Introduicing Social Psychology

Social Psychology - scientific study of how

people think about, influence and relate to
each other (how individuals' affect each
other vs. Personality psych na indiv
differences)
1. social thinking
-how we perceive ourseleves and others
-what we believe
judgements we make
-our attitudes
2. social influence
-culture
-pressures to conform
-persuasiom
-groups of people
3. social relationships
-prejudice
-aggresion
-attraction and intimacy
-helping
Social Psychology's Big Ideas
A. Social thinking
1. We construct our social reality
-we explain behavior to attribute it to some
cause and therefore to make it seem
orederly, predictable and controllable
-there is an bobjective reality out there, but
we always view it through the lens of our
beliefs and values
2.Our Social intuitions are powerful,
sometimes perilous
-dual procession (conscious and
unconscious)
-instant intuitions shape our fears,
impressions and relationships
3. Attitudes shape and are shaped by
behavior
-same situation, diff people react differently
B. Social Influence
4. social influences shaped behavior
-culture help define our situations
5.Dispositions shape behavior

C. Social Relations
6. Social Behavior is also biological behavior
-mind and body are one grand system
-(social neuroscience) An integration of
biologicaland social perspectives that
explores the neural and psychological bases
of social and emotional behaviors.
7. Feelings and actions toward people are
sometimes negative and sometimes positive
VALUES
-personal convictions about what is desirable
and how people ought to behave
-differs across time and culture
-influences the types of people who are
attracted to various disciplines
-values obviously enter the picture as the
objectof social-psychological analysis. Social
psychologists investigate how values form,
why they change, and how they influence
attitudes and actions
Culture - The enduring behaviors,ideas,
attitudes, and traditions shared by a large
group of people and transmitted from one
generation to the next.
Social Representations - Socially shared
beliefs widely held ideas and values,
including our assumptions and cultural
ideologies. Our social representations help us
make sense of our world.
what guides our behavior is less the
situation-as-it-is than the situation-asweconstrue-it.
Value Judgements
-defining good life (personal values)
-professional advice (advice giver's personal
values)
-forming concepts (research based)
-label reflects judgment

Social psychology faces two contradictory

criticisms:

1.trivial because it documents the obvious

2. dangerous because its findings could be
used to manipulate people.
Hindsight Bias
-The tendency to exaggerate, after learning
an outcome, ones ability to have foreseen
how something turned out. Also known as
the I-knew-itall-along phenomenon.
-conducive to arrogancce(an overestimation
of our own intellectual powers)
-outcomes seem as if they should have been
foreseeable, we are more likely to blame
decision makers for what are in retrospect
obvious bad choices than to praise them for
good choices, which also seem obvious.
- noise - piles of useless information
surrounding the rare shreds of useful
information.
Common sense is right after the fact.
Research Methods
Theory - an integrated set of principles that
explain and predict observed events
Hypothesis - testable proposition that
describes a rltnshp that may exist between
events
field research - research done in natural reallife settings outside the laboratiry
correlational - asking 2 or more factors area
naturally associated
experimental - manipulating some factors to
see its effect on another
Correlation and Causation
-correlations indicate a realationship but is
not necessary to be cause and effect
-allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us
whether changing one variable will cause
changes in another
Random Sample - survey procedurre in which
every person in the population being studied
has an equal chance of inclusion
Order of questions
Response Options

Wording of Questions
Framing - the way a question or an issue is
posed, framing can infuence people's
decisions and expressed opinions
Experimental Research
-independent variables - manipulated
variable
- cinderrela effect
-dependent variable - variable being
measured
-random assignments- eliminates extraneous
variables
Mundane Realism - degree to which an
experiment is superficially similar to
everyday situations
Experimental Realism - degree to which an
expmt absorbs and involves its participants
Deception - effect by which participants are
misinformed or msisled about the study;s
methids and purposes
Demand Characteristics - cues in an
experiment that tell the participant what
behavior is expected
Informed Consent - An ethical principle
requiring that research participants be told
enough to enable them to choose whether
they wish to participate.
Debriefing - In social psychology, the
postexperimental explanation of a study to
its participants. Debriefing usually discloses
any deception and often queries participants
regarding their understandings and feelings.
The Self in a Social World (2)
spotlight effect - The belief that others are
paying more attention to ones appearance
and behavior than they really are.

