Ch.

1: Introducing Social Psychology

● construal : how people perceive, interpret, comprehend social world
● People’s construals fueled by need to be accurate and need to feel good about
ourselves
● The goal of social psychology is to identify psychological properties that make almost
everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture
● Naive realism - underestimating how subjectively we see the world compared to
objectively

Ch. 2: Methodology
● Observational: ethnography, archival analysis
● Psychological realism - extent to which psychological process in experiment is similar to
real life
● Basic dilemma of the social psychologist - tradeoff between internal and external validity
● New frontiers of research: cross-cultural, social neuroscience, online studies, IAT

Ch. 3: Social Cognition

● Analytical thinking style - focusing on main objects, Western cultures
● Holistic thinking style - looking at context, Eastern cultures
● Counterfactual thinking - mentally changing the past and imagining a different outcome
● Covariation model - when someone behaves a certain way, you evaluate how they’ve
responded to similar situations in the past: uses consensus (how others react to same
stimulus), distinctiveness (how they react to other stimulus), consistency (if response to
stimulus is consistent across time and circumstance)
● Perceptual salience influences how we view people

8/27
● Social psych is the study of how individuals come to think about, connect with, and
influence others
○ Emphasis on social cognition, social influence, social relations
○ Person x situation interaction, Kurt Lewin
● Illusory superiority (the above average effect), bias blind spot (others more prone to
bias), below average effect (I’m worse than others at things that are hard), hindsight bias
● Power of social construal study: observers rated caller and callee as more warm and
friendly when picture of callee was an attractive vs. unattractive woman
● Wisdom of proverbs study

9/3
● Credibility of studies: replication, diverse samples, controls for biases and confounds
● Aims of psych research
○ Causes (cause/effect direction)
○ Components (underlying reasons/processes)
○ Contingencies (qualifying results, when or for whom is the connection strongest)
● Measures: observations, self-reports, lab assessments
 ● Assessing methods: external validity (generalizability) and internal validity (experimental
design), pragmatics (logistics), significance, ethics

9/8
● Facebook study
○ people who received negative feedback spent more time on facebook compared
to other websites
○ Emotional contagion study
● Attribution theory
○ Discounting (decreasing weight of one attribution) and augmenting (increasing
weight of one attribution)
○ Fundamental attribution error: just world, lack of motivation to consider less
salient influences
● Schemas - mental representations, generalizations, categorizations, theories about our
environment, can vary based on individual experiences

9/10
● Illusory correlation - seeing a correlation that isn’t there
● Schemas as self-fulfilling prophecies
● Planning fallacy - consistently overoptimistic when planning, failing to remember past
behavior
● Affective forecasting (predicting how you will feel about an event)
○ Undermined by immune neglect (underestimating how well you adapt), focalism
(underestimate impact of other events)
● Controlled and automatic information processing - social psych focuses on triggers and
consequences of automatic cognition

9/15
● Priming - have automatic consequences for how we think/feel/behave
○ Subliminal priming: present primer without conscious awareness
○ Supraliminal priming: present primer consciously but disguised as task
○ Types of primes: semantic, motivational, affective, metaphoric, embodied
(physical)
● Habit formation: aided by routine, specific time, places, tracking progress, keeping it
enjoyable and feasible
● Chameleon effect - people tend to automatically mimic others, especially people high in
perspective taking
● Difficult to regulate social cognition: stroop effect, ironic monitoring (don't think of ___)
● Self concept differs in complexity, content, and configuration
● Sense of self/multitudes develop from rumination, being told

