Lecture Notes Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is social psychology?
The scientific study of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations
Why is social psych not abnormal psych?
Social psychology is interested in every day behavior, while abnormal psych focuses on extremes.
In what situations would social psychology would look at extreme behavior?
When social situations (such as social rejection) are the cause of that extreme behavior
Why is social psychology not cognitive psychology?
They are related, but exclusively in a social context.
Two faces of social psych
Social situations impact you and you impact social situations
Anthropomorphism
Attaching human characteristics onto non-human things
Why is social psych not sociology?
Social psych is interested in individual behavior
Why is social psych not personality psych?
They are highly involved with one another, but social psych is interested in situational behavior
Within the person x situation matrix, what is personality psychology interested in vs social psych?
Personality psych is interested in the rows of the matrix while social psych is interested in the columns
Aronson’s first law
People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy
3 landmark events in social psychology
1908, publishing of “social psychology” by William McDougal. 1898, the first social psych field study, the “Triplett study”. 1940’s, World War II
Triplett study
The presence of others impacts how we behave on a given task. Had children turn the reel on a fishing rod alone vs with another. They found that in competition, the times tend to drop
Who is viewed as the most influential figure in the first 50 years of social psychology?
Adolf Hitler
4 themes of social psychology?
Importance of construal, importance of culture, importance of natural selection, importance of people
Importance of construal
Subjective vs objective. Phenomenological assumption, stimulus > meaning > response
importance of culture
Humans are “cultural animals”. Culture is charged by a group and transmitted generationally. Individualism vs collectivism
importance of natural selection
Universality vs relativity. Evolution emphasizes continuity with other species. Not incompatible with the cultural perspective
importance of people
Humans are “ultra-social”. Emile Burkheim framed suicide in terms of social goals.
WHAT IS SCIENCE
Builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe (including people).
Three goals of science
Description of Events
Prediction of Events
Explanation of Events
