Social Psychology & Consumer Behavior Laura de Laat
Chapter 1 – The mission & the method
A brief history of social psychology
Social psychology: the scientifc study of how people afect and are afected y
others. It helps us make sense of our own social world. Two fndings y early
social psychology experiments are that the mere presence of others enhances
performance on a simple task and individual efort decreases as group size
increases. Behaviorism seeks to explain all of psychology in terms of learning
principles.
What do social psychologists do
Social psychology studies the inner states and processes as well as ehavior. It is
concerned with the efect of other people on thoughts, feelings, and ehavior.
They use the scientifc method.
The ABC triad stands for:
- Afect: how people feel inside
- Behavior: what people do
- Cognition: what people think a out
Social psychology’s place in the world
Social psychology is oth similar to and diferent from other social sciences.
There are diferent types of social sciences and diferent types of psychology.
Psychology is diferent from philosophy ecause of its reliance on the scientifc
method.
How do social psychologists answer their own questons
Five asic steps of the scientifc method are:
- State a pro lem
- Formulate hypothesis as a tentative solution
- Design a study and collect data
- Test the hypothesis y confronting it with the data
- Communicate the results
An independent varia le is an o serva le event that causes a person to do
something. The dependent varia le is produced y a person in the experiment.
In a etween-su jects design, participants are exposed to only one level of the
independent varia le, while in a within-su jects design participants are exposed
to all levels of the independent varia le.
Two essential features of experiments are:
- Control: to make sure that any diferences o served were caused y the
independent varia le
- Random assignment: to make sure that everyone has an equal chance of
eing in one group
Experimental realism refers to whether a participant got caught up in the
procedures so they forgot it was an experiment. Mundane realism refers to
whether the setting and procedures resem le the real world. With a correlational
1
,Social Psychology & Consumer Behavior Laura de Laat
approach, researches test if things go together. The correlation can e positive
or negative.
Experiments should e valid and relia le.
2
, Social Psychology & Consumer Behavior Laura de Laat
Chapter 2 – Culture and nature
Nature and social behavior
Nature is the physical world around us. With natural selection, traits ecome
more or less common in a population, so a trait that increases an organism’s
survival rate / reproductive success is more likely to ecome more common in a
population. Being social helps humans and other animals survive and reproduce.
Culture and human social life
Culture is an information- ased system in which many people work together to
help satisfy their iological and social needs. It also is what a group of people
have in common, including shared eliefs, meanings, and values.
Humans are cultural animals. Diferences etween social and cultural animals
are:
- Social animals work together, cultural animals use extensive division of
la or
- Social animals learn things from each other, cultural animals deli erately
share knowledge
- Social animals help family, cultural animals are more likely to help
strangers
- Social animals use anger to resolve conficts, cultural animals have more
alternatives
Important features of human social life
The human mind is a duplex mind: it has oth an automatic and a deli erate
system. The automatic system is fast and efortless, for simple tasks we perform,
while the deli erate system is slow and efortful, for more complex tasks. They
are not independent of each other. Inner processes often serve interpersonal
functions, they help us connect etter with others. In general, nature says go and
culture says stop. Nature makes us selfsh, while culture requires us to resist
selfsh impulses. Most choices in life are tradeofs, it comes with a cost. Ash’s
study demonstrated that sometimes people rely more on information from other
people than on their own senses.
What makes us human – putng the cultural animal in perspectve
Humans have much larger rain size (in proportion to ody size) than other
animals. Big rains have evolved for more complex social relationships. Culture
allows humans to accumulate knowledge over time and across generations. The
advantages of culture outweigh the disadvantages.
3