illusion of transparency - The illusion that our

concealed emotions leak out and can be
easily read by others.
Interplay of self and social world
-social surroundings afect our self awareness
-self intererst colors our socual judgment
-self concern motivates our social behavior
-social relationships define our self
self concept - answers the question who am i
self-schema - beleifs about self that organize
and guide the processing of self relevant info
possible selves - images of what we dream of
or dream becoming in the future
The self
-self concept
-self-knowledge
-self esteem
-social self
Development of the social self (influences)
-roles we play
-social identities we form
-comparisons we make with others
-successes and failures
-how other poeple judge us
-surrounding culture
social comparison - evaluationg one's
abilities and opinions by comparing oneself
with others
we compare upward - we raise the standards
by which we evauate our attainments and
compare ourseleves with others doing even
better; perceived the competitor as
advantage
Self esteem
-comes not only from telling children how
wonderful they are but also from hard earned
achievements
-We may overestimate appraisal, infalting
our self images

-gauge which we monitor and react to how

others appraise us
Looking Glass Self
-how we think others perceive us as a mirror
for perceiveing ourselves
-the way we imagine they see us
Individualism
-giving priority to one;s own goals over group
goals and defining identity in erms of
personal attributes rather than group
identifications
-independent self
-people in individualistic countries persist
more when succeeding,
because success elevates self-esteem
Collectivism
-giving priority to the goals of one's groups
and defining one's identity accordingly
-interdependent self - construing one's
identity in relation to others
-focuses on gaining more social approval and
harmonize with
Self Knowledge
-we think we know but our inside information
is wrong
-little relationship betwee their perceptions
of how well a fator predicted their mood and
how well it really did
-if you want to know whether it will last, dont
listen to your heart, ask your roommate
planning fallacy - tendency to underestimate
how long t will take to complete a task
because we remember previous tasks as
taking less time.
affective forecasting - reveal that people
have greatest difficulty predicting the
intensity and the duration of their future
emotions
Impact bias - overestimating the enduring
impact of emotion causing events (mas
prone tayo dito if negative events)

immune neglect - human tendency to

underestimate the speed and strength of the
psychological immuneystem which enables
emotional recover and resilience after bad
things happen
*we are more aware of the results of our
thinking than of its process
dual attitudes
-Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit
(consciously controlled) attitudes toward the
same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes
may change with education and persuasion;
implicit attitudes change slowly, with
practice that forms new habits.
Self esteem - a person's overall self
evaluation or sense of self worth
self-esteem maintenance - motive predicts a
variety of interesting findings, even friction
among brothers and sisters
*social rejection lowers our self-esteem and
makes us more eager for approval
Narcissism - have high self esteem but no
care for others (Dark Triad with
Machiavellianism and antisocial
psychopathy)
*effortful self control depletes our limited will
power reserves
*if you want to encourage someone, focus on
their self efficacy not on self esteem
Self efficacy - how competenet we feel on a
task; grows with hard won achievement
Locus of control
-extent to which people perceives outcomes
as internally controllable by their own efforts
or as externally controlled by chance or
outside forces
optimistic explanatory style are more likely
than pessimists to perform beyond
expectations

competence + persistence =
accomplishment
learned helplessness - sense of hopelessness
and resignation learned when a human
perceives n control over repeated bad events
(self determination kapag may mga succes)
uncontollable bad events -> perceieved lack
of control -> learned helplessness
self serving bias - tendency to perceive
oneself favorably
1. self serving attributions - attributing
positive outcomes to oneself and negative
outcomes to something else
2. bias blind dpot sabi natin yung iba biased
tapos tayo hindi. na tama tayo and free from
bias.
3. defense pessimism - anticipates problems
and motivates effective coping
4. false consensus effect
-The tendency to overestimate the
commonality of ones opinions and ones
undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.
5. false uniqueness effect
- tendency to underestmate the commonality
of one's abilities and one's desirable or
succesful behaviors
we are motivated to:
-assess our competence
-verufy self-conceptions
-enhance our self image
1. self serving bias is adaptive (helps in
depression)
2. self serving bias is maladaptive
-group-serving bias - Explaining away
outgroup members positive behaviors, also
attributing negative behaviors to their
dispositions while excusing such behavior by
ones own group

Self handicapping
-protecting one's self image with behaviors
that create a handy excuse for later failure
Self Presentation
-act of expressing oneself and behaving in
ways designed to create a favorable
impression or an impression that
corresponds to one's ideals
self-monitoring
-Being attuned to the way one presents
oneself in social situations and adjusting
ones performance to create the desired
impression.
Social Beleifs and Judgments (3)
Priming - activating particular associations in
memory (surface even when stimuli are
presented subliminally)
Kulechov effect - director who would sjillfully
guide viewer's inferences by manipulating
their assumptions
spontaneous trait transference - what we say
to others are associate with us.
belief perseverance - Persistence of ones
initial conceptions, as when the basis for
ones belief is discredited but an explanation
of why the belief might be true survives.
misinformation effect - incorporating
misinformation into ones memory of the
event after witnessing an event and
receiving misleading onfo about it
Powers of intuition
1.controlled processing -Explicit thinking that
is deliberate, reflective, and conscious.
2.automatic processing - Implicit thinking
that is effortless, habitual, and without
awareness, roughly corresponds to intuition.
Automatic Thinking
-schemas

