Chapter 1 Introduction to Social Psychology – Flashcards

The effect of real or imagined others on your behavior/emotions/thoughts. Direct vs Indirect Clothes on our back.

Purpose of Folk Wisdom Opposites attract/Bird's of a feather Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Seek to understand what causes human behavior Social influence on individual behavior What influence does the media have on body image?

Seek to understand what causes human behavior Individual differences in behavior Are certain types of people more altruistic?

Seek to understand what causes human behavior Group behavior How does proposition 32 affect the socio-economic status of minorities?

Fundamental Attribution Error

Have an expectation. Interpret ambiguous information based on the expectation. Other person reacts to your biased interpretation/actions. You observe what you expect.

Observable behavior depends on observable stimuli Little Albert Study Rat and levers

A school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people's minds rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object. Perception > Reality The Israeli Negotiators Breaking up

The way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world

the need to feel good about ourselves and the need to be accurate.. 1. Accuracy -Social Cognition Approach 2. Self-Esteem -Self-Esteem Approach What happens when they clash? The need to feel good about our decisions can fly in the face of the need to be accurate and can have catastrophic consequences.

Mirrors and Stealing Eyes and Cheating Raising Children's Intelligence

how people think about themselves and the social world or more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions

It is the scientific study of the ways in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real, imagined or implied presence of other people. At the heart of social psychology is social influence: We are all influenced by other people!

When trying to explain social behavior—how an individual act within a social context (in relation to others)--personality psychologists explain the behavior in terms of the person's individual character traits.While social psychologists would agree that personalities do vary, they explain social behavior in terms of the power of the social situation (as it is construed by the individual) to shape how one acts.

The power of the situation. When trying to convince people that their behavior is greatly influenced by the social environment, the social psychologist is up against a formidable barrier: All of us tend to explain people's behavior in terms of their personalities.

The Power of Social Interpretation:To understand social influence it is more important to understand how people perceive and interpret the social world than it is to understand that world objectively.

The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need to Feel Good about Ourselves Most people have a strong need to maintain reasonably high self-esteem, to see themselves as good, competent, and decent. Given the choice between distorting the world in order to feel good about themselves and representing the world accurately, people often take the first option. The Social Cognition Approach: The Need to Be Accurate The Social Cognition perspective is an approach to social psychology that takes into account the way in which human beings think about the world. Individuals are viewed as trying to gain accurate understandings so that they can make effective judgments and decisions that range from which cereal to eat to whom they will marry. In actuality, individuals typically act on the basis of incomplete and inaccurately interpreted information.

Soc Psych focuses on the processes that people have in common with one another that make them susceptible to social influence where as personality psychology focuses on individual differences

people try to view the world as accurately as possible

psychological process of individuals placing too much emphasis on the person and not the situation