Social Psychology: Definitions, Theories, and Research Methods

Social Psychology Overview

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

INTRO:

Definitions of Social Psychology

UNIT1

Social Psychology: "The scientific investigation of how the real, imagined or implicit presence of others influences the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals." (Allport, 1954. p.5) Social Psychology: Studies how people act, think, and feel in the context of society. That is, how people's behaviors, thoughts, and feelings change because of other people. Social Psychology: 'The scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations In addition to observable behaviors, social psychologists study aspects related to feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions and goals that can be inferred through behavior. The aim is to relate people's social behavior with basic psychological processes.

Principal Areas of Study in Social Psychology

Principal areas of study in social psychology: conformity, obedience, persuasion, power, influence, prejudice, discrimination, stereotypes, negotiation, sexism, racism, social categories, intergroup relations, mass behaviors, conflict, social change, decision-making, leadership, communication, attitudes, impression formation, identity, culture, emotion, attraction, friendship, family, love, violence, aggression, prosocial behaviors, altruism, environmental conditions ....

Factors Affecting Social Interaction

The factors that affect social interaction can be encompassed in:

• The actions or characteristics of others
• Cognitive processes (e.g., memory, reasoning, thoughts ... )
• Ecological variables (e.g. physical environment - temperature, noise, presence of others, ... )
• Cultural context
• Biological factors (e.g. genetic inheritance, ... )

Psychology as a Science

Psychology a science? Scientific method: Empirical contrast of hypotheses. Fundaments:

• Replicability (To be able to be repeated by other researchers, in other places, in other moments ... )
• Falseability (If the results are not as expected, the hypotheses would be denied)

Experimental method: Deliberate manipulation of independent variables to investigate their effects on one or more dependent variables. Non-experimental methods: Case study, observation, surveys ... Non-scientific methods: Dogmatism, common sense ...

Cognitive Psychology and its Influence

Cognitive Psychology: These theories explain behavior by the way people actively interpret and represent their experiences and then move on to action. Its origins lie in the psychology of the Gestalt of Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler.In Social Psychology this has Influenced theories such as

• Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Leo Festinger, 1957) - a state of psychological tension caused by inconsistencies between our attitudes, beliefs, opinions and behaviors.
• Attribution Theories (Miles Howestone, 1989) - how people explain their own behavior and that of others
• Theories of Social Categorization (Henri Tajfel and John Turner, 1979) - classification of people as members of different social groups and the processes of discrimination and favoritism that occur.
• Theories of Social Representations (Serge Moscovici, 1981) - collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena. For example, the social representation of Europe -
• Theories about Influence Processes (Susan Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor, 1991 ) -the real or implicit presence of other people influences our attitudes and/or conducts -.

Other Developments in Social Psychology

Other developments

• Neuroscience and biochemistry: Based on the study of the neurological bases of social processes. For example, to detect and locate the brain activity associated with social thought or behavior from the FMR (Functional Magnetic Resonance) or from biochemical markers.
• Evolutionary Social Psychology: Based on Darwin's theory of Evolution, it considers that social behavior is an adaptive behavior that helps the individual, his family and the species as a whole to survive. This approach is especially important in: - Leadership -Aggression -Interpersonal Attraction -Prosocial Behavior
• Collectivist theories: People behave, not because of their personality or individual predispositions but because internally it represents social norms (McDougall Group Mind Theory -1920-).
• Theory of Social Identity -TSI- (Henri Tajfel, 1970 ) The conception of ourselves is based on our belonging to social groups.

Social Cognition

UNIT 2

What is Social cognition? Knowledge about the process and contents of social phenomena mediated by the individual, his social environment and interaction between the two.

• Social context
• Previous knowledge

Cognitive Structures of Social Information

Cognitive structures of social information Everyday life = managing an infinite amount of information. Diff mentals structures allow us to be more efficient when managing them.

• Sometimes eros are produced= way too much information to manage
• Diff cognitive structures:-schemas -Categories -Prototypes -exemplars

Schemas Definition

Schemas definition:

• General patterns in development used at the service of the present to help us to act in our environment.
• Cognitive structure that represent and organized knowledge about given concept or type of stimulus
• It allows u to quickly know a person, a situation, an event, or a place based on limited information
• Certain stimuli or situation activate a schema.the schema 'fills in' the missing details
• The schemes would be simplified and holistic representation of the social world that act as relatively durable molds for stimulus interpretation and action planning.

