CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
 What is Social Psychology?
 What are SP’s big ideas?
 Is SP simply common sense?
 Research Methods: How do we do SP?
WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?
o A science that studies how situations influence us,
with special attention to how people view and
affect one another. More precisely, it is the
scientific study of how people think about,
influence, and relate to one another.
o Power of the situation in influencing behavior.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS
I. We Construct Our Social Reality
 there is an objective reality out there, but
we always view it through the lens of our
beliefs and values.
II. Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but
Sometimes Perilous
 we intuitively trust our memories more
than we should. We misread our own
minds; in experiments, we deny being
affected by things that do influence us.
III. Social Influences Shape Our Behavior
 people are, above all, malleable.” Said
differently, we adapt to our social context.
IV. Personal Attitudes and Dispositions also Shape
Behavior
 our inner attitudes affect our outer
behavior.
V. Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted
 our inherited human nature predisposes us
to behave in ways that helped our
ancestors survive and reproduce.
VI. Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable in
Everyday Life
 make visible the subtle influences that
guide your thinking and acting.
IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SIMPLY A COMMON
SENSE?
o “It is easy to be wise after the event.” — Sherlock
Holmes
o We blame not only others but also ourselves for
“stupid mistakes” Looking back, we see how we
should have handled it.
o We forget that what is obvious to us now was not
nearly
so obvious at the time.
RESEARCH METHODS
HOW DO WE DO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?
A. Forming and Testing Hypotheses
 Theory is an integrated set of principles
that explain and predict observed events.
 Theories not only summarize but also
imply testable predictions, called
hypotheses.
B. Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and
Effect
 Random assignment – the process of
assigning participants to the conditions of
an experiment such that all persons have
the same chance of being in a given
condition.
 Control: Manipulating Variables – an
experimental factor that a researcher
manipulates.
 Replication – repeating a research study,
often with different participants in
different settings, to determine whether a
finding could be reproduced.
C. The Ethics of Experimentation
 Mundane Realism – degree to which an
experiment is superficially similar to
everyday situations.
 Experimental Realism – degree to which
an experiment absorbs and involves its
participants.
CHAPTER 2: SOCIAL BELIEF AND JUDGEMENT
 What are Social Beliefs and Judgments?
 Judging our social worlds and explaining
our social worlds
 Perceiving our social worlds
HOW DO WE JUDGE OUR SOCIAL WORLDS,
CONSCIOUSLY AND UNCONSCIOUSLY?
DESCRIBE HOW JUDGEMENTS ARE INFLUENCED
BY BOTH UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUS
SYSTEMS
 System 1 – the intuitive, automatic, unconscious,
and fast way of thinking. Also known as automatic
processing.
 System 2 – the deliberate, controlled, conscious,
and slower way of thinking. Also known as
controlled processing.
PRIMING
 Is the awakening or activating of certain
associations.
  Experiments show that priming one thought, even
without awareness, can influence another thought,
or even an action (Herring et al., 2013).
 Most of a person’s everyday life is determined not
by their conscious intentions and deliberate
choices but by mental processes that are put into
motion by features of the environment and that
operate outside of conscious awareness and
guidance.
EMBODIED COGNITION
 The mutual influence of bodily sensations on
cognitive preferences and social judgments.
 Our social cognition is embodied. The brain
systems that process our bodily sensations
communicate with the brain systems responsible
for our social thinking.
HEURISTICS: MENTAL SHORTCUTS
A thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient
judgement.
REPRESENTATIVENESS HEURISTIC
 The tendency to presume, sometimes despite
contrary odds, that someone or something belongs
to a particular group if resembling (representing) a
typical member.
AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
 A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of
things in terms of their availability in memory. If
instances of something come readily to mind, we
presume it to be commonplace.
PERCEIVING AND INTERPRETING EVENTS
 Despite some startling biases and logical flaws in
how we perceive and understand one another,
we’re mostly accurate (Jussim, 2012). Our first
impressions of one another are more often right
than wrong.
 Moreover, the better we know people, the more
accurately we can read their minds and feelings.
POLITICAL PERCEPTIONS
 We view our social worlds through the spectacles
of our beliefs, attitudes, and values.
 That is one reason our beliefs are so important;
they shape our interpretation of everything else.
BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
 Persistence of one’s initial conceptions, such as
when the basis for one’s belief is discredited but an
explanation of why the belief might be true
survives.
 “We hear and apprehend only what we already half
know.” —Henry David Thoreau, In the Heart of
Thoreau’s Journals, 1961
 “Come to think of it, cow’s milk obviously suits
calves better than babies.” If the infant turns out to
be suffering a high fever, will the sitter
nevertheless persist in believing that bottle feeding
causes colic?
CHAPTER 3: ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS
 When do attitudes predict our behavior?
 When does behavior affect our attitudes?
 Why does our behavior affect our
attitudes?
WHEN ATTITUDES PREDICT BEHAVIOR?
 The reason why our behavior and our expressed
attitudes differ is that both are subject to other
influences — many other influences.
 Our attitudes do predict our behavior when these
other influences on what we say and do are
minimal, when the attitude is specific to the
behavior, and when the attitude is potent.
WHEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON WHAT WE SAY
ARE MINIMAL
 Today’s social psychologists have some clever
means at their disposal for minimizing social
influences on people’s attitude reports.
 Implicit Association Test (IAT)
 A computer-driven assessment of implicit
attitudes. The test uses reaction times to
measure people’s automatic associations
between attitude objects and evaluative
words. Easier pairings (and faster
responses) are taken to indicate stronger
unconscious associations.
WHEN ATTITUDES ARE SPECIFIC TO THE
BEHAVIOR
 Theory of planned behavior – is knowing people’s
intended behaviors and their perceived self-
efficacy and control. Even asking people about
their intentions to engage in a behavior often
increases its likelihood (Levav & Fitzsimons,
2006; Wood et al., 2016).

WHEN ATTITUDES ARE POTENT
 Bringing Attitudes to Mind
o Attitudes predicted behavior (verdicts)
only for those who were first induced to
remember their attitudes — by giving
them “a few minutes to organize your
thoughts and views on the affirmative-
action issue.” Our attitudes become potent
if we think about them.
o Edward Diener and Mark Wallbom (1976)
experiment
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY
 Assumes that to reduce discomfort, we justify our
actions to ourselves.
 Cognitive dissonance Tension arises when one is
simultaneously aware of two inconsistent
cognitions.
 Participant-observation study by Festinger and his
colleagues (1956)
SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY
 Assumes that our actions are self-revealing: when
uncertain about our feelings or beliefs, we look to
our behavior, much as anyone else would.
 