Chapter 1 – Introducing Social Psychology:
Gestalt psychology: Immanuel Kant; emphasizes looking at the comprehensive
situation to fully understand human conscious experience – whole > sum of its parts
Völkerspsychologie: people who belong to the same social groups tend to think in
the same way
Positivism: Auguste Comte; true knowledge can only be achieved through sense
perception and empirical investigation
Norman Triplett: first social psychology experiment – fishing rods < social
facilitation
Evolutionary psychology: looks at role of evolutionary processes and natural
selection in shaping cognition and behavior
Levels of explanation: understanding and interpretation of human behavior at
different levels; the personal, interpersonal, group, and ideological
Chapter 2 – Research Methods in Social Psychology:
Hindsight bias: tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to
have foreseen how something turned out
Quantitative research: aimed at studying relationships between variables
Variable: can vary in quantity and quality – self-esteem, aggression, attraction; level
varies from person-to-person and between situations
Qualitative research: based on the interpretation of qualitative data, not statistical
analysis
Quantitative approach Qualitative approach
Pursue the systematic measurement of Focus on interpretation of phenomena
phenomena, often in controlled as emerged in naturalistic,
laboratory settings unconstrained situations
Make predictions about the outcome of Are open to new, surprising, and
research previously unthought-of findings
Aim at establishing general laws and Aim at providing a thorough description
principles about types of phenomena and understanding of the specific
phenomena under investigation
Ecological validity: extent to which findings reflect what actually occurs in natural
settings – psychological laboratory research has been criticized for its low ecological
validity
Quasi-experiments: when research cannot be conducted in a laboratory but
principles of experimental research are still required – high ecological validity,
potential confounders – 2 basic types:
Natural experiments: researcher does not directly manipulate the IV
Field experiments: researcher does manipulate the IV – researcher directly
intervenes with the research in some way
Qualitative research
Reflexivity: to recognize the role of the researcher in the production of the research
findings
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,Focus group: strategy to obtain qualitative data based on a small group discussion
about the issue of interest facilitated by the researcher
Grounded theory (GT): developed to challenge the grand theories that imposed a
priori ways of collecting and analyzing data
Rather than beginning with the hypothesis, data collection was the first step
Method of constant comparison: technique used whereby the researcher
compares categories of responses to establish similarities and differences in
meaning
Discourse analysis (DA): argues that talk and text should be principal concerns of
social psychology – typically studies language obtained from interviews, focus
groups, natural conversations, and forms of text
Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA): emphasis on inextricable relationship
between mind and outside world – focus on subjective conscious experience of
individuals
Identification of themes
Production of a summary of themes for each participant enables data
comparison across participants
Chapter 11 – Small Group Processes:
Cohesiveness: holds a group together
Co-actors: co-participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity
Social facilitation: tendency for people to perform simple or well-learned tasks
better when others are present + strengthening of dominant responses in the
presence of others
Rockloff and Dyer: social facilitation gambling experiment – social facilitation effects
gambling behavior when the presence of other winning gamblers is implied
Robert Zajonc: reconciled conflicting findings by proposing arousal from others’
presence strengthens dominant responses
Why arousal arises in the presence of others
1. Evaluation apprehension: concern for how others are evaluating us
2. Mere presence: runners being energized when they are running with someone
else
Social loafing: tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts
towards a common goal than when they are individually accountable
When being observed increases evaluation concerns, social facilitation occurs; when
being lost in a crowd decreases evaluation concerns, social loafing occurs
Free riders: people benefitting from the group but giving little in return
People loaf less when the task is challenging, appealing, or involving
Group cohesiveness reduces loafing and intensifies effort
Group polarization: group-produced enhancement of members’ pre-existing
tendencies
Discussion increases polarization between two homogeneous groups of for example
high- and low prejudice students
Proposed theories of group polarization:
1. Informational influence: group discussion elicits a pooling of ideas, most of which
favor the dominant viewpoint, focus on arguments
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, 2. Normative influence: occurs when we conform to the expectation of others;
happens when we believe the group is monitoring our behavior and has the power
to punish or reward us
Social comparison: Leon Festinger; evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by
comparison to others
Pluralistic ignorance: false impression of what most other people are thinking
or feeling, or how they are responding
3. Group identity: groups to which we belong in society provide us with a social
identity
Groupthink: Janis; mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-
seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override
realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action – Pearl Harbor, Bay of Pigs etc.
Amiable, cohesive group
Relative isolation from dissenting viewpoints
Directive leader who signals what decision they favor
Group think symptoms according to Janis:
Illusion of invulnerability – overestimation of might and right
Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality – overestimation of might and
right
Rationalization – close-mindedness
Stereotyped view of opponent – close-mindedness
Conformity pressure – uniformity pressure
Self-censorship – uniformity pressure
Illusion of unanimity – uniformity pressure
Mindguards
Recommendations for preventing groupthink according to Janis:
Be impartial
Encourage critical evaluation – ‘devil’s advocate’
Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite to air differences
Welcome outside critique
Call second-chance meeting before implementation for any lingering doubts
Two or more heads are often better than one in group discussions or problem-
solving in a group
People working alone often generate more good ideas than putting the same people
in a group < free-riding risk
Vincent Brown and Paul Paulus’ three ways to enhance group brainstorming:
1. Combine group and solidarity brainstorming – group >>> solo
2. Have members interact by writing
3. Incorporate electronic brainstorming
Determinants of minority influence:
1. Consistency: sticking to a certain position, disruption of dominant norms and
status quo, minority influence occurs because it creates doubt and offers a possible
alternative way of looking at things
2. Self-confidence
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