Main Topics Notes
1. Social Psychology (B&B) - Interaction → health, well-being, identity; social brain hypothesis (the larger the
group of the species, the larger the neocortex); Kurt Lewin (founder)
social psychology = Understanding how and why people behave, think and feel in social situations
- Scientific nature: follow set of values and methods: accuracy, replicability,
objectivity (no bias), skepticism, open-mindedness → more conclusive, clear results
- Social contexts/ experiences → self-identity → social behavior
- Factors of influence:
1. Actions and characteristics of others
2. Cognitive processes (attributions, social cognition)
3. Physical world (whether, smells…)
4. Biology (epigenetics, evolutionary psychol.: variation, inheritance, selection)
5. Culture
- Search for basic principles (consistent across time and cultures)
advances - integrating cognition and behavior in social situations
- role of emotions
- importance of social relationships, groups to well-being
- social neuroscience: relating neurological processes to social events
- the role of implicit (conconscious) processes
- taking social diversity/ cultures into account
research - to answer questions and increase knowledge
- Systematic observation: naturalistic observation, survey (representative, wording)
- Correlation: predictions (not causality, confounding var.), spurious correlation
- Experiments: systematic intervention, explaining, independent and dependent
variable, random assignment, control over conditions; external validity?
- mediating variable = intervening btw. independent and dependent variable (why)
- meta-analysis: explain large body of research; points gaps and biases in the
literature; moderators = affects effect of indep. var.
role of theories - explain why of a phenomenon
- theory → make prediction (hypothesis) → testing → accepted/ improved → testing
- never proven! = research is to gather evidence, not to prove!
dilemma of deception - ethical issues: disturbing w/ own reaction; upset w/ lies (→ negative view of science)
- passive deception = concealing the purpose of the study
- misleading info = assistants as participants; lies…
- Institutional Review Boards: informed consent, debriefing, cost-benefit analysis
2. Social Cognition (B&B) = how we think about the social world, attempts to understand complexities, why no
rational…: 1) avoid effort; 2) efficient info processors; 3) cognition affect
Heuristics = simple rules for making complex decisions/ drawing inferences in fast way
- information overload = demand of cognitive system is greater than capacity
- when under conditions of uncertainty
representativeness - based on resemblance w/ prototype (base rate fallacy: does not make statistical
sense; conjunction fallacy: less probable of being in subcategory); judging
magnitude of effect basing on magnitude of cause
availability - judging frequency/ probability based on ease / amount of retrieval (e.g. risk-taking
as gambling in economic threat);
- rely more on ease for <3 judgements, rely more on amount for difficult ones
anchoring and adjustment - courts, starting price, donations, portion size effect (how much you eat)
status quo - "what is, is good"; preference to old brand, people, tradition and longevity
Schemas = mental framework for guiding perceptions & actions
- info incongruent w/ schema is the focus of attention & encoding; retrieval better
what is consistent w/ schemas, but inconsistent info is also strong in memory
, - experience → priming of a schema → influences thought
- unpriming is possible when schema is somehow followed/ expressed
- schema persists even in face of inconsistency (perseverance effect), self-fulling
- metaphor: figures of speech influence how we interpret the world
Automatic & Controlled - controlled processing = logical, effortful, systematic, prefrontal cortex
Processing - automatic processing = intuitive, ~ effortless, rapid, amygdala (limbic system), <3
- can occur together
- automatic processing affects overt social behavior (priming a schema prepares
individual to interact with it);
- automatic processing is efficient in retrieving info, better for taking complex
decisions (no limit for info, reflect our real preferences)
Errors of Social Cognition - tendencies; o en stems from errors of omission (info, feedback is crucial)
- Optimistic Bias = overlook risks; expect (golden) future → only feel bad temporarily
when not so bright outcome happens
- Negativity Bias = what is bad stands out more, more impact
- Overconfidence Bias = overconfident on own beliefs/ judgements
- Planning Fallacy = underestimating time needed for a task; stronger when highly
motivated or in position of power (focus on completion rather than steps)
- Counterfactual Thinking = "what if.."; belief in free will (vs. determinism); affects
mood reaction to event; the better you imagine how it would have been, the + regret
- Magical Thinking = compelling assumptions, not logical; law of similarity (if it
looks alike, share basic properties; e.g. insect cake); about terror management
(anxiety that we will die)
Affect & Cognition - interplay
influence of affect - feeling good, perceiving as good; attributions accordingly
Mood congruence effect = current mood filters attention & encoding of info
Mood-dependent memory = easier to retrieve info compatible w/ current mood (cue)
Heuristics and Creativity: facilitated when w/ good mood (especially high in arousal)
influence of cognition - Two-factor theory of emotion: we infer what we feel basing on the outside context
