Psychology 09 10 2013 Theories Methods Social Cognition We have questions and we have answers Basic knowledge for its own sake Knowledge that is useful or enriching Illuminate an important issue phenomenon o Applications treatments intervention o Public policy o Question preconceptions Intuition vs Research Lay theories philosophy Intuition is often correct but sometimes misses the complete picture ex Job interview pratfalls Job interviewer picks the clumsier qualified person rather than just the very qualified one Pratfall minor flaw that makes person better or seem more relatable to human Counterintuitive results findings o Hot cold beverage and social behavior Psychology as a Science Media Portrayal o Opposites attract Facebook and divorce Exaggerated claims o Effect size vs significance Theoretical Perspectives What influences social behavior Why people are doing what they are doing o Theory can help guide explanations Power of the situation Situations matter norms Environmental Context o E g color of walls season setting temperature and social o Often matter more than personality disposition Not immediate situation but broader environment socialization o Time period in history geography culture o Government and legality WEIRD societies Western Educated Rich Democracies Industrialized Learning Theory Conditioning o Pairing stimuli response is generated o Reinforcement rewards punishments o Modeling mimicking Cognitive Psychology Information processing Mind a computer operates like a machine o Senses generate input behavior is output o Information is filtered organized biased Information Processing 2 Minds Conscious more able to control it and more able to change it o Slow reasoning effortful taxing deliberate controllable flexible Automatic associative or implicit o Fast evaluations based on gut instinct effortless unintentional stable stubborn Stroop Task shows the two minds different colors written in different colors and you have to read the color not the word Automaticity Most psychological processes occur automatically Bargh o 5 of behaviors governed by conscious control Baumeister o Supported by different theoretical perspectives Most of what we think we feel we do is automatic Embodied Cognition Automaticity Mind body connection o Sensitive to physical environmental cues Sitting in a hard chair tough negotiation o Sales tactic Wobbly Chair uncertainty Heavy Backpack guilty feelings Heavy objects weighty decisions Hot cold Beverage 1st impressions and generosity Metaphor has to be there something in our language has to create it There is a double meaning Ex When someone is warm they are not literally warm but a warm person altruistic Priming Priming activates related concepts ideas in the mind s network Spreading activation o Automatic Uncontrollable Ex Someone says bark we think of dog Implications for Marketing People associate brands with personality and goal pursuits o Apple nonconformity innovation creativity o IBM traditional responsible o Apple logo higher performance on creativity tests and higher creativity motivation Examples and Exercises Embedded words and anagrams o Reading comprehension word scramble word pair memory test Memory o Aging and frailty words walking slower o Impolite words interruption rates Facilitation Evolutionary Psychology survival of the fittest Adaption and Survival Behavior is purposeful o Solves problems faced by ancestors Nothing has inherent value or quality The sky isn t actually blue our eyes have retinas our eyes let us see it that way o Differs by species selection pressure Biological Psychology Social neuroscience fMRI EEG methods o Brain activation neuro chemicals Genes and heredity Physiology heart rate cortisol etc Personality Individual differences o E g self esteem attachment style Separate fields JPSP When does personality matter o Trend for most people stronger weaker effects for some Positive Psychology we should be studying positive emotions not just anxiety and mortality rates Emotions joy pride Behaviors cooperation love Outcomes life satisfaction Research Designs Correlational o Measure variables to see if they re related Ex Graffiti in a neighborhood and crime o Do this when impossible unethical to manipulate variables Does not necessarily indicate causation o X Y o Y X o Z Y and Z X Correlation does not cause causation Correlations Correlations range from 1 to 0 to 1 Zero means NO relationship Negative means opposing relationship sometimes a strong association Experiments Allow us to conclude causality o However artificial lab settings Ind Var EV Random assignment is the key o Not attributable to pre existing variables SOCIAL COGNITION Schema Schemas Schemata Characteristics of a Schemata Exist in both Cognitive structures representing ideas in the mind o Schema mind neuron brain o Conscious Rational mind and Automatic Associative mind o Stable and resistant to change after they are formed Types of Schemata Concept o Ex computers college relationships Specific Person Group stereotypes Self fluctuates across situations Event stand alone Ex Sept 11 Procedure Sequence of events o Scripts The Cognitive Miser Perspective Leads to o Reluctance to question what we think we know or think deeply o Faster judgments conclusions based on small amounts of information we form impressions within someone within seconds of meeting them Mind works on overdrive o Heuristics shortcuts what we take when moving quickly o Errors biases o Evaluating products services o Taste wine and performance energy drinks o Placebo effect o Form overall impression based on limited info Randomness doesn t appear random we often see patterns that o Base rate fallacy representativeness heuristic availability Heuristics Expensive better Halo effect Heuristics and Biases aren t really there heuristic Systematic errors and biases Gambler s Fallacy o Tendency to believe that a chance event is affected by previous events will even out o Coin flip HHTTHHTHTTH or HHHHHHHHHHHH o First series appears more representative even though both series are equally likely o Monte Carlo 1913 26 blacks in a row o Basketball no evidence that shot made will lead to successive Case studies personal narratives anecdotes statistical Hot Hand Fallacy shots made information o Ex phone always rings when I m in the shower o Ex product reviews o Ex Airplanes vs car travel cigarette smoking Curse of 27 rock stars are likely to die at this age common myth Confirmation Bias Confirming
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