exam 1 content

Question 1

Social psychology definition

Answer 1

study of how peoples thoughts, feelings, behaviors are influenced by the real/imagined presence of others

Question 2

Social influence - fundamental attribution error, power of social influence (i.e. nazi germany)

Answer 2

FAE: explaining behavior in terms of personality traits and not taking into account the social situation
-power of social influence: a false sense of security leads to increased vulnerability to influence, when we don’t understand the power of a situation we oversimplify it and decrease our understanding

Question 3

Construal

Answer 3

Specific way someone perceives something - shaped by the need to be accepted, feel good about ourselves and understanding of the world

Question 4

Self Esteem Approach - justifying past behaviors and suffering/self justification

Answer 4

the need to feel good about ourselves
-we will distort the view of the world to feel good about ourselves
-justification of the past: accepting our downfalls is hard, we spin the facts
-Suffering/self justification: the more unpleasant the procedure to get into a group, the better the people like the group

Question 5

Social cognition approach - need to be accurate, self fulfilling prophecy

Answer 5

takes into account how we think about the world, gaining understanding to make decisions - information we gain can be wrong/incomplete
-SFP: Rosenthal and Jacobson found that a teacher who expect certain students to do well did actually did better

Question 6

Observational method - ethnography, trained observers, archival analysis

Answer 6

used for description
-Ethnography; researcher observes a group from within, tries not to influence behavior
-Trained observers; watching from the outside, coding scheme to record behavior
- Archival analysis; examining documents
□ Pros: easy and cheap
Cons: hard to observe some behaviors, can’t always not be unobtrusive, consistency in coding is hard to get (ex: aggressive behavior, what specifically counts as this)

Question 7

Correlational method - surveys

Answer 7

Measuring the relationship between variables on a scale of -1 to +1 (extremes), positive is up together, negative is down together
-Surveys: asking about attitudes

Question 8

Experimental method - in/dependent, in/external validity, basic vs applied research

Answer 8

In/dependent: dependent depends on manipulation of variable
In/external:
-In: keeping the variables constant, manipulating the IV in a predictable way to see how it influences the DV
-Ex: extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to people/situations
Basic/App:
-Basic: fundamental concepts
-App: using the concepts and applying it to real problems

Question 9

Automatic thinking - schemas, heuristics,

Answer 9

involuntary, nonconscious
-Schema: using preexisting mental structures to organize new knowledge, priming
-Heuristics: availability, representative, anchoring and adjustment