Theories Methods Social Cognition 1 Most psychological processes occur in the automatic mind 2 Evolutionary psychology draws on evidence not only from human behavior but also from the rest of the animal kingdom a Our behavior is adaptive and purposeful has some evolutionary advantage to it b Social gossip example maybe they benefitted from caring about their reputation and that helped them perform better c Nothing has any inherent quality or value to it the sky isn t actually blue passing dog poop on the street to a fly that is dinner and their brain is picking up things in a fundamentally different way 3 Biological psychology draw heavily on social neuroscience how rejection corresponds to the brains physical feeling of pain Can also look at genetics heart rate can be a detecting of what is going on in peoples social lives looked at as a more concrete value of support we are in the neuro scientific era 4 Personality the self not sure if it is part of social psychology 5 Positive Psychology the recognition that we have spent a lot of time energy and focus studying the dark sides of human behavior disorders emotional difficulties we should also focus on positive emotions like joy pride cooperation love a Also the understanding that not all behaviors are evil even if there is an evil outcome EX conformity we like to think we are all individuals but conformity can be useful for example in emergencies 6 A true experiment is where you manipulate an independent variable and it 7 has an effect on a dependent variable In a correlation design you are looking at the association between two variables correlations range from 1 0 to 1 zero means no relationship negative means an opposing relationship a You can have a 5 or 5 correlation and it s the same magnitude strength 8 Schema schemas schemata the basic building block of the human mind The schema is to the mind what the neuron is to the brain a A schema is like a bit in a computer system The types of schemas we have can vary drastically b Can exists in the conscious mind and automatic mind c Once schemas are formed engaged in the same process over and over they become that much more stable d When you have repeated brain activation your brain becomes more solidified activation happens quicker but they are harder to change because it is changing something ur brain thought it already new e We are skeptical of things we are unfamiliar of f Our mind filters out info that is irrelevant g Example Obama s birth certificate 9 Types of schemas Plural form of the word is Schemata a About a concept computers college relationships b Specific person c Group stereotypes if you draw a conclusion its because you have a schema for that type of person d Self e Event for September 11 the Super bowl f Procedure Sequence of events this is a script EX the restaurant script you know what to expect you will be seated order pay leave 10 The cognitive miser perspective schemas help us go about our day in an efficient way but we rely on automatic processes all the time even if they re wrong a Were not necessarily lazy but we will avoid thinking when we can we will take a mental shortcut and we will be on automatic processing we are reluctant to question what we know about the world and our social behavior If everyone around us is doing he same thing we take it for what it is and go on b c We make judgments on small amounts of information but sometimes it leads to errors or biased 11 Heuristics if something costs more it is better evaluating products services EX taste of wine is better when people see a price on a bottle of wine is 90 dollars verses 5 dollars Like the power of suggestion and the placebo affect 12 The Halo Effect when we base a very general impression about someone based on one specific piece of info that may or may not have anything to do with other qualities a When we meet someone attractive we assume many other qualities of the person Not limited to physical appearance Such as doctors take their opinion more because they are called a doctor b Another bias is our tendency to see patterns when they re not there c Know the terms base rate fallacy representativeness heuristic etc 13 Systematic errors and biases a Gambler Fallacy tendency to believe that a chance event is affected by previous events will even out look on slides b Hot hand fallacy basketball no evidence that shot made will lead to successive shots made c Case studies personal narratives anecdotes statistical information Anecdotal evidence weighs more heavily in peoples mind For example people say the phone always rings when I m in the shower d Confirmation bias when something happens its salient when something doesn t happen it isn t you cant see it That salient event stands out more in ur mind even if its wrong EX people were asked to estimate the dreams they have that have come true point to 1 or 2 that did but theyre discounting the 10000 times that the dreams didn t come true They don t stand out in ur mind though because they didn t happen If you have a dream that doesn t come true you forget about it But if it does come true it stands out in your mind function of memory e Curse of 27 when amy whinehouse passed away the idea that rock stars about to die when they re that age rather than any other age Pick up patterns in the world even when there aren t any 14 Motivated reasoning the mind as a lawyer analogy Motivated reasoning is when you have idea and deliberated seek out an idea that confirms it Mind is like a lawyer because it has a predetermined conclusion Have conclusions and find evidence that supports you and ignore the ones that don t support it a Motivated reasoning Self serving bias intelligence or personality test feedback what happens when When you give evidence in a positive way they will think that s great and go about life the same way When you say you have a cold personality and stuff they think of alternative reasons for stuff Negative medical diagnosis they will request follow up testing downplay the significance of the diagnosis list more factors that may contribute all part of motivated reasoning More prevalent when people around you have the same bad behaviors 15 How expectations shape reality people saw the word warm in a paragraph verses the word cold and had much more positive reactions to the lecturer 16 Hannah Study info about background judgment of performance in classroom 17 Behavioral confirmation where the expectations that we have influence our own
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