Social Psychology Exam 1• Social Psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people. o Focuses on individualso The ABCs: understanding feelings (affect), behaviors, and thoughts (cognition)o The relationship between self and otherso Scientific research is necessary and important because it provides evidence that can be tested statistically. Empirical research can determine which common sense ideas are closer to the objective facts. It also allows us to predict behaviors.• Theories are scientific explanations that answer the question “Why,” they connect and organize observations into a larger framework, and shape new hypotheses.o A hypothesis is a researcher’s prediction about what they will find in a study; it can be specific or an objective measure.• Theoretical perspectiveso Social cognitive focuses on the mental processes involved in paying attention to, interpreting, and remembering social experiences. Cognitive processes are often biased toward making us feel better about ourselves.o Social learning focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a person’s social behavior; we learn by rewards and punishments. Social learning theory says that aggression is learned through direct reward or by watching others being rewarded for aggressiveness.o Sociocultural searches for the causes of social behaviors in influences form larger social groups. Social norms are the rules of appropriate behavior. Culture is beliefs, customs, habits, and languages shared by a group of people in a specific time and place.o Evolutionary searches for the causes of social behavior in the physical and psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Adaption is a trait that has been passed on from our ancestors. Heritability is genes that regulate development are passed on from parents. Variation is a small percentage of genes change randomly; some variations are more advantageous for survival in some environments. Natural selection is the process by which characteristics that help animals survive and reproduce are passed on to their offspring.• There are two broad principals share by the different perspectives.o Social behavior is goal oriented. People interact with one another to achieve some goal or satisfy some inner motivation. o Social behavior represents a continual interaction between the person and the situation.• Motivation is the force that moves people toward their desired outcomes.• Goals are desired outcomes, and something one wishes to accomplish, these are the five fundamental motives behind goal oriented social behavior.o To establish social tieso To understand ourselves and otherso To gain and maintain statueo To defend ourselves and those we valueo To attract and retain mates• Explain what is meant by “the person” and “the situation” and how they become interwoven through “person-situation interactions”• Psychologists study social behavior using either descriptive or experimental methods.o Descriptive methods involve attempts to measure or record behaviors, thoughts, or feelings in a natural state. All descriptive methods can tell us about is correlation (this does not imply causation). Naturalistic observation involves observing behavior as it unfolds in its natural setting.• Advantages: behaviors are spontaneous, and it does not rely on people’s abilities to report on their own experiencesSocial Psychology Exam 1• Disadvantages: researches may interfere with ongoing behaviors, some interesting behaviors are very rare, time consuming, and observation biaso Observation bias is that the researcher may selectively attend to certain events and ignore others. Case studies involve intensive examination of a single person or group, example: Phineas Gage.• Advantages: rich source of hypotheses, it also allows studies of rare behaviors• Disadvantages: observer bias, difficult to generalize findings from a single case, and it is impossible to reconstruct causes from complexity of past events The examination of archives, like public records of social behaviors• Advantages: easy access to large amounts of prerecorded data• Disadvantage: many interesting social behaviors are never recorded Surveys involve asking people questions about their beliefs and behaviors• Advantages: allows cost-effective study of difficult-to-observe behaviors, thoughts, and feelings• Disadvantages: people who respond may not be representative, and social desirability biaso Social desirability bias is the tendency for people to say what they believe is appropriate or acceptable. Psychological tests o Experimental methods uncover causes of behavior by systematically varying certain aspects of a situation. The primary features of experiments are independent variables and random assignment. Independent variable is the variable manipulated by the researcher that is assumed to lead to changes in the dependent variable. Dependent variables are measured by the experiment. Random assignment is that every participant has an equal chance of being assigned to either condition being tested. • A representative samples is a group of respondents having characteristics that match those of the larger population the researcher wants to describe.• Validityo Internal validity is the extent to which an experiment allows confident statements about cause and effect. It is enhanced by the experimental control over the independent variable, random assignment, and if the independent variable occurs before the dependent.o External validity is the extent to which the findings from a study can be generalized to other circumstances.• Reliability is the repetition of similar results, like hitting the same spot on a dart board.o IQ test are known for being very reliable.o The Myer-Briggs personality test is unreliable, 76% of individuals fell into different categories upon re-testing. • Correlation is the extent to which two or more variables are associated with one another. The correlation coefficient (“r”) is a mathematical expression of the relationship between two variables. “r” ranges from -1 to 1, the closer to 0 the weaker the correlation.• Discuss why combining different methods of inquiry leads social psychologists to reach more confident conclusions about a social phenomenon• Social psychology is connected to other
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