CH 1 1 Social Psychology is the scientific study of how people think about influence and relate to one another a The Central Themes include i ii iii iv How we construct our social worlds How our social intuitions guide and sometimes deceive us How our social behavior is shaped by other people by our attitudes and personalities and by our biology How social psychology s principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study b Social psychology is all about life your life beliefs attitudes and relationships c We are bio psychological organism s d Attitudes and personalities influence behaviors i They are influenced by external social factors e Our intuitions and unconscious information processing are routinely powerful and f How we construct the world and ourselves is important g Social psychology compared to sociology focuses on individuals and does more sometimes perilous experimentation h Social psychology compared to personality psychology focuses less on individuals differences and more on how individuals in general view and affect one another 2 Social psychologists values penetrate their work in obvious ways such as their choice of research topics and the types of people who are attracted to various fields of study a They also do this in subtle ways such as their hidden assumptions when forming concepts choosing labels and giving advice b The penetration of values into science is not a reason to fault social psychology or any other science c Human thinking is seldom dispassionate this is why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we are to check our ideas against reality 3 Social psych is criticized because it studies things that seem obvious The outcomes are more obvious after the facts are known a Hindsight bias I knew it all along people are overconfident of their predictions and judgements 4 A good theory will distill an array of facts into a much shorter list of predictive principles We use these predictions to confirm or modify the theory to generate new research and to suggest practical applications 5 Most Research is either correlational or experimental a Correlational studies are conducted with systematic statistics to study the relationships between variables b Experimental research looks at cause and effect by constructing a controlled environment where variables can be controlled to study how they affect behavior i Researchers must get informed consent CH 2 spotlight effect transparency 1 We tend to think that others are paying more attention to us than they are this is the 2 We believe that our emotions are more obvious than they are this is the illusion of 3 Our Sense of self helps organize our thoughts and actions When we process information we reference ourselves and we will remember it well a Self concept has two parts Self schemas guide out processing of self relevant information Possible selves that we dream of or dread b Cultures shape the self Individualistic cultures assume an independent self Collectivistic cultures assume an interdependent self i ii i ii c Our self knowledge is flawed We often do not know why we behave the way we do Unconscious processes control our behavior and we may not consciously relate to why we did something i We tend to misdirect our emotions ii We underestimate the power of our psychological immune systems and overestimate the durability of our emotional reactions to significant events 4 Self Esteem is the overall sense of self worth we use it to appraise our traits and abilities a Our self concepts are determined by multiple influences including the roles we play the comparisons we make our social identities how we perceive others appraising us and our experiences of success and failure b Self esteem motivation influences our cognitive processes i When facing failure people will high self esteem will sustain their self worth by perceiving other people as failing too and exaggerating their superiority over others People with high self esteem and narcissism are the most aggressive ii 5 There are many benefits to being self efficant and feeling in control People who believe in their own competence and effectiveness and who have internal loss of control cope better and achieve more than others a Learned helplessness often occurs when attempts to improve a situation have b Self determination is bolstered by experiences of successfully exercising control proven fruitless and improving one s situation c When people are given too many choices they may be less satisfied with what they have rather than if they only had a few choices 6 Self Serving Bias We take credit for our successes but blame others for failures a Most people rate themselves as better than average on desirable traits and abilities b We exhibit unrealistic optimism about our futures c We overestimate the commonality of our opinions False consensus and underestimate the commonality of our abilities and virtues False Uniqueness d These perceptions arise from a motive to maintain and enhance self esteem e Self serving bias causes us to savor the good things in our life but blame others and feel cheated out of something we think we deserve when things go bad 7 We adjust our words and actions to the audience we are around a This explains false modesty When someone credits someone else in public but b People will self handicap with self defeating behaviors that protect self esteem by privately takes credit for themselves providing excuses for failure c Self presentation refers to our wanting to present a favorable image to both an external audience and an internal audience i Those who score highly on a scale of self monitoring will adjust their behavior to each situation Those who do not will seem insensitive 1 Our preconceptions strongly influence how we interpret and remember events a Priming is when people s prejudgments have striking effect on how they perceive b Before the fact judgements bias our perceptions and after the fact judgments bias and interpret information our recall c Belief perseverance is the phenomenon in which people cling to their initial beliefs and the reasons why a belief might be true even when the basis for the belief is discredited d Our memories actually form when we retrieve them and are subject to strong influence by the attitudes and feelings we hold at the time of retrieval 2 We have a huge capacity for autonomic efficient and intuitive thinking a Our cognitive efficiency occasionally makes errors that
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