-emotional reactions
-suffiecient expertise
-satisfying choice
Overconfidence
-unaware of our flaws (intellectual conceit)
overconfidence phenomenon - tendency to
be more confident than correct - to
overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs
(incompetence feeds overconfidence)
confirmation bias - tendency to search for
information that confirms one's perception
(self-verification)
To lessen overconfidence
1.prompt feedback - daily feedback to lessen
overconfidence
2.unpack a task (planning fallacy)
3. get people to think of one good reason
why their judgements might be wrong
heuristics - simple, efficient thinking
strategies
representativeness heuristics - tendency to
presume sometimes despite contrary odds,
that someone or something belongs to a
particular group if resembling a typical
member
availability heuristic - cognitive rule that
judges the likelihood of thins in terms of their
availability in memory (if instances of
something come readily to mind, we
presume it to be commonplace)
counterfactual thinking - imagining alterative
scenarios and outcomes that might
happened but didn't (feelings of luck) (the
more significant the event, the more intense
the counterfactual thinking)
illusory thinking - our search for order in
random events, a tendency that can lead us
down all sorts of wrong paths.

illusory correlation - perception of a

relationship where non exists or perception
of a stronger relationship can actually exist
illusion of control - idea that chance events
are subject to our nfluence

2.cultural differences
Self fulfilling prophecy - beleif that leads to
its own fulfillment

regression toward the average - statistical

tendency for extreme scores or extreme
behavior to return toward one's average

behavioral confirmation
-type of self fulfilling prophecy whereby
people's social expectations lead them to
behave in ways that cause others to confirm
their expectations

*our moods infuse our judgements

Behavior and Attitudes (4)

*depressed mood motivates intense thinking

attitude - favorable or unfavorable evaluative

reaction toward something or someone
(rooted in beliefs and exhibited in one's
feelings and intended behavior)

mood infuse judgments - good and bad

moods trigger memories o experiences
associated with those moods
misattribution - mistakenly attributing a
behavior to the wrong source

ABC's of attitude
-affect
-behavior
-cognition

attribution theory - how people explain

others behavior
1.internal disposition
2.external situations

moral hypocrisy - appearing moral while

avoiding the costs of being so

spontaneous trait inference - effortless

automatic inference of a trait after exposure
to someone's behavior
Harold Kelley's Theory of Attributions
-consistency
-distinctiveness
-consensus
Fundamental Attribution Error
- we underestimate the impact of the
situation and overestimate the extent to
which it reflects the individual's traits and
attitudes (aka correspondence bias)
why we make attribution error
1. perspective and situational perspective
-actor vs observer perspective
-camera perspective bias
-perspectives change over time
-self awareness - makes is self conscious
instead of situation conscious

implicit association test - A computer-driven

assessment of implicit attitudes. The test
uses reaction times to measure peoples
automatic associations between attitude
objects and evaluative words. Easier pairings
(and faster responses) are taken to indicate
stronger unconscious associations.
theory of planned behavior - knowing
people's intended behaviors and their
perceived self effcacy and control
role - a set of norms that defines how people
in a given social position ought to behave
role playing - what is unreal can subtly
evolve into what is real
foot in the door phenomenon
-tendency for people who have firts agreed
to a small request to comply later with a
larger request

low-ball technique
-A tactic for getting people to agree to
something. People who agree to an initial
mrequest will often still comply when the
requester ups the ante. People who receive
only the costly request are less likely to
comply with it.

simultanoeusly accesible thoughts or beleiefs

are psychologically inconsistent

Killing Begets Killing.

-Students who initially perceived themselves
as killing several bugs, by dropping them in
this apparent killing machine, later killed an
increased number of bugs during a selfpaced killing period. (In reality, no bugs were
harmed.)

3 theories explain why attitude follows

behavior
-self presentation
-self justification
-self perception

Self Presentation Theory

-assumes that for strategic reasons we
express attitudes that make us appear more
consistent
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
-assumes that to reduce discomfort, we
justify our actions to ourselves
Self Perception Theory
-assumes that ur actions are self revealing
cognitive dissonance theory - we feel tension
or a lack of harmony when two

insufficient justification
-Reduction of dissonance by internally
justifying ones behavior when external
justification is insufficient.

Overjustification effect
-result of bribing people to do what they
already like doing; they may then see their
actions as externally controlled rather than
intrinsically appealing.
self-affirmation theory
-A theory that (a) people often experience a
self-image threat, after engaging in an
undesirable behavior; and (b) they can
compensate by affirming another aspect of
the self. Threaten peoples self-concept in
one domain, and they will compensate either
by refocusing or by doing good deeds in
some other domain.