Social Psych Exam 1 What is Social Psych Scientific study of how an individual s thoughts feelings and behaviors are influenced by others o Imagined people real people ect Understanding our social world Actions and characteristics of others affect our thoughts feelings and behaviors o How would other people s actions affect you in these circumstances Show up for a party in jeans and shirt but discover that everyone is in suits and dresses Your significant other has been distant and secretive and comes home late A stranger on the bus keeps starring at you o Cognitive Processes are involved Cultural Context is involved What people are like what they will do how they will behave how people feel about you o Cultural norms beliefs and values shape our social understanding Ex certain words Implicit non conscious processes are involved o Implicit attitudes dispositional attributions and categorization Ex explanations for how others behave Environmental variables are involved irritable more when really hot humid Social Cognition Why review research methods Important to understand where these theories and princpales came from 1 2 Useful to know about how the research is done a Helps understand the full implications of a research finding as well as its limitations What is Social Cognition The study of how people think about themselves and their social world Selection interpretation recall and application of social information to make judgements and decisions People are not things Have motives If we don t use all the available information what do we use Categorical information o Fitting new information to what we already know why matching it to categories Key point social cognition is greatly influenced by past experience o Seeing the social world through the lens of our preconceptions Schemas Mental representations of various objects or categories o Contain defining features of the object or category and other organized knowledge about it Ex know umass color is maroon and white its flagship school your feelings for it ect Schemas can influence behavior Schemas will be used depending on o Situational cues priming perceptual salience and personal chronic constructs Help us make quick judgements often with minimal information but can also lead us into trouble o Overgeneralizing misinterpreting inaccurate information o Perseverance effect belief persistence holding onto false beliefs Ross lepper and Hubbard IV False feedback on suicide note detection task DV estimated and predicted actual performance Confirmation Bias seeing what you want to see o We tend to seek information that will confirm rather than disconfirm our preconceptions o We selectively attend to information that is consistent with our expectations we ignore or discount explain away information that is inconsistent o Self fulfilling prophesy Expectations become reality Interview study again Rosenthal study goes to school and tests intellectual potential their intellectual bloomers Test is bogus Gave teacher students who were going to bloom chosen randomly found the students were blooming at the end of the year because teachers expectations for these students Students received o More response opportunities o Warmer climate o Input got called on more Self Presentation Erving Goffman social interaction is a theatrical performance The process of constructing and presenting the self in order to shape others impressions and achieve ulterior goals o Something you re almost always doing in the presence of others Self Presentational Strategies o Ingratiation presenting yourself as likeable o Self Promotion presenting yourself as competent o Exemplification presenting yourself as moral o Modesty downplaying your strengths o Intimidation presenting yourself as threatening o Supplication presenting yourself as weak o Sandbagging strategically hiding your competence Person Perception o Two Parts Process by which we come to know about others peoples temporary states and enduring dispositions 1 Impression Formation rapid assessments of salient characteristics into an overall judgement Traits how do people integrate the various traits they infer about a given person to form a coherent impression Integrating traits into a coherent impression o Summation Model Valences are added up o Averaging model Valences are averaged o Anderson Support for averaging model Information integration theory Personal Dispositions of perceiver o What is perceivers pre existing feeling towards target Weighted average of targets traits Valance importance Trait Negative bias Gestalt Psychology each trait is influenced by its context Soloman Asch some straits are more important than others central traits Harold Kelley o Independent Variable Trait Descriptor used warm or cold for a person o Dependent Variable Student Favorability o Result warm produced more favorability mean of 6 57 v 4 52 Early Information colors perception of later information o Primacy effect Jones et Al Independent Variable order of right and wrong questions Test of intellectual ability Dependent Variable Intelligence rating Result ratings were higher when correct answers came mainly from first half earlier info 2 Attribution o