Ch. 5: The Self

● Self-awareness theory - evaluating ourselves objectively by comparing behavior to
internal standards/values
 ● Self-perception theory - evaluating ourselves by observing our own behaviors, but only
when we’re unsure how we feel
● Intrinsic, extrinsic motivation, overjustification effect
● Performance-contingent reward may increase interest as opposed to task-contingent
rewards, which may decrease interest, be careful not to put extra pressure by using
performance-contingent reward
● Social comparison theory
● Social tuning - adopting other people’s attitudes
● Implementation intentions - “if-then”, specific plans about avoiding temptations to fulfill
long-term goals
● Impression management - trying to manage other people’s impressions of you
● Ingratiation - using flattery to make oneself more likable
● Self-handicapping - making external excuses for failures in order to preserve image and
self-esteem, reported vs. behavioral

9/17
● Cocktail party effect, self-reference effect - self-relevant info is paid more attention to,
processed and remembered more thoroughly
● Motivated to see ourselves accurately but also in good light
● Self-presentation has cognitive, social and motivational function
● High self-monitor - focuses on being the right person for a situation
● Low self-monitor - focuses on being consistent across situations

Self Regulation Reading

● Three component processes
○ Goal selection
■ expectancy-value framework - expectancy of achieving x value of
achieving/ not achieving
○ Preparation for action - implementation plan
○ Cybernetic cycle of behavior
■ TOTE: test, operate, test, exit
● Shielding intention - putting irrelevant tasks out of your mind
● High private self-consciousness - spending a lot of time examining own thoughts/feelings
● Defensive pessimism - over exaggerating chances of failure to motivate them to be more
prepared
● Performance oriented vs. mastering (learning) oriented
● Extrinsic motivation stifles creativity

Ch. 6: Self-Esteem
● Post-decision dissonance, irrevocability hypothesis
● Lowballing - creating the illusion of irrevocability to get someone to commit
● Justification of effort
● External justification vs. internal justification (requires counterattitudinal behavior -
changing belief to match behavior)
 ● The Ben Franklin effect - liking someone more after you do a favor for them
● Insufficient punishment
● Self-evaluation maintenance theory - dissonance when a close friend outperforms you in
an area that is important to you

9/22: Self-assessment
● Social nature: others serve as comparison points, points of connection, “reflected” glory
● Sociometer theory - self esteem reflects sense of belonging
● Local ladder effect - comparing yourself to people around you/ most accessible to you
● Counterfactual reasoning - thinking about how you could’ve done things differently
(bronze/silver model study)
● Spotlight effect
● Facebook study: high/low self esteem spend same time on facebook but low self esteem
posts more negatively for less social reward
● Interpretations of negative feedback: people who interpret negative feedback personally
(my fault), pervasively (I’m bad at everything), and permanently (I’m never going to get
better) are more likely to be depressed
● Self-compassion - self-kindness, common humanity, mindful acceptance

9/24: self-regulation
● Motivation - what are we trying to become
● Volition - how are we working towards new self
● (Goal → pursuit → assessment → feedback) loop
● Behavior = expectation x value
● 5 fundamental needs (BUCET): belonging, understanding, control, enhancement, trust
● Self discrepancy theory - want to achieve ideal and ought self
● Overjustification (crowding out intrinsic motivation) vs. insufficient justification

9/29
● Process visualizations better than outcome visualizations
● Volitional challenges involve planning and executing
● Implementation intention - specifying when, where, how can be helpful
○ Unless plans too rigid, not enjoyable, not reasonable
● Ego depletion (depletion of self control) - radish study
● Optimal amount of choice: not too much or too little (no choice, 6 choice, 10 choice)
● Marshmallow study
● Planning for distraction
● Importance of self-efficacy and pygmalion effect, weight of expectations
● Ability vs. effort attributions - effort attributions are better
● Grit - perseverance of effort and consistency of interest over time
○ Costs: sunk cost, rumination, psychological stress
○ difficulty disengaging: future plan to return and suitable replacement help us
disengage, parents of child with cancer study
Ch. 7: Attitudes and Attitude Change
● Cognitively based, affectively based, behaviorally based attitudes
● Implicit attitudes rooted more in childhood, explicit attitudes rooted more in adulthood
● Attitudes predict spontaneous behavior only when accessible
● Theory of planned behavior
○ Specific attitudes
○ Subjective norms - view of how others will perceive certain behavior
○ Perceived behavioral control - how easy or difficult the behavior will be
● Yale attitude change approach
○ Source of communication
○ Nature of communication
○ Nature of audience
● Elaboration likelihood model - theory for when people will be persuaded by what
○ Central route if personally relevant and attention/energy level is good
○ Peripheral route
■ fear-based communication - fear factor and information on how to reduce
fear
■ Heuristic-systematic model of persuasion - if we feel good we must have
positive attitude toward something
■ Subliminal messages - not much evidence that they elicit behavioral
change when encountered in everyday life, but sometimes have effect in
laboratory
● Attitude inoculation - thinking about potential arguments against your attitude
● Reactance theory - like reverse psychology, due to personal freedom being threatened

