PSYC221 Study Guide Test 1 1 The Science of Social Psychology a Social psychology i Designed to allow for the study of how people affect and are affected by others ii Allows psychologists to be able to make sense of the diversity within human behavior and the social world iii Aims for broad understanding of social factors that influence how human beings think act and feel iv Embraces scientific method conduct experiments in order to test theories v Affect vi Behavior vii Cognition 1 How people feel inside about themselves others and about various other issues 1 What people do their actions joining groups helping others hurting others loving others 1 What people think about what they think of themselves think about others and about various problems and issues in the social world b Advantages to research vs lay theories folk theories i Intuition is usually correct but is sometimes missing the complete picture ii Lay theory na ve non scientific perception of how things work iii Pratfall minor imperfection in personality that makes us more approachable makes us more human c Theoretical perspectives i Power of situation 1 Matters more than personality or disposition depends on environmental context over a time period ii Evolutionary psychology 1 Ancestors of humans we can think about how our behaviors have evolved 2 Example a Instinct to cooperate and behave in a warm way within a group which can be traced back to chimps there must be adaptive purpose to this behavior and that s why natural selection has given it to us you have to examine what processes shaped a species iii Positive psychology 1 Historically psychologists have studied the dark side of human behavior and this is about refocusing and paying attention to positive emotions and actions in addition to conflict or aggression d Theories vs phenomena i Phenomena 1 Things that we have observed ii Theories 1 Interpretations or explanations of phenomena e Validity internal vs external i Internal 1 Extent to which changes in independent variable caused changes in dependent variable ii External 1 Extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people f Correlation vs causation i Correlation 1 Two or more variables are measured and we look to see if they are associated with each other do this when it is impossible or unethical to manipulate control variables 2 Drawback to this is that we don t know if one causes the other or not 3 Correlation doesn t equal causation ii Correlation approach 1 Researcher observes if variables are associated if variables can t be manipulated correlational research design is used g Methods for studying behavior mental processes physical processes i Correlation measured in studies causation measured in experiments h Research design i Random assignment 1 Each study participant has an equal chance of being in each treatment group ii Quasi experiment 1 Researcher can manipulate the independent variable but can t use random assignment iii Internal validity 1 Extent to which the independent variable caused changes in the dependent variable very high in experimental studies 1 When effects of two variables can t be separated iv Confounding v Factorial design 1 Experiment has more than one independent variable vi Main effect 1 Effect of single independent variable on dependent variable ignore the effects of other independent variable 1 Joint efforts of more than one independent variable on vii Interaction dependent variable viii Field experiments ix Reactance restrict freedom a Rebellious teenager x Experimental realism 1 Conducted in real world rather than laboratory setting 1 Bad emotional response when someone is trying to 1 Participants get so caught up in the experiement that they forget that it s an experiment xi Mundane realism xii External validity 1 Extent setting physically resembles real world 1 Findings can be generalized to other people settings and time periods xiii Non experimental studies 1 Correlational approach and meta analysis Quantitative literal reviews combining statistics from all studies conducted on a topic 2 Social Cognition a Conscious vs automatic mind also called rational and associative i Automatic system ii Deliberate system 1 Quick fairly accurate judgments and decisions 1 More slowly and thoroughly to make more precise judgments and decisions iii Five elements distinguish automatic from deliberate system 1 Awareness Intention 2 3 Control 4 Effort 5 Efficiency iv Stroop test 1 Demonstrates power of automatic thinking 2 Harder to say the color of a word that doesn t read the same color 3 Takes effort and time to override automatic processing and use deliberate thinking a Word BLACK written in BLUE you would have to say blue because that is the color of the word b Automaticity i Psychological process is mostly automatic 95 ii Five elements that distinguish automatic from deliberate 1 Awareness Intention 2 3 Control 4 Effort 5 Efficiency iii When people are engaging in automatic thinking they may iv not even be aware that they are thinking Isn t driven by intention just happens whether you intend it or not v Aren t subject to deliberate control so it can be a difficult or even impossible to avoid having certain thoughts that have been cued vi Don t involve effort whereas deliberate thoughts often involve mental exertion and can feel taxing and tiring vii Highly efficient unlike deliberate thoughts viii Knowledge structures 1 Organized packets of information that are stored in c Embodied cognition embodiment memory i Mind body connection is sensitive to environmental cues d Priming i Spreading activation of related mental nodes ii Already has to be an existing association iii Framing 1 Whether message stresses positive gains positively framed or negative losses negatively framed iv Activating an idea in someone s mind so that related ideas are more accessible v Process by which a given stimulus activates mental pathways thereby enhancing their accessibility i Knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept its attributes and its relationships to other concepts ii Simplify complex world and organize information iii Example 1 Schema for dancing movement rhythm repetition e Schemas and coordination iv Types of schemas 1 Script a Define situations and guide behavior concept specific person group stereotypes v Stability over time impact behavior thoughts emotional response 1 The longer a schema is reinforced the more
View Full Document
Unlocking...