SOCIAL Flashcards
(117 cards)
Social Psychology
The scientific study of how people’s
THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, and BEHAVIOURS are influenced by the ACTUAL, IMAGINED, or IMPLIED presence of others
Guiding principles of Social Psychology
- The social brain
- The power of the situation
- Levels of analysis
- Critical thinking
The Social Brain
- UNDERSTANDING the SELF and its relations to OTHERS
- Forming JUDGEMENTS about others
- Understanding & making INFERENCES about others’ mental states
- Social DECISION-MAKING
- Perception of socially relevant CUES (faces, eye gaze,…)
- Understanding social categories & our place in them
The Power of the Situation
–> Kurt Lewin (1935): the BEHAVIOURS of people is always a function of the FIELD OF FORCES around them
- FIELD OF FORCES (humans) = the SITUATION they find themselves
- A (person) x (situation) interaction
- I.e –> human behaviour = results from PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES + particular SITUATION
Levels of Analysis
in order of decreasing…
- individual (RS w self)
- INTERpersonal (RS w other individuals)
- INTRAgroup (RS w other people within a same group)
- INTERgroup (RS w people in diff groups)
Critical thinking
Healthy skepticism (doubt towards knowledge)
Challenges in Social Psychology
Scientific rigour and critical thinking:
- CONTEXT is v important (HOW and WHY)
- no one-size-fits-all answer
- not all findings are true in every situation
- BUT… a guiding principle of science is replicability
- (2015) a paper attempting to replicate 100 psychology studies found only 36% replicated
BENEFITS of Social Psychology
- provides insights into our own and others’ BEHAVIOURS
- Helps us UNDERSTAND the causes and consequences of current events (eg: COVID-19, BLM)
- Gives us tools to ACT EFFECTIVELY and HELP OTHERS do the same
Aspects of self-identity
- Personal identity
- Social identity
- Cultural Identity
The Social Self
UNITARY and CONTINUOUS awareness of who someone is
- Many aspects of the self are influenced by social experiences:
- HOW we think of ourselves
- WHAT and WHO we like and dislike
- HABITS we form
- VALUES we adhere to
- How we (learn to) BEHAVE
Personality is affected by social context
Study by Tice (1992) - Have you ever pretended to be more extraverted than you are?
- Present yourself as an extraverted / introverted person
- In public / in private
- Then participants rated their “true selves”
–> Results:
- PUBLIC: people rated themselves as MORE extraverted than they really are
- PRIV: not much diff
Social Identity
Identity is something that BINDS us w others, NOT separate.
Early conceptions of social selves:
–> The Social Me (William James):
- What we know about ourselves from social relationships
* Who a person is in one context (e.g., at work) ISN’T necessarily the same person they are in another context (e.g., at home)
–> Working self-concept (Markus & Wurf, 1987)
- A subset of our self-knowledge is brought to mind in a given CONTEXT
- The self relevant to rs may be the mind’s prime focus in ROMANTIC contexts;
- the self related to competition in sports contexts
SELF-CATEGORISATION theory
–> CATEGORISING OURSELF (basic human process) = the diff/ similarities btwn groups
- We group things together to HELP US UNDERSTAND the world
- At the group level, we categorise people into ‘INGROUPS’ (groups to which we belong) and
‘OUTGROUPS’ (groups to which we don’t belong)
–> CATEGORISING OTHERS (acting differently when in diff contexts)
- The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction
- DIff identities become salient (noticeable) in diff contexts (eg: a psych student in lecture; a mother when homeschooling)
- Shifting the salience of diff identities can make previous outgroup members become ingroup members (e.g., engineering student vs psych student –> Unimelb students)
- ‘Who we are’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves
Cultural Identity (a form of social identity with mostly inborn)
- Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class, etc)
- A form of social identity, but one that is often inborn and encompasses a total way of life & the way we view the world
- Can be fostered DIRECTLY : (thru socialisation efforts) /
INDIRECTLY: thru bg exposure to ways of life, predispositions toward
seeing the world in a particular way)
Culture and the Social Self
- CULTURAL self-construal (Markus & Kitayama,1991)
= Individualist (or independent): the self is an autonomous (govern itself) entity SEPARATE from others;
–> ppl should assert (behave confidently) their independence and celebrate their uniqueness
- “My environment should change to fit me”
* western countries: US, Australia, UK - COLLECTIVIST (or interdependent): the self is fundamentally CONNECTED to others;
–> people should seek to FIT IN a community and fulfil appropriate roles
“I should change to fit my environment”
* East Asian, South Asian, African and Latin American countries
Individualist (Independent)
self-construal
- Separate from social context
- Be unique, express yourself
- Promote your own goals
- Say ‘what’s on your mind
Collectivist (interdependent)
- Connected with social context
- FIT IN, occupy your proper place
- Promote others’ goals
- “read others’ minds”
Culture and the Social Self
Research
‘Who am I’ exercise (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954)
–> Results:
- Americans’ responses mostly context-free about traits and preferences (“I like camping”; “Hard working”)
- Responses by ppl fr interdependent cultures mostly context dependent and refer to RELATIONSHIPS (“I’m serious at work”; “I’m Jan’s friend”)
‘Who am I’ in KENYA:
- Undergraduate students w greater exposure to Western culture & being educated in Western tradition
- Traditional peoples who
had v little contact with Western
principles
- results: responses of undergrads were more ab personal characteristics > roles / groups
Significance of the social
–> Being w others is good for us:
–> Being apart fr others is bad for us:
–> The online context
How can being with others be good for us?
–> Being w others meets basic needs
- basic psychological needs:
(Belonging, Self-esteem, Control,
Meaning) - Connection with others fosters these needs:
- People were asked to rmb they gained / lost an important identity or group membership
- Then reflected on how this event affected basic needs
- results: need satisfaction is greater
gained a grp > baseline > lost a group
The Sociometer Hypothesis
- Things that make us FEEL GOOD about ourselves (self-esteem) are also the things that make others accept and like us (belonging)
- Like a fuel gauge, self-esteem is a readout of our likely standing w others
- High self-esteem = social inclusion
- Low self-esteem = social exclusion
- Self-esteem CUxES us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds
- Leary and colleagues argue we DON’T NEED self-esteem for PERSONAL reasons, just social
reasons
Social Comparisons Theory
–> 2 assumptions:
- We seek to GAIN ACCURATE self-evaluations
- Comparisons w others help us
REALITY-CHECK our own self-evaluations
–> We make 2 types of comparisons
1. Downward comparisons: comparing to people we think r ‘worse’ –>
improves our self-evaluation
2. Upward comparisons: comparing to others we think r ‘better’ –>
worsens our self-evaluation
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
–> 2 assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to MANTAIN / IMPROVE our self-evaluation
2. Comparisons with others INFLUENCE our self-evaluation
–> 2 processes
1. Reflection: Others IMPROVE our
self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation happens when domain is NOT RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation increases cuz self shares in the success
2. Comparison: Others WORSEN our self-evaluation
- Usually happens when evaluation is RELEVANT to the self
- Self-evaluation decreases cuz it invites unfavourable comparison w our own abilities