Social Psych Exam 1

sociocultural perspective

looks at the view that a persons prejudices, preferences and political persuasions are affected y factors that work at the level of the group- such as nationality, social class, and current historical trends

affordances:

-THE OPPORTUNITIES & THREATS THAT PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS PROVIDE -different people provide us with different things. -cute guy in class is an opportunity for romance, your boss is an opportunity for advancement

descriptive norms:

-a norm that defines what is commonly done in a situation -can help us make the right choices -also effect and influence whether we help, express our prejudices, cheat on taxes, etc -WHAT PEOPLE TYPICALLY DO

injunctive norms:

-a norm that describes what is commonly approved or disapproved in a situation -COMMUNICATE WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD AND SHOULDN'T DO

conserving mental effort:

-means cognitive strategies that lead to effective decisions even when we don't have the mental resources for effortful, "rational" processes. -we need cognitive strategies to help us make "good enough" judgments while expending only a minimal amount of mental effort

presence of others on behavior of the person:

-presence of others creates situations that affect how we think, feel and behave. -its not just the # of people that affects us but also where those people are -the number of people around can influence your social behaviors

what is involved in describing social behavior?

-social psychologists seek to explain why people influence one another in the ways that they do -scientific theories can help us make predictions about future events and control previously unmanageable phenomena's

strong situations:

-tend to afford a narrower range of opportunities and threats for the people in them -tend to have obvious injunctive and descriptive norms -frequently scripted

weak situations:

-tend to afford a relatively wide range of opportunities and threats -characterized by a lack of clear descriptive norms, as the behaviors of others in them will vary greatly -have injunctive norms -there are not a set of rules of what your supposed to do in situations like nightclub or living room and many people act differently

Persons choose their situations:

-we choose situations based on the opportunities they provide -when different situations provide different opportunities, we tend to choose those whose opportunities appear to fit well with our desires and goals

Four core processe of social cognition:

1. attention 2. interpretation 3. judgment 4. memory

what are goals of social behavior?

1. to establish social ties (for almost every goal any of us ever reaches we get there more easily when there are others helping us along) 2. to understand ourselves and others (because by understanding ourselves and our relationships with others we are able to manage our lives more effectively.) 3. to gain and maintain status (the advantages of attaining status include not only immediate material payoffs such as access to food but also the less tangible social benefits that follow from other peoples respect and admiration) 4. to defend outselves and those we value (at the local level people build fences around their houses, put up Keep Out signs on their stress, join gangs 5. to attract and retain mates (people often go to great lengths to find and keep these partners)

culture and norms

Different cultures provide different opportunities for their members. For example, individualistic cultures afford great opportunities for people to assert independence and personal control. One way individualistic cultures do this is by giving their members many choices. By providing many choices to their members, individualistic cultures allow people to express their individuality and take personal control in meeting their own needs.

The Bartholow et al. (2005) study on aggression and violent video games:

The type of game did not influence those participants who had more experience playing violent video games: They loudly blasted their opponents regardless. This shows that different people respond differently to the same situation.

goal:

a desired outcome; something one wishes to achieve or accomplish

survey:

a technique in which the researcher asks people to report on their beliefs, feelings, or behaviors. The researcher simply asks respondents a series of questions about their behaviors, beliefs or opinions. An advantage of this is it allows a researcher to collect a great deal of data about phenomena that may rarely be demonstrated in public. But the person being surveyed might not give accurate feedback

confound

a variable that systematically changes along with the independent variable, potentially leading to a mistaken conclusion about the effect of the independent variable

evolutionary perspective

adopting the view that human social behaviors are rooted in physical and psychological predispositions that helped out ancestors survive and reproduce. human social behaviors such as smiling or sneering had evolved along with physical features such as upright posture and grasping thumbs

case studies:

an intensive examination of one individual or group. they are used when they want to better understand a rare or unusual individual or group

Experimental Methods:

are used to uncover the causes of behavior by systematically varying some aspect of the situation. So you manipulate some aspect of the situation

ex: once and experienced driver starts to drive to a known destination the driver does not usually need to pay attention to coordinating the pedals or stick shift. this is an example of what?

automaticity

Positive correlation

both of the things go up or down together

conscious and automatic goals:

by automatizing one tasks, we can devote our limited attention to other tasks. by automatizing the ways we think about and interact with others, we can move toward many of our goals that are conscious and need mental effort.

what is this descriptive method? ex: if you are interested in studying what happens to peoples feelings about themselves when they suddenly become famous.

