Social psych

Correlational vs. experimental designs

: experimental--goal: answer causal questions correlational—goal: prediction

Internal vs. external validity

: internal: making sure that nothing besides the independent variable can affect the dependent variable. External: the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people.

What social psychologists focus on vs. personality psychologists:

: social psychologies focus on society or a group rather than the individual

Hindsight bias (definition and application)

also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it.

schemas

ambigous

A way to think about automatic vs. controlled processing (hint: flying):

automatic: quick, no conscious deliberation of thoughts. Controlled: effortful, deliberate, careful

Ethnography

description from an "insider's point of view"

emails

emoticons

IRB

ethics

Definition of fundamental attribution error (FAE):

the tendency to explain our own and other people's behavior entirely in terms of personality traits, underestimating of the power of social influence

Example of construal

thinking someone else is acting nice or mean toward them, and acting accordingly.

Kitty

was an example of casual observations of everyday life

Why is it unwise to rely solely on philosophy when explaining human behavior:

when philosophers disagree about human nature, its difficult to determine who is right

What is a hypothesis

a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Why is the scientific approach preferred over folk wisdom

Because "Folk wisdom" is "common sense" you learn from your parents and other influences, but they often contradict each other and aren't based on hard facts. (unlike the scientific approach.)

Controlled processes such as counterfactual thinking can have their benefits and drawbacks. First Discuss what is meant by the term "counterfactual thinking," then explain how this phenomenon can be beneficial and how it can be detrimental.

Counterfactual thinking occurs when someone mentally changes some aspect of the past by imagining what might have been. This "if only" thinking can be detrimental to a person when they are constantly reconstructing a tragedy that happened to where it didn't happen because they decided not to do this, or happened to be there... This kind of thinking only causes greater distress in contrast to accepting what happened and moving on. However, counterfactual thinking can also be beneficial in the event that it helps a person to learn and do better next time. For instance, failing a math test might lead to counterfactual thinking, making that person wish that they'd studied harder, and the next time hopefully they might remember that and be more determined to pass it.

How is social psychology set apart from other methods (folk wisdom or literature) in interpreting social behavior:

It's based on facts.

Founding father of social psychology

Kurt Lewin

Definition of construal

Personal interpretation

social cognition

Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions.

Definition of social psychology

Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of the other people.

In Heider's attribution theory, attributions are dichotomous — that is, there are two possible attributions a person can make about another's behavior. Describe both of these types of attributions, then provide an example of each type of attribution one could make about why someone is running late for a meeting.

The two types of attributions that Heider came up with are internal and external attributions. Internal attributions are when someone judges another person's actions by looking at their internal attributes such as character, personality, or religion. If a person sees someone running late for a meeting, an internal attribution would be thinking that that person was late because he is lazy and unreliable. Whereas external attributions are based on people thinking that another person's actions are based on external events that causes that person to do this, or say that. If someone sees a guy running late for a meeting, an external attribution would be thinking that the cause of his lateness was due to car problems.

How do social psychologists formulate hypotheses

They are inspired by previous theories and research

Why are reality television shows popular:

because people like figuring out why people are the way they are, why they act the way they do, and thinking about people eand their behavior helps us understand: (the definition of social perception)

Self-fulfilling prophecy:

making schemas come true—when people have an expectation about what another person is like which influences how they act towards that person which causes that person to behave as the person expected them to.

construels

perception, comprehension

Schemas (definition, application, why we use them, when we use them

schemas are the mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or subjects. Schemas influence the info people notice, think about, and remember.

empirical

social psychologists ask what kind of questions?

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) study (Bloomer study):

teachers led to believe particular students will bloom, and the teachers gave those students special attention that made those students actually get higher grades and IQs than the non-bloomers. (Self-fulfilling prophecy.