Unit 1 (Chapter 1): Introduction Flashcards
(17 cards)
Define social psychology
“the scientific study of the way individuals think, feel, and behave in a social context” (p. 6)
How is social psychology different from other social sciences such as sociology?
Even when social psychologists study groups of people, they usually emphasize the behavior of the individual in the group context.
Describe how social-psychological findings may be distinguished from common-sense or traditional folk wisdom.
[Learned]
List the major periods in the history of social psychology.
1880-1920: Birth and infancy
1930-1950: Call to action
1960-1970: Confidence and Crisis
1970-2000: Pluaralism and populatirty
Who are considered to be the founders of social psychology?
Credit for this creation goes to the writers of the first three textbooks in social psychology: the English psychologist William McDougall (1908) and two Americans, Edward Ross (1908) and Floyd Allport (1924)
When did the field of social psychology become a distinct field of psychology?
Early 20th century
What was the main focus of social-psychological research from the 1930s to the 1950s?
WW II/conformity etc.
Describe Kurt Lewin’s contributions to social psychology.
One of the fundamental principles of social psychology that Lewin helped establish was that behaviour is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment. He also greatly assisted moving the field into practical world applications and helped the field become recognized
Explain why the 1960s to the mid-1970s was a period of confidence and crisis for social psychology.
People understodd the value of the research and it became robust with topics of study. Studies were done that today are still the most famous of experiments
It was also a time of massive debate as people were looking at ethics and validity of the old ways of experimenting.
How was the crisis in social psychology resolved in the mid-1970s to the 1990s?
more rigorous ethical standards for research were instituted, more stringent procedures to guard against bias were adopted, and more attention was paid to possible cross-cultural differences in behavior.
Describe how emotion, motivation, and cognition perspectives are integrated in social-psychology research today.
Describe the genetic and the evolutionary perspectives in social-psychological research.
Social structures are reinforced by their survival adaptation
Define culture. Describe how social psychology incorporates the cultural perspective on human behaviour.
A system of enduring meanings, beliefs, values, assumptions, institutions, and practices shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next
Cross cultural and culti cultural analysis provide new insights about social differences
In what ways are new technologies changing social-psychological research?
Non invasive brain scans and imaging are allowing tests that would perhaps be unethical or impossible to do before
Provide two questions from your daily life that social psychologists are trying to answer.
- How does sound impact social architecture?
- What kinds of city or building architecture effect what kinds of feelings
- What is the actual optimal way of providing equality in the workplace for women working in wildfire
Define interactionist perspective
An emphasis on how both an individual’s personality and environmental characteristics influence behavior
Define social cognition
The study of how people perceive, remember, and interpret information about themselves and others