case study

goals of social cognition:

conserving mental effort, managing self-image, seeking an accurate understanding

ex: Olympians who get 3rd place end up being happier because they made it on the medal stand and almost didn't make it at all. Compared to Olympians who get 2nd place can imagine what "might have been" and end up being more upset because they were so close to winning first place.

counterfactual thinking

ex: individualistic cultures afford great opportunities for people to assert independence and personal control. One way individualistic cultures do this is by giving their members many choices. By providing many choices to their members, individualistic cultures allow people to express their individuality and take personal control in meeting their own needs.

cultural affordances

what we pay attention to is greatly influenced by our ____.

goals

ex: if in the first class meeting of your college career your classmates stop talking when the instructor approaches the lectern, there is a pretty good chance you'd do well by ending your conversation

descriptive norms

Cultural Affordances:

different cultures provide different opportunities for their members.

ex: seeing an attractive person smile at you may prime thoughts of romance, whereas hearing the same person yell at you raises concerns of your safety.

different situations prime different parts of the person

what type of experiment is this ex: the trick or treaters were greeted by a research assistant who pointed to a bowl of candy alongside a bowl of pennies. She told the to take one of the candies each and then she hurried off. Then the lady watched them from a window.

field experiment because the researchers randomly assigned groups of children to different levels of anonymity.

what are the different types of experimental methods?

field experiment, reliability, internal and external validity, correlation, independent variable, dependent variable, random assignment, confound

social cognitive perspective

focuses on the process involved in people choices of which social events to pay attention to, which interpretations to make of these events and how to store these experiences in memory.

ex: religious services and job interviews have "rules" that tell us what we are allowed to do and what we are not ex: when people do you a favor; you repay them with some act of kindness. "You scratch my back if I scratch yours" type of thing

injunctive norm

a correlation between 2 variables is often expressed _____ in terms of a statistic called a correlation coefficient.

mathematically

managing self-image

means that most people want to feel good about them. we desire positive self-regard because we want to think we are effective & accomplish our goals

seeking an accurate understanding:

means that our mental shortcuts work well, and they lead us to pretty accurate judges of others even when the information we have about them is sparse.

Baumesiter and his colleagues thought that willpower works similarly to ___.

muslces

what is this descriptive method? ex: when the lady went to the bar and then other places to see how different women act in front of men. The women didn't know that the observer was there so they were acting natural

naturalistic observation

What are the different types of descriptive methods?

naturalistic observation, case studies, survey, psychological tests.

The Person and Situation Interaction:

our personalities are partially defined by how we react to situations- by the particular set of goals, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that emerge in the different situations we confront.

Person Situation fit:

refers to the extent to which a person and a situation are compatible. People can't reach their goals unless their situations provide appropriate opportunities.

ex: you choose to go to a movie and your roommate chooses to go to the library

person choose their situations

ex: Add a socially skilled teacher to an awkward classroom of first-day kindergarteners and the kids will soon shed their shyness and begin making friends.

persons change the situation

ex: in the classroom the students are ignorant of the others confusion because everyone is concealing that they are confused.

pluralistic ignorance

Individualistic Culture

predominantly socialize their members to view themselves as unique individuals and to prioritize their personal goals (USA, AUS, GB)

collectivistic cultures

predominantly socialize their members to view themselves in terms of their relationship and as members of the larger social group, and to prioritize the concerns of their relationship partners and groups before their own. (Guatemala, South Korea, Taiwan)

ex: thoughts that come to us while sitting in math class are a lot different then thoughts to come to us while on a date.

priming

ex: when you think of your brother a visual image may pop to mind. Thinking about your brother can lead you to begin thinking about other family members because knowledge is interconnected.

priming

Naturalistic Observation:

recording everyday behaviors as they unfold in their natural setting

ex:Like neglectful parents can turn infants with calm dispositions into anxious toddlers.

situations change the person

what theoretical perspective is this: imagine that you're getting ready to go on a blind date. Not only do you worry about the impression and signals that you are sending to the other person, you are also concerned with interpreting the signals given by the other individual.

social cognitive perspective

counterfactual thinking:

the process of imagining alternative "might have been" versions of actual events

what theoretical perspective is this: Greg lived in MN and Africa which prepared him not only to get along with people from other societies but also allowed him to see his parents winning affection and respect for helping others. Because his parents did shit in Africa as well.

social learning perspective

what theoretical perspective is this: compared to her working-class, Irish grandmother, a modern-day Manhattan executive probably has different attitudes about premarital sex and women's roles in business.