10/1
1. Functions of attitudes
○ Instrumental: bring reward, avoid punishment
○ Ego-defense: protect sense of self
○ Expression of values
○ Knowledge function: understand reality
2. attitude/behavior link constrained by salience, situational pressure, degree of attitude
○ Chinese couple study
3. Theory of planned behavior - behavior predicted by attitude, subjective norms, perceived
behavioral control (believed ability to perform and/or affect outcome)
4. Multiattribute model of attitude measurement - sum(belief*weight)
5. Implicit attitudes measured with reaction times (RTs) - avoids social desirability but
challenging to measure and interpret
6. Reactance - responding strongly to threats to personal freedom
7. Attitude inoculation - immunizing people to attempts to change attitude by exposing them
to counterarguments
○ Smoking study
8. Who said what to whom
○ Who - liking and credibility
 ○ What - appropriateness/relevance and presentation, audio vs. written, emotion,
accessibility
○ Audience - initial attitude, relevance to audience, capacity to understand,
snacking or not snacking
9. Elaboration likelihood model - central vs. peripheral route persuasion, importance of
arguments vs. cues

Ch. 8: Conformity and Obedience

● Private acceptance vs. public compliance
● When people conform to informational social influence
○ Ambiguous situation
○ Crisis
○ Other people are experts
● Normative social influence
● Social impact theory: group’s influence depends on
○ Strength of importance
○ Immediacy
○ Number
● Idiosyncrasy credits - conforming earns you credits to not conform later on
● Minority influence: minority consistently expresses same view over and over to influence
majority
● Injunctive norms - should do, descriptive norms - actually do
● Boomerang effect - underperforming and over performing individuals will both conform to
be closer to the descriptive norm

10/8: social influence

● Responding to others, conforming to others, authority of others
● Mere presence effect: cyclists, cockroaches, easy vs. hard tasks, generalized
drive/arousal hypothesis
● Social loafing/ Ringelmann effect, chameleon effect
● Normative conformity: asch line study and candid camera elevator
● Informational conformity: looking up study and autokinetic (light) study
● Social impact theory - people conform normatively based on group size, group
importance, group immediacy
● Illusion of independence (bias blind spot)
● Injunctive vs. descriptive norms
● Normative focus theory: one piece of litter study, how salient desc. norm is matters
● Kelman’s typology: compliance (law), identification (close others), internalization

10/13
● Basis of social power - reward/punishment, legitimate authority, expertise/info
● Costs of resistance - group will try to bring you back, if it fails they will distance
● Conforming for cognitive closure, low self-esteem, authoritarian personality
● Resisting authority - awareness of allies, source of pressure, motivation, social standing
Chapter 9: Group Processes
● Social facilitation - cockroach study
○ Arousal caused by evaluation apprehension
● Deindividuation - makes people conform to group dorms, decreases accountability
● Process loss
○ Failing to share unique info
■ Transactive memory - some people are responsible for some memories,
combined memory is more effective
○ Groupthink - conformity when making decisions
○ Group polarization - making more extreme decisions than initial inclinations
● Leadership
○ Great person theory - key traits make a person a good leader in all situations,
does not seem to be true
○ Transactional leaders - short term, transformational leaders - long term
○ Contingency theory of leadership - effectiveness of leadership depends on
leader, followers, and situation
■ Task-oriented vs. relationship-oriented leaders
● Social dilemma: if every individual is selfish, everyone in group will suffer, ex. prisoner’s
dilemma
● Threats are not an effective way to resolve conflict:
○ Acme trucking study: Possibility of threat did not increase performance
regardless of communication

