PSYC 221 Spring 2012 Study Guide for Exam 1 The Science of Social Psychology Chapter 1 What is social psychology o The scientific study of how people affect and are affected by others What is social psychology designed to do o Help us make sense of the bizarre and baffling diversity of human behavior and make sense of the social world o It can help us understand social influence and social behavior o It explains how and why people act the way they do o The study of attitudes is also a part of social psychology Behavior is a function on the person and the situation What are social psychologists interested in studying o The social factors that influence how human beings think act and feel The focus is mainly on normal adult human beings although some social psychologists do study children and people who suffer from mild mental illness depression o EX Some studies showed that people worked harder when they had competition but some showed the opposite Advantages to research vs lay theories folk theories o Lay theories philosophy average person s theory on how the world works intuition behaviors o Informal common sense explanations people give for particular social Different from formal scientific explanations of what actually happens research psychology o Intuition may make you miss the big picture o Ex Job interview having imperfections may make you seem better o Folk psychology the natural capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental states of other people Theoretical perspectives e g power of situation evolutionary psych positive psych o Power of situation color of the walls season setting temperature social norms often matters more than personality disposition o Evolutionary psychology adaption and survival behavior is purposeful and able to solve the problems faced by ancestors o Positive psychology rather than studying illness negative problems studying positive emotions behaviors and outcomes joy love life satisfaction Not all behavior is dark and negative Theories vs phenomena o Theories unobservable constructs that are linked together in some logical way o Why something is guides our explanations o Phenomena what something is or what an effect is Validity internal vs external o Internal validity the extent to which changes in the independent variable manipulated caused changes in the dependent variable measured outcome usually very high in in experimental studies o External validity the extent to which the findings from a study can be generalized to other people other settings and other time periods Correlation vs causation o Correlations the relationship or association between two variables o Positive correlation both variables go up o Negative correlation one variable goes up the other goes down o Correlation coefficient the statistical relationship or association between two variables o Correlation does not prove causation Methods for studying behavior mental processes physical processes o Experimental studies o Experiment a study in which the researcher manipulates an independent variable and randomly assigns people to groups levels of the independent variable o Random assignment procedure whereby each study participant has an equal chance of being in each treatment group o Quasi experiment a type of study in which the researcher can manipulate an independent variable but cannot use random assignment o Factorial designs an experiment that includes more than one independent variable or factor o Main effect the effect of a single independent variable on the independent variable ignoring the effects of other independent variables o Interaction effect the joint effects of more than one independent variable on the dependent variable the two factors act together in a manner that differs from that of either variable acting alone o Laboratory and Field Experiments o Field experiment an experiment conducted in a real world setting o Weakness in lab experiments is that the setting is less realistic o Experimental realism the extent to which study participants get so caught up in the procedures that they forget they are in an experiment o Mundane realism the extent to which the setting of an experiment physically resembles the real world o Nonexperimental studies o Correlational approach a nonexperimental method in which the researcher merely observes whether variables are associated or related o Meta analysis a quantitative literature review that combines the statistical results from all studies conducted on one topic Gives the big picture view of what all of the studies show together Social Cognition Chapter 5 o Social cognition a movement in social psychology that began in the 1970s that focused on thoughts about people and about social relationships Conscious vs automatic mind also called rational associative Conscious Mind Automatic Mind Slow Reasoning Effortful taxing Deliberate controllable Flexible Fast Based on instinct Effortless Unintentional Difficult to change Automaticity o Most psychological processes occur automatically we have the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low level details required Usually the result of learning repetition and practice the act becomes a habit o We are not even aware that we are thinking ex driving o Relies on knowledge structures organized packets of information that are stored in memory Embodied cognition embodiment o Mind body connection sensitive to physical environmental cues o The nature of the human mind is determined by the form of the body o Example sitting in a hard chair leads to tough negotiations Priming spreading activation of related mental nodes o Panting or activating an idea in someone s mind o Wakening of associations o A stimulus that activates further processing of the same or related stimuli o Doesn t have to be conscious Schemas o Knowledge structures that represent substantial information about a concept its attributes and its relationships to other concepts o Types of schemas the self another person a social category or an object o Schemas form expectancies getting through daily life is much easier because people o Schemas are developed through experiences and guide the way you process know what to expect information o When events depart sharply from what people have learned to expect they stop and analyze what happened This shows that something might be wrong with how you understand the world and causes you to reevaluate the situation and how to act properly o Scripts knowledge
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