sociocultural perspective

thought suppression and chronic accessibility of thoughts:

sometimes we try to reach difficult goals by suppressing thoughts incompatible with them. the more they are told not think think about them the more likely you are to think about it

memory:

storing and retrieving information for future use

is this a strong or weak situation: very obvious what behaviors are appropriate at funerals and what are not

strong situation

automaticity:

the ability of a behavior or cognitive process to operate without conscious guidance once its put into motion

what is social cognition?

the process of thinking about and making sense of oneself and others

judgment:

the process of using information to form impressions and make decisions

Reliability:

the consistency of the score yielded by a psychology test. If the test says that you do well in social situations the 1st time but then the 2nd time you fail the test and it says you should never go into public again then the test is unreliable

motivation: what drives humans?

the driving force, the energy that moves people toward their desired outcomes. Some things that can drive humans are goals with a broad scope, such as the desires to gain status, protect family members from harm, etc.

validity (internal & external)

the extent to which a test measures what is designed to measure.

internal validity:

the extent to which an experiment allows confident statements about cause and effect

external validity

the extent to which the results of an experiment can be generalized to other circumstances

correlation:

the extent to which two or more variables occur together.

field experiment:

the manipulation of independent variables using unknown participants in natural settings

pluralistic ignorance:

the phenomenon where people in a group misperceive the beliefs of others because everyone acts inconsistently with their beliefs.

random assignment:

the practice of assigning participants to treatments so each person has an equal chance of being in any condition. ex: if assigning people to certain groups based on a coin flip, you yourself is not deciding which people go into which group

priming:

the process of activating knowledge or goals, of making them ready for use. -the most relative knowledge will be accessible when we need it.

attention:

the process of consciously focusing on aspects of our environment or ourselves.

attention:

the process of consciously focusing on features of the environment or oneself

self-perception processes:

the process through which people observe their own behavior to infer internal characteristics such as traits, abilities and attitudes.

interpretation:

the process through which we give meaning to the events we experience

self presentation

the process through which we try to control the impressions people form of us. (ex: the clothes we wear, the manner we behave at a job interview)

social psychology

the scientific study of how peoples thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by other people

willpower:

the self-control strength used to overcome counterproductive impulses to achieve difficult goals

different situations prime different parts of the person:

the situations we are in bring to mind goals and beliefs that influence how we think, feel and behave-even when we are not in the same situation anymore.

situations change the person:

the situations you are put into can change numerous things about you as a person.

the person:

the social individual is a dynamic combination of motivations, knowledge, and feelings, all of which work with one another to produce the fascinating range of social thought and behavior.

the fundamental attribution error:

the tendency for observers to overestimate the causal influence of personality factors on behavior and to underestimate the causal role of situational influences

negative correlation

the two things go in opposite directions

dependent variable

the variable being measured.

Independent variable

the variable manipulated by the experimenter. the thing that the experimenter is changing

Psychological Tests:

they are instruments for assessing differences between people in abilities, cognitions, or chronic motivations. This test tries to uncover broader underlying traits

how do we study social psychology?

they begin with hypotheses which are educated guesses about how the evidence is likely to turn out. Then there are different categories (Descriptive Method & Experimental Methods)

correlation coefficient:

they can range from +1.0 which is perfect positive relationship and absolutely no relationship which is -1.0.

ex: dieters try and not think about sweets.

thought suppression and chronic accessibility of thoughts

why do persons change their situations?

to better achieve their goals

Descriptive Method:

used to measure or record behaviors, thoughts, or feelings in their natural state. When people use this method they hope to record behaviors w/o changing them in any way

T or F: confounding variables are like the invisible 3rd variable in correlations- they make it difficult to know what caused the subjects behavior.

true

T or F: if you are looking at the color of peoples eyes and then related that to how attractive they are it is not the best valid because someone with brown eyes could look like shit

true

T or F: knowledge is primed by situations we are in and related knowledge.

true

T or F: research has shown that the mere # of people in one's environment creates different situations

true

T or F: the person and the situation work together to influence how people think, feel & behave.

true

social learning perspective

viewed social behaviors as driven by individuals past learning experiences with reward and punishment. These past learning experiences are determinants of person's social behavior.

Situations choose the person:

we can't always get what we want. not everybody gets to enter their preferred situations. Students are rejected by their 1st-choice colleges, they're ignored by popular sororities, they pound the pavement looking for jobs.

the situation:

what is all around you including, people, place, smell, temperature and many more things