PSY 101 1st Edition Lecture 23 Outline of Last Lecture I. TherapiesOutline of Current Lecture II. Social PsychologyCurrent Lecture-evaluating psychotherapies-major problem: regression to the mean (less extreme the second time); general phenomenon-if you take a group of people who do extremely well on the first exam, they will inevitably do worse on the second exam (chance factors led some to overperform) -if you take a group of people who seek therapy, they will inevitably do better over time (chance factors led some of them to be particularly down when they sought treatment)-Social Psychology: scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another-examines the influence of social processes on the way people think, feel, and behave-major lesson: far more than you realize, people’s actions are produced and constrained by the social web, and not by the mythical “true self”-major theme #7: the situation matters more than you think -attribution: what caused a behavior? Situational (external) factors? Or dispositional (internal) factors?-the fundamental attribution error: we overweigh dispositional factors (aka the correspondence bias); so, don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in his shoes-the actor-observer bias: we make dispositional attributions for others, but situational attributions for ourselves; so, give people the same benefit of the doubt that you give yourself-the self-serving attributional bias: our successes are due to our dispositions, our failuresare due to our situations; this may be healthy , in moderation, at least in Western cultures-conclusion: we don’t recognize power of situation on others; we do recognize power of situation on self, but mostly for failures; we end up moralistic and self-righteous-attitudes: an association between an act or object and an evaluation; belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events-composed of A, B, C:-Affect (emotion)-Behavioral tendency-Cognition-attitudes and attribution: how we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it-question: do attitudes really cause behavior?-much less than you think, we underestimate the role of situational forces:-LaPiere: resteraunts served Chinese couple during anti-Chinese time, despite saying (later) they wouldn’t; behavior didn’t reflect attitude-general attitudes predict very little, since the situation dominates (but specific attitudes often predict specific behaviors)-behaviors often cause attitudes-cognitive dissonance-example: all subjects peform boring task for 1 hour-control group: no lie, ends with negative attitude-exp group 1: lies for $1, ends with positive attitude-exp group 2: lies for $20, ends with negative attitude-a discrepancy between an attitude and our behavior (or some new info) leads totension, something must be changed, usually the attitude-other ways that behavior affects attitudes-foot in the door phenomenon: tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request (ex. political sign in the yard…volunteer for campaign later on)-social influence-conformity: adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group
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