SOCIAL PSYCH REVIEWER 2.

Hypothesis - A testable proposition that

describes a relationship that may exist
Lesson 1
between events
What is Social Psychology?
3. Types of Research Methods:

● It is the scientific study of how people

● Field research - Research done in
think about, influence, and relate to one
natural, real life settings outside the
another.
laboratory.
● Social psychology lies at psychology’s
● Correlational Research - The
boundary with sociology the study of
study of the natural occurring
people in groups and societies.
relationships among variables
What Are Social Psychology’s Big Ideas? ● Experimental Research - Studies
1. We Construct Our Social Reality that seek clues to cause–effect
relationships by manipulating one
2. Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but or more factors (independent
Sometimes Perilous variables) while controlling others
3. Social Influences Shape Our Behavior (holding them constant).

4. Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also ● Survey Research - Is defined as

Shape Behavior the process of conducting research
using surveys that are sent to
5. Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted survey respondents.
6. Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable 4. Experimental Research: Searching for
in Everyday Life Cause and Effect

How Do Human Values Influence Social ● When possible, social

Psychology? psychologists prefer to conduct
experiments that explore cause
1. Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology and effect.
Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work ● By constructing a miniature reality
in obvious ways, such as their choice of research
that is under their control,
topics and the types of people who are attracted
experimenters can vary one thing
to various fields of study.
and then another and discover
2. Not-So-Obvious Ways Values Enter how those things, separately
Psychology combination, affect behavior.

They also do this in subtler ways, such as their ● We randomly assign participants
hidden assumptions when forming to an experimental condition,
concepts ,choosing labels, and giving advice. which receives the experimental
treatment, or to a control condition.
▪ Culture - The enduring behaviors, ideas
attitudes, and traditions share by a large group of ● By seeking to replicate findings,
people a transmitted from one generation to the today’s psychologists also assess
next. their reproducibility.
▪ Social Representations - A society’s widely ● Laboratory experiments enable
held idea and values, including assumptions and social psychologists to test ideas
cultural ideologies. gleaned from life experience and
Research Methods: How Do We Do Social then to apply the principles and
Psychology? findings to the real world.

1. Theory - An integrated set of principle that

explain and predict observed events. Ethics in conducting research
 ▪ In creating experiments, social • Self-presentation refers to our wanting to
psychologists sometimes stage situations present a favorable image both to an external
that engage people’s audience (other people) and to an internal
emotions. audience (ourselves).
▪ Professionals/Researchers are obliged
• Self-handicap we create obstacles or excuses
to follow ethical guidelines, such as
to avoid blame or negative evaluations for
obtaining people’s informed consent,
potential failures.
protecting them from harm, and fully
disclosing afterward any temporary. • People who score high on a scale of self-
monitoring adjust their behavior to each
Lesson 2: The Self in the Social World
situation, whereas those low in self-monitoring
Spotlights and Illusions: What Do They Teach may do so little social adjusting that they seem
Us About Ourselves? insensitive.
• Spotlight effect - Concerned with the Self-control
impression we make on others; we tend to
• Self-control is like a muscle: It can get tired
believe that others are paying more attention to
when you use it too much. Willpower requires
us than they are.
energy.
• Illusion of Transparency - We also tend to
• But self-control can get stronger if it is used
believe that our emotions are more obvious than
more.
they are.
• Improving self-control in one area leads to
Self-Concept: Who Am I?
improvements in others.
• Self-esteem is the overall sense of self-worth
LESSON 3
we use to appraise our traits and abilities.
Social beliefs and judgments
• Our self-concepts are determined by multiple
influences, including the roles we play, the An old Chinese proverb states that “Two-thirds of
comparisons we make, our social identities, how what we see is behind our eyes”.
we perceive others appraising us, and our
experiences of success and failure. How Do We Judge Our Social Worlds,
Consciously and Unconsciously?
• Self-esteem motivation influences our
cognitive processes: Facing failure, high-self- 1. Priming
esteem people sustain their self-worth by System 1 – The intuitive, automatic, unconscious,
perceiving other people as failing, too, and by and fast way of thinking.
exaggerating their superiority over others.
System 2 – The deliberate, controlled, conscious,
• Self-efficacy is the belief that one is effective and slower way of thinking.
and competent and can do something.
Priming – Activating particular associations in
What is Self-Serving Bias? memory.
• Self-serving bias - The tendency to perceive Embodied Cognition – The mutual influence of
oneself favorably. bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and
• Self-serving attributions - A form of self- social judgments.
serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive 2. Intuitive Judgments - refer to decisions or
outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to conclusions made quickly and effortlessly, without
other factors. conscious reasoning or detailed analysis.
• Self-serving bias can be adaptive in that it Automatic Processing – “Implicit” thinking that is
allows us to savor the good things that happen in effortless, habitual, and without awareness;
our lives. When bad things happen, however, roughly corresponds to “intuition.” Also known as
self-serving bias can have the maladaptive effect System 1.
of causing us to blame others.
Self-presentation
Controlled Processing – “Explicit” thinking that Attribution theory – how people interpret and
is deliberate, reflective, and conscious. Also understand the causes of their own and others'
known as System 2. behavior.
3. Overconfidence - refers to the cognitive bias Misattribution – attributing a behavior to the
where individuals believe they know more or are wrong source—is a major factor in sexual
more capable than they actually are. harassment, as a person in power (typically male)
interprets friendliness as a sexual come-on.
We often overestimate our judgments.
Fundamental Attribution Error – when we
Overconfidence Phenomenon –.individuals
blame a person's behavior on their personality or
overestimate their knowledge, abilities, or the
character, rather than considering the situation
accuracy of their predictions.
they are in.
Confirmation Bias – tendency for people to seek
How Do Our Social Beliefs Matter?
out, interpret, and remember information in a way
that confirms their pre-existing beliefs or opinions, Our beliefs sometimes take on lives of their own.
while disregarding or minimizing contradictory
Similarly, in everyday life we often get behavioral
evidence.
confirmation of what we expect. Told that
4. Heuristic – mental shortcuts that help us make someone we are about to meet is intelligent and
quick decisions without having to think too much. attractive, we may come away impressed with
just how intelligent an attractive he or she is.
● Availability Heuristics - We make
What Can We Conclude About Social Beliefs
judgments based on what comes to mind
and Judgments?
easily. For example, if you’ve heard a lot
about shark attacks recently, you might Research on social beliefs and judgments reveals
think they happen more often than they how we form and sustain beliefs that usually
actually do. serve us well but sometimes lead us astray. A
balanced social psychology will therefore
● Representativeness Heuristic – We appreciate.
judge something based on how similar it is
LESSON 4
to a typical example we already know. For
instance, if you meet someone who loves Attitudes – The evaluative reactions toward
reading, you might assume they are a some object or person, often rooted in beliefs.
librarian because they fit your idea of what
a librarian is like. When Does Our Behavior Affect Our
Attitudes?
5. Counterfactual Thinking – Imagining
alternative scenarios and outcomes that might Role - A set of norms that defines how people in
have happened but didn’t. each social position ought to behave.

6. Illusory Thinking ▪ The attitude-action relation also works in the

reverse direction: We are likely not only to think
Illusory correlation - cognitive bias that occurs ourselves into action but also to act ourselves into
when people perceive a relationship between two a way of thinking.
variables, even when no such relationship exists.
▪ Research on the foot-in-the-door
6. Mood and Judgment - Moods infuse phenomenon reveals that committing a small act
judgments. Mood significantly influences how we makes people more willing to do a larger one
judge situations, make decisions, and interact later.
with others.
▪ Actions also affect our moral attitudes: That
Belief perseverance is the phenomenon in which which we have done, even if it is evil, we tend to
people cling to their initial beliefs and the reasons justify as right.
why a belief might be true, even when the basis
▪ Similarly, our racial and political behaviors
for the belief is discredited.
help shape our social consciousness: We not
How Do We Explain Our Social Worlds? only stand up for what we believe, we also
believe in what we have stood up for.
▪ Political and social movements may legislate whether biological or socially influenced, by which
behavior designed to lead to attitude change on a people define male and female.
mass scale.
- Women typically do more caring, express
Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? more empathy and emotion, and define
themselves more in terms of relationships.
▪ Self-Presentation Theory - psychological
- In every known culture on earth, men
concept that explores how individuals actively
tend to have more social power and are
manage their behavior, appearance, and
more likely than women to engage in
communications to create specific impressions in
physical aggression.
the minds of others.
- Men more often think about and initiate
▪ Cognitive Dissonance - describes the mental sex, whereas women’s sexuality tends to
discomfort or tension experienced when a person be inspired by emotional passion.
holds two or more contradictory beliefs, attitudes,
Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes
or values, or when their behavior conflicts with
Naturally?
their beliefs.
▪ Selective Exposure - refers to the tendency of ● Nature’ mating game favors males who
individuals to seek out information, media, and take sexual initiative toward females—
experiences that align with their preexisting especially those with physical feature
beliefs and attitudes while avoiding those that suggesting fertility—and who seek
contradict or challenge them. aggressive dominance in competing with
other males.
▪ Self-Perception Theory - we figure out our
beliefs and attitudes by looking at our own ● Although biology (for example, in the form
behavior. Instead of just thinking about how we of male and female hormones) plays an
feel, we observe what we do and infer what we important role in gender differences, social
believe from that. roles are also a major influence.
▪ Overjustification Effect - when giving someone Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture
rewards for doing something they already enjoy Says?
can make them like that activity less.
LESSON 5 ● The universal tendency has been for
males, more than females, to occupy
GENES, CULTURE, and GENDER
Socially dominant roles.
● Gender roles show significant variation
How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and
from culture to culture and from time to
Cultural Diversity?
time.
● Much of culture’s influence is transmitted
How are we humans alike, how do we differ—
and why? to children by their peers.

Evolutionary psychologists study how natural What Can We Conclude About Genes, Culture
selection favors behavioral traits that promote the and Gender?
perpetuation of one’s genes. Although part of
evolution’s legacy is our human capacity to learn ● Biological and cultural explanations need
and adapt (and therefore to differ from one not be contradictory. Indeed, they interact.
another), the evolutionary perspective highlights
● Emerging research in the field of
the kinship that results from our shared human
nature. epigenetics shows that genes are
- The differences in attitudes and behaviors from expressed in some Environments and not
one culture to another indicate the extent to which others.
we are the products of cultural norms and roles. ● The great truth about the power of social
How Are Males and Females Alike and influence is but half the truth if separated
Different? from its Complementary truth: the power
Gender - In psychology, the characteristics, of the person.
● Persons and situations interact in at least
three ways. First, individuals vary in how
they interpret and react to a given
situation. Second, people choose many of
the situations that influence them. Third
People help create their social situations.