (fMRI, PET). We now know much more
about complex relationships between neural events and psychological ones. What portions of the brain and
which of its complex systems are involved in key aspects of our social life. Study events in the brain and
changes in the immune system. How are things represented in the brain? How do they exert effects? --
> social neuroscience. N400: event-related potential, kind of activity in the brain. We process information
that disagrees with our attitudes very quickly, so they exert powerful and far-reaching effects. Mirror
neurons: activated during observation and execution of actions, key role in empathy. Located in frontal
operculum. Clips of facial expressions --> high/moderate in empathy = greater activity on frontal
operculum. Many aspects of social thought cannot easily be related to activity in specific areas of the brain,
other approaches are more useful then.
The role of implicit (nonconscious) processes
In many cases we don't know why we think/behave as we do in social situations, because of errors in
information processing and because we change greatly over time. Thoughts and actions are shaped by
factors and processes of which we are only dimly aware (automatic). Psychologists are reluctant to simply
ask for beliefs (things s.a. stereotypes can influence us). First impressions: we can't intuit when these are
likely to be accurate.
Taking full account of social diversity
Major social and cultural transformation. Cultural/ethnic/racial heritage plays key role in conception of self
and has important effects on social thought and behavior. Multicultural perspective: recognize potential
importance of gender/age/ethnicity/sexual orientation/disability/social class/religion etc. What is considered
beautiful is different between and within cultures. Also in extend to which aspects of physical appearance
are related to life outcomes and psychological wellbeing. Different ways in which personal relationships
are constructed.
How social psychologists answer the questions they ask:
research as the route to increased knowledge
Systematic observation: describing the world around us
Systematic observation: carefully observing behavior as it occurs. Careful, accurate measurement of a
particular behavior. Naturalistic observation: in natural settings. No attempt to change the behaviors.
Survey method: ask large number of people to respond to questions about attitudes/behavior. Assess
attitudes about variety of social issues. Advantages: many people, responses of different categories of
people can be compared, can also be done online. Requirements: people participating must be
representative of larger population (sampling). Way in which items are worded can have strong effects on
outcomes.
Correlation: the search for relationships