Lecture 10/20
● Group: two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their
needs and goals may cause them to influence each other
● Entitativity: feeling like coherent whole, influenced by similarity, common fate, proximity,
goodness of form, resistance to intrusion (isolation), impacts how members in and out of
the group perceive the group
● Degree and types of groups
○ Non-groups (strangers in park)
○ Groupings (people in line) - dependence and influence
○ Groups (teams) - dependence, influence, shared identity, structured relations
● Individuals brainstorm better alone than in groups, despite beliefs to contrary
○ Explanations for productivity loss: evaluation apprehension, social loafing,
production blocking
● Process loss, group polarization
● Social dilemmas
○ Commons - how much do I take, public goods - how much do I give
○ Nuts game - 65% of groups initially fail to leave any nuts for first replenishment
● What influences cooperation: communication, social norms, reward/punishment
● groupthink - A poor group decision resulting from a flawed process and strong conformity
pressures
 ○ High threat produces better solutions will low cohesiveness, worse solutions with
high cohesiveness
● Wise crowds: diversity and independence of thought, specialization of thought

10/22
● Characteristics of leaders: charisma, intellectual stimulation, inspiration, personal
connection
● Expectation states theory of leadership - Status is based on the value of the member for
reaching the group’s goals.
● Fundamental leadership styles
○ Authoritarian (Autocratic) - leads to more productivity when present, less when
absent
○ Participative (Democratic) - leader values group input
○ Directive - hands-on
○ Delegative - hands-off
● Transactional leaders - Leaders who offer clear short-term reward/punishment

10/27 and 10/29

● Group bias/ prejudice - negative attitude about group
● Group stereotype - generalized belief about group
● Causes - upbringing, media, limited experience, shortcuts and automaticity
● Perceptual accentuation - line study
● Even in minimal group paradigm, people favor own group
● Ingroup bias and outgroup homogeneity
● Vivid examples and overestimation
● Illusory correlation, we overestimate group differences

Chapter 13: Prejudice

● Revealing implicit biases: bogus pipeline, implicit association task (IAT), activation
● Social identity threat - threat when others evaluate you as part of a group rather than as
an individual, based on salience
● Contact effect and extended contact effect
● Interdependence - working together to achieve a common goal
● Jigsaw classroom created to promote racial integration, creates interdependence

Lecture 11/3
● Biased perceptions: race and violence/aggression
● Weapons bias
● Stereotyping behavior can rebound after suppression
● Discontinuity effect - greater competitiveness between different, interacting groups
relative to competitiveness displayed among individuals
● Competitive spiral - expect hostility/competition → act in ways that attract competition
● More likely to be prejudiced when self-esteem is low or when angry
● Stereotypes conserve cognitive resources
 ● Possible stereotype effects: arousal/stress, lowered expectations
● Why are stereotypes difficult to eliminate: rooted in childhood, unconscious, ingrained in
media
● What can help eliminate biases: awareness, positive interactions, cooperation, contact
hypothesis/ extended-contact hypothesis under common goal, equal status
● Framing, priming

Lecture 11/5
● Classic Frustration-Aggression Theory: frustration/ blocked goal → instigation vs.
withdrawal → outward vs. inward aggression → direct vs. displaced
● Revised Frustration-Aggression Theory: frustration → anger + aggression cues →
aggression
● Weapons cue, black clothing cue
● Broken windows theory: maintaining urban environments in a well-ordered condition may
stop further vandalism, graffiti (norms)
● Social Learning Theory of Aggression - Bandura, children learn aggressive behavior
through observation, ex. Childhood media violence
○ Ingredients: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation
● Media violence more influential when - aggressor is attractive, justified, realistic, not
shown to have consequences, negative family environment interaction

Chapter 11: Prosocial Behavior

● Social exchange theory, kin selection, group selection (as opposed to classical natural
change)
● empathy-altruism hypothesis: “Carol study”
● Altruistic personality
● Religion makes people more altruistic towards people of the same religion
● Urban overload hypothesis - people living in cities are constantly bombarded with
stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed
● Bystander effect
○ Noticing event, interpret situation as emergency, assume responsibility, know
appropriate form of assistance, implement decision
● Increasing altruism: increasing volunteerism, prosocial video games (media influence),
awareness of barriers

Lecture 11/10
● What contributes to prosocial behavior
○ Religion, reciprocity norm, fairness, kin protection, similarity, positive mood
● Egoistic helping - to ultimately increase own welfare, altruistic helping - helping out of
empathy
● Batson’s empathy-altruism model - perceiving distress → feeling distress or empathy →
egoistic vs. altruistic helping → helping to relieve own distress vs. helping because you
feel their distress
● Challenges of helping: lack of time, not realizing need, not knowing how to help
 ○ bystander effect: pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility
● Increasing helping behavior: personal appeals, personal responsibility (someone they
would meet later), personal shame, role models, empathy training, reduce ambiguity and
restraints

Chapter 12: Aggression

● aggression - intentional behavior aimed at causing either physical or psychological pain
● Hostile aggression - stems from feelings of anger
● Instrumental aggression - aggression as intermediary step towards non-aggressive goal
● Challenge hypothesis - testosterone is responsible for aggression
○ Dual-hormone hypothesis - testosterone and cortisol interact, lead to aggression
when testosterone is high but cortisol is low
● culture of honor - even small disputes put a man’s reputation for toughness on the line,
requiring him to respond aggressively to restore his status
● Relational aggression - bullying, manipulation, usually more covert
● Bobo doll study
● frustration-aggression theory - people’s perception that they are being prevented from
attaining a goal will increase the probability of an aggressive response
● Weapons effect - increase in aggression from mere presence of weapon
● Sexual script
● Why media increases aggressive tendencies in some people
○ Norms, observational learning, misattribution, habituation, self-fulfilling prophecy
● Death penalty generally unrelated to homocide rates

Chapter 10: Attraction and Relationships

● What predicts attraction
○ Proximity (propinquity) effect, mere exposure effect
○ Similarity: opinions, personality, interests, experiences, appearance, genetics
○ Reciprocal liking
○ Physical attractiveness
● Halo effect - assumption that if a person has one good trait, they have many good traits
● Side that does the approaching is less picky, feel more in control
● Sternberg’s triangular theory of love: intimacy, passion, commitment
● Social exchange theory - rewards vs. costs, + beliefs about what they deserve
(comparison level) and probability of finding a better relationship with someone else
(comparison level for alternatives)
● Investment model
● Equity theory
○ Exchange vs. communal relationships

11/12
● Attraction by association, attraction in context (bridge study)
● Two-stage model of attraction - filter out those too dissimilar, then select for those who
are similar
 ● Good to be similarly attractive
● What is beautiful is good effect
● Beauty: symmetry, averageness
● Women want someone agreeable and dominant, prefer masculinity when ovulating,
femininity when not ovulating
● Status influenced attractiveness ratings for women rating men, did not for men rating
women
● Normative information impacts attractiveness rating for women more than men

