Week 2: Intro to Social Psychology Memory gems from Week 1: Goals of psychology Theory Research Ethics Schools of psychology Current Perspectives – biological, evolutionary. Sociocultural Areas of specialization

Intro to Social Psychology – today we will look at… What Is Social Psychology? The Power of Social Influence Where Construal Comes From: Basic Human Motives Social Psychology and Social Problems

What Is Social Psychology? Social Psychology is defined as the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people. Social psychologists are interested in studying how and why our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are shaped by our social environment.

The Power of Social Interpretation Other disciplines (e.g. anthropology, sociology) are also interested in how people are influenced by their social environment. Social psychology is different, however, because it is concerned more with how people are influenced by their interpretation, or construal, of their social environment.

Construal is the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world. Social psychology is an experimentally based science that tests its assumptions, guesses, and ideas about human social behaviour empirically and systematically (i.e. the scientific method). Social influence is an integral part of social psychology.

Some Alternative Ways of Understanding Social Influence Social psychology is not: Folk Wisdom or common sense. Sociology or personality psychology (see Table 1.1 in your text). Social psychology is: Located somewhere between the two disciplines, sociology and personality psychology.

Compared to Sociology Social psychology & sociology… share an interest in situational and societal influences on behaviour. differ in that social psychology focuses more on the psychological makeup of individuals that makes them susceptible to social influence.

Compared to Personality Psychology Social psychology & personality psychology… share an emphasis on individuals and the reasons they do what they do. differ because social psychologists emphasize the psychological processes shared by most people that make them susceptible to social influence. Personality psychologists focus on individual differences, or the aspects of people’s personalities that make them different from others.

The Power of Social Influence Underestimating the Power of Social Influence Many people find it hard to believe that their behaviour is greatly influenced by their social environment. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to explain people’s behaviour in terms of personality traits rather than in terms of their social environment.

The Power of Social Influence Underestimating the Power of Social Influence The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person’s behaviour is due to internal, dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors.

The Power of Social Influence Underestimating the Power of Social Influence When we underestimate the power of social influence and overestimate the importance of personalities in our behaviour, we experience a false sense of security. This allows us to feel that many negative events would never happen to us. The power of the social situation is demonstrated in a study by Ross and Samuels (1993) (see Fig. 1.1 of your text).

The Power of Social Influence The Subjectivity of the Social Situation Behaviourism, a school of psychology, defines social situations in terms of the reinforcing properties of the environment. That is, how positive and negative events in the environment influence specific behaviours (see Skinner, 1938).

Classical Conditioning in Everyday Life Module 5.1 Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning in Everyday Life Taste aversion Fears and phobias Drug use and tolerance Classical conditioning in commercials

Operant Conditioning B. F. Skinner Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Operant Conditioning B. F. Skinner A form of learning in which the consequences of behaviour are manipulated in order to increase or decrease the frequency of a response or to shape an entirely new response.

Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Reinforcer Anything that follows a response that increases the likelihood that the response will occur again.

Types of Reinforcement Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Types of Reinforcement Positive reinforcement refers to any pleasant or desirable consequence that, if applied after a response, increases the probability of that response occurring again. Negative reinforcement refers to a behaviour that is likely to occur again because it was followed by the termination of an aversive condition.

Types of Reinforcement (cont.) Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Types of Reinforcement (cont.) Primary reinforcers are those that fulfill a basic physical need for survival and do not depend on learning, i.e., food, water, sleep. Secondary reinforcers are acquired or learned by association with other reinforcers, i.e., money, grades, tokens.

Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Punishment Punishment is anything that follows a response, that decreases the probability that the response will occur again.

Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Avoidance Learning Avoidance learning involves engaging in behaviours to avoid an aversive consequence, e.g., coming to the dinner table when mother’s voice reaches just the right pitch.

Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Learned Helplessness Learned Helplessness is a passive resignation to aversive conditions learned by repeated exposure to aversive events that are perceived inescapable and unavoidable. The learner does not try to change, escape, or avoid the aversive conditions.

Applications of Operant Conditioning Module 5.2 Operant Conditioning Applications of Operant Conditioning Behaviour Modification: changing behaviour through a systematic program based on the principles of learning. While all principles of learning may be applied, most use the principles of operant conditioning. Token Economy: a program that motivates socially desirable behaviour by reinforcing it with tokens.

The Power of Social Influence The Subjectivity of the Social Situation Behaviourism has proved inadequate for a complete understanding of the social world, because it does not deal with cognition, thinking, and feeling. It is important to look at a situation from the viewpoint of the people in it, to see how they construe the world around them.

The Power of Social Influence The Subjectivity of the Social Situation The emphasis on construal has its roots in a school of psychology called Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology stresses the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds, rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object (see Kurt Lewin, 1930s).

Perceptual Constancies Module 3.7 Perception: Ways of Perceiving Perceptual Constancies Size Constancy Shape Constancy Brightness Constancy

Where Construals Come From Our construals of the world come from two primary motives: the need to be accurate about ourselves and our social world (social cognition) the need to feel good about ourselves (maintain our self-esteem)

The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need To Feel Good About Ourselves Where Construals Come From The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need To Feel Good About Ourselves Self-esteem refers to people’s evaluations of their own self-worth—the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent. Most people have a strong need to maintain high self-esteem.

The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need To Feel Good about Ourselves Where Construals Come From The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need To Feel Good about Ourselves Even under conditions of severe suffering people attempt to maintain their self-esteem by evaluating the group responsible for the suffering in very positive terms (see examples of hazing and the Canadian female military pilot).

Where Construals Come From The Social Cognition Approach: The Need To Be Accurate Social Cognition refers to how people think about themselves and their social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember and use social information.

Where Construals Come From The Social Cognition Approach: The Need To Be Accurate The cognitive approach to social psychology, in formulating theories of social behaviour, takes into account the fact that compared with other animals, humans have a phenomenal cognitive ability. Interpreting the social world is not always easy. Our expectations can change the nature of the social world (see Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968 self-fulfilling prophecy).

Where Construals Come From Other Motives: Ensuring our Survival Basic biological drives (e.g. sex, hunger & thirst), and psychological drives (e.g. fear, love, favours, & rewards) relate to our survival and significantly influence our thoughts and behaviours. Our thoughts and attitudes are influenced also by our genes.

Where Construals Come From Other Motives: Ensuring our Survival Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain social behaviour in terms of genetic factors that evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection. The need for survival is a central tenet of evolutionary psychology.

Social Psychology and Social Problems Solving Social Problems Social psychologists are often motivated to study human behaviour out of curiosity. But they also study social behaviour because of a desire to help resolve social problems, such as: The health risks associated with smoking AIDS education and prevention The effects of mass media on attitudes Violence, prejudice, etc.