Types of Schemas

Types of schemas

• People: structure of individualized knowledge about specific people(parents, partners .. )
• Role: structure of knowledge about the people who fulfill a specific role(doctors, presidents .. )
• Stereotype: structure of knowledge about people who belong to certain categories or social groups. (national stereotypes .. )
• Scrips: refers to actions or specific sequences of events (knowing the steps you have to follow)
• Content free: types of schemas o now have information about specific categories but rather limited number of rules for processing the information (when we don't have enough information and cause to someone's behavior. assumptions)
• Self: structure of the knowledge that people have about themselves. Information sorted is richer than the information you have about others. (self concepts of ourselves, identity)

Changing Schemas

Changing schemas:

1. Bookkeeping: slow change in the face of accumulating evidence
2. Conversion: sudden and massive change once a critical mass of disconfirming evidence has accumulated
3. Subtyping: schemas morph into a subcategory to accommodate disconfirming evidence.

Social Categories and Categorization

Social categories A group of people who have similarities of common attributes-

• Category differ from each other to different degrees, they can be fuzzy and sts focused on a specific stereotype
• The relation between categories is hierarchical. That is, there are less general categories within more inclusive categories.

Categorization: to include the person we perceive within a category- Principle of accentuation: categorization emphasizes perceived similarities withing the group and difference with other groups in the dimension that people consider essential in categorizing.

• Theory of categorization: categories oneself as a member of a group generates social identity and group and interngroups behaviors.
• Social identity theory: theory of group memberships and inter-group relations based on self-categories, social competition and construction of a shared self-definition in terms of ingroup-deninfing properties

Prototype and Exemplar

Prototype: an abstract set of characteristics commonly associated with members of a category. Describe the typical/ideal member of a category, the pattern from which we compare the people we meet to determine whether or not they fit the category.

• Constructed from particular cases without any of them fitting exactly to the prototype formed.
• Prototypes are cognitive representation of categories.

Exemplar: specific people are used as standards instead of prototypes.

• As people become familiar with a category they change from prototypical to exemplary representation.

Biases in Forming Impressions

Biases in forming impressions The order in which the information is presented affects the subsequent impression:

• Primacy: the information presented first has a greater influence on social cognition.
• Recency: the information presented last has a greater influence on social cognition.

Valence of information: if the information has a positive or negative character, it has different effects:

• Positive information: In absence of information, people tend to assume the best of others and form a positive impression
• Negative information: If negative information appears, it tends to attract our attention and acquires more significant importance in the impression. Also, negative impressions are much more difficult to change than positive impressions. It usually happens because: - Unusual and distinctive information attracts attention. - Negative information poses a potential hazard (survival)

Social Encoding

Social encoding : The way in which external social stimuli are represented in the mind of the individual.

• Salience: Property of a stimulus that makes it stand out in relation to other stimuli and attract attention. They are novel (something you wouldn't expect) or Figural (things that stand out) They are important or you have been told to pay attention to it
• Accessibility: The ease with which we can recover a construct (Bruner, 1957).
• Priming: Activation of accessible schemes that influence the way new information is processed. They are schemes that we use, we have used recently.

Social Inference and Deviations

Social inference: core of social cognition Processes we use to identify, sample and combine information to form impressions and make judgements. There are two distinct ways in which we process social information:

• Top-down: we can rely automatically on general schemas or stereotypes in a deductive fashion. Automatic model.
• Bottom-up: we can deliberately rely on specific instances in an inductive fashion. Custom model.

Deviations from normality. The use of inferences causes a series of deviations from the interpretation of reality. This type of deviations can be grouped into:

• Data collection
• Law of small numbers
• Regression
• Base-rate information
• Illusory correlation

Data collection: When collecting data for making inferences, we tend to rely too much on schemas, which can cause us to overlook information. Law of small numbers: Explains how people can also be overly influenced by extreme examples and small samples regression: A tendency for initial observations of examples in a category to be more extreme than subsequent observations. Base-rate information:usually statistical information about any event. This information, although relevant, is sometimes replaced by anecdotal information. Illusory correlation :- Expectancy: preconceived notion= find a relationship even though they're not - Distinctiveness: believe a relationship do to focusing too much on information that stands out

Attribution Theory

UNIT 3

What is attribution?

• People need to understand their environment to feel comfortable. Ignorance of the causes of things causes discomfort.
• Explaining other people's behavior helps us to predict (to a greater or lesser extent) their behavior in different situations and to be able to decide how to act with this information. GIVES US A SENSE OF CONTROL
• The theories that explain the causes of people's behavior are called Attribution Theories, being the most important:

Heider's Theory of Naive Psychology

Heider's (1958) theory of naive psychology Importance of Common Sense (Naive or Intuitive Psychology).