11/17
● Exchange vs. communal relationship
● Power decreases perspective taking
● Triangular model of love:
○ Passion - Emotional state of high bodily arousal
○ Intimacy - A feeling of closeness & mutual understanding. Mutual concern for
each other’s welfare and happiness
○ Commitment - A conscious decision that remains constant
● Marriage shift - As relationship progresses, so does your desire for your partner to see
you as you actually are ( not simply in the most favorable light)
● The Michelangelo Effect - close partners can “sculpt” each other in ways that help each
of them attain valued goals/ ideal self
● Equity theory
● What causes relationships to end
○ Inequity
○ Jealousy
○ Social allergies - hypersensitive reactions of annoyance or disgust to a repeated
behavior of a partner, increase over time
○ Contempt
○ Boredom
● Maintaining relationships:
○ Expect change and react constructively to conflicts
○ Don’t undermine your partner: Interact in positive ways, don’t make your partner
jealous. Focus on each other and not on other potential mates
○ Be partners in success. React well to positive events
○ Work to keep having fun
● Relationship commitment depends on... SATISFACTION in terms of rewards, costs, and
comparisons, ALTERNATIVES that compare favorably, INVESTMENT in the relationship
that would be lost by ending it
● Process of breaking up:
○ Interpersonal Phase - Evaluate/criticize partner’s behavior
○ Dyadic Phase - Discuss/negotiate “the relationship”
○ Social Phase - Negotiate breakup w/partner; present breakup to others
○ Interpersonal Phase - “get over it”; analyze what went wrong
● Loneliness cycle
Chapter 15: Health
● Importance of perceived control
● Flight or flight vs. tend and befriend response (seeking social support)
● Social support - perceiving that others are responsive and receptive to one’s needs
○ Visible vs. invisible support
● Reframing through writing helps give traumatic events meaning

11/19
● Resilience based on: How individuals evaluate/appraise events, Their sense of control
over them, Their capacity to avoid them, The support they have in dealing with them,
(evaluation, attribution, sense of support)
● negative mood who failed set a minimal standard far above their expectations
● The Challenge of Happiness - Knowing what makes us happy, what will make us happy,
Knowing others’ happiness (and struggle), Knowing how to regain happiness,
Understanding the limits of happiness and benefits of unhappiness
● Extraversion most correlated with happiness
● Hedonic treadmill (adaptation), immune neglect, affective forecasts
● Being grateful leads to higher patience, may not undermine motivation or lessen desire
for more

12/1
● Expressing emotion
○ Paralinguistic - nonverbal qualities of speech, ex. Tone
○ Visible - actions, behavior, ex. Gestures
● Deception - can be spotted from things we don’t try to control
○ Voice pitch, blinking, hesitancy, inconsistent signals (inter channel discrepancy)
● Emotion regulation
○ The selection/modification of the situation (Avoiding or changing situations that
trigger affect)
○ The deployment of attention and cognition (Ignoring or reappraising emotion
cues)
○ Modulating response (Suppressing emotional responses to triggers)
● Arousal makes us share more with others
● Negativity bias can motivate change, highlight learning opportunities
● Positive mood increases self-handicapping and stereotyping, (maybe due to
contentment?)
● Broaden-and-Build Theory - Positive emotions broaden one's awareness and encourage
novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions, positive emotions as resource
● Threats to health: health belief model: self-efficacy
● The Transtheoretical Model: Change Over Time
○ Motivational stages (wanting to change), volitional stages (making change),
continual stages (maintaining change)
Chapter 14: Sustainability
● Keeping track of consumption, giving concrete feedback on savings
● Introducing competition (office lights study), inducing hypocrisy (shower study)
● What makes people happy: satisfying relationships, flow, experiences not things, helping
others
● Affective forecasting: how you will feel about a future event

12/3
● POSSIBLE APPLICATION SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SUSTAINABILITY
○ Conveying Information: Persuasion, Resistance and Reactance, The
Importance of social norms, The importance of considering social networks
○ Recognizing conflicts: Group behavior, loafing and de-individuation, The
conflicts of social dilemmas, Compliance with authority, Perspective-taking and
prosocial behavior
○ Changing and maintaining behavior: The automaticity of behavior, Challenge
of self-control, Importance of feedback, Challenge of maintenance over time