Intro to Soc Psych

• Social Psychology


  The scientific study of how an individual's thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by other people
• Four Key Aspects of Social Psychology

  • Influenced by other people
  • Thoughts (cognition)
  • Feelings (affect)
  • Behavior
• Influenced by other people

  • As long as someone is being affected in any way by other people, including their imagined presence, the situation is relevant to social psychology
• Thoughts, feelings and behavior


  • Thoughts (cognition): How individuals process information about other people and how they store the information in their memory
  • Feelings (affect): How people form prejudice against other people and how they show affection for their friends and lovers
  • Behavior: To understand why various kinds of action towards other people occur or do not occur
• Individual's perspective


  • Take the perspective of individuals in a social setting, rather than focusing only on objective features of the situation
• Scientific Study


  • Rely on direct tests of their ideas; Scientific evidence is necessary before a proposal will be taken seriously
• Heman Melville: 'Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads'
• Social Psychology aims


  How much of our social world is just in our heads?
• Would you be cruel if ordered?
• To help, or to help oneself?
• Other People Affects us by

  • The Power of Situation: We are creatures of our culture and contexts
  • The Power of the Person: We are also creators of our social worlds
  • The Importance of Cognition: People react differently partly because they think differently
  • The Applicability of Social Psychological Principles: Applying their concepts and methods to current social concerns, such as emotional well-being, health, courtroom decision making quest for peace etc.
• The Power of Situation: Evil situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to follow falsehoods or comply with cruelty
• The Power of the Person: If a group is evil, its members contribute to (or resist) its being so. Facing the same situation, different people may react differently
• The Importance of Cognition: Social reality is something we construct subjectively; our beliefs about ourselves also matter
• Plato


  Father of Western Philosophy
• According to Plato, People experience the world in 3 distinct ways

  • Thoughts
  • Emotions
  • Action
• Aristotle stated that he connection with others forms an essential part of who we are
• Social Contract


  The idea that to survive and prosper, human groups have to develop some basic rules of social moral conduct
• The field of Psychology separated from Philosophy and became a discipline


  Middle 19th Century
• Norman Triplett (1898)


  Conducted the first empirical study that could be classified as social psychology in nature
• William McDougal & Edward Ross (1908)


  Published the first two textbooks in Social Psychology
• Two critical events occurred that had an impact in development of Social Psychology: Great Depression in the United States (US) and World War II


  1930's to 1940's
• Kurt Lewin


  Father of Modern Social Psychology
• Social Psychology flourished


  1950's to 1960's
• Social Psychology reached scientific maturity


  1970's
• 1970's to present: recognition of gender and racial bias; culture specificity
• 4 Different Perspectives of Social Psychology

  • Socio-Cultural Perspective
  • Evolutionary Perspective
  • Social Learning Perspective
  • Social Cognitive Perspective
• Socio-Cultural Perspective


  Social behaviors reside in the social group that we find ourselves going along "social currents"
• Crazes


  Phenomena where a large group of people collectively exhibits intense enthusiasm, ideas or behavior
• Social Norms


  Rules about appropriate behavior
• Culture


  Set of beliefs, customs, habits, language shared by people living in a particular time and place
• Evolutionary Perspective


  Human social behaviors are rooted in physical and psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce
• Natural Selection


  Characters that help animals survive are passed on to their offspring
• Social Learning Perspective


  Social behavior is driven by each individual's past learning experiences with reward and punishment
• Social Cognitive Perspective


  Social Behavior is driven by each person's subjective interpretations of events in the social world
• Emphasizes the role of problem solving, decision making, understanding how social influence shapes individual behavior and attitude
• Kurt Lewin


  A person's interpretation of a situation is related to his goal at that time
• Interaction between inner experience and the outside world