- Activation of schema w/ affect component influences our <3 response
Affective Forecast = prediction of what we would feel about an event we did not live
(forecasting ≠ experiencing; ≠ processing of info)
- Regulation of affective states: giving in to temptation when feeling bad is a
conscious decision, influenced by belief that moods can change; cheating/ unethical
behavior is self-satisfying
social neuroscience Two systems (logic & affect) interact during problem solving
3. Social Perception (B&B) = gathering and analysing what we see in others (perceiving ≠ seeing)
Nonverbal Communication - relatively irrepressible
basic channels 1. Facial Expressions: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, disgust; ≠ combinations and
degrees; ~universal in use and recognition; those who intentionally express
emotions have higher accuracy in recognizing others'
2. Eye Contact: the more, the friendlier; staring = hostility, weird
3. Body Language (gesture, posture & movements): + movements = + arousal;
squirming = lying; hand gestures (≠ meanings across cultures)
4. Touching: depends on context, who touches, nature of touch…; handshake
nonverbal cues - Paralanguage = tone, volume, etc (how we speak)
- love gazing, holding hands
- facial feedback hypothesis = facial expressions trigger <3
recognizing deception - difficult even for experts! better when in bad mood (increased attention to relevant
cues); we usually rely on invalid cues; but <3 still are transmitted (visual cliff)
- valid cues: microexpressions; interchannel discrepancies; exaggerated facial
expressions; linguistic style (high pitch, slow answering)
Attribution - we want to understand why of others' behaviors
, theories Correspondent Theory (Jones & Davis) = we are most likely to conclude others' traits
based on their behavior when behavior is 1) freely chose; 2) yields noncommon
effects (behavior caused by specific factor only); 3) is low in social desirability
Kelley's Covariation Theory (attribution theory) = to explain behavior, we apply:
1) consensus (= how much behavior matches what others would do);
2) consistency (of the behavior in individual across time);
3) distinctiveness (how much the individual reacts the same way to ≠ stimuli)
External causes = high/ internal causes = low
attributing others' behavior to external/internal/both causes
- Other dimensions: 1) factors are stable over time? 2) are factors controllable?
- Fate attributions: conviction of existence of God + belief of complex causality
- Action identification: how much abstraction we put in our interpretation of
behaviors (reflecting more than just the action itself)
basic sources of error Correspondence Bias (fundamental attribution error) = attributing others' behavior
to internal causes and own behavior more to external causes
- (even when knowing about external causes!) → person has more perceptual salience
- we start by assuming internal, then correct for external (but not enough weight)
Actor- Observer Effect = tendency to attribute others' to internal; own to external
- we are more aware of the situational causes of our actions, but not others'
Self-Serving Bias = own positive outcomes to internal; negative outcomes to external
- because we expect to succeed/ to protect our self-esteem
- stronger in Western cultures
application - interventions and insights
- Depression: self-defeating pattern (opposite of self-serving); no control over events
- Terrorism: justified by harm done to own people (USA to Muslims; external); more
justifiable than when another group does harm
Impression Formation = developing views of others
- Asch: we perceive traits of other in relation to one another (as in Gestalt)
- 1st impressions: slightly better than chance; quick (.04 sec depending on the trait)
- changing 1st impressions: w/ new info; rejecting current info; reinterpreting info
Impression Management - self-enhancement (↑ own appeal): physical or professional
- other-enhancement (make other feel good)/ self-handicapping (down-playing skills)
- when tactics are overdone, result is negative!
4. The Self (B&B)
Self-Presentation = Managing the self in different social contexts
- Self-Other accuracy: we can be bad predictors of our own behavior because we
know our intentions (biases our perception); but we recognize our bias
tactics - self-promotion = convincing others we are good
- self-verification = how we lead others to agree w/ our promotion; but also good to
be conceived how we are by close others
- ingratiation = presenting ourselves as respecting others (sometimes we overdo it)
- self-deprecation = imply we are not as good as the other
- there is a discrepancy in how we are and how we like seeing ourselves
Self-Knowledge = determining who we are
- Introspection (finding reasons for our actions): misleading when the behavior is
driven by unconscious <3; in affective forecasting bias (predicting <3 in future)
- Take observer point of view (dispositional attributes rather than situational)
Personal vs. Social Identity Social identity theory = we describe ourselves ≠ depending on where we are on the
personal-versus-social identity continuum (which side is momentarily salient)
- intragroup comparison = w/ individuals of same group (experience as individual)
- intergroup comparison = w/ other groups, emphasize similarities w/ own group
- we maintain coherent self-view, recognizing we differ according to ≠ situations
- Social Context influences self-view: time, place, which self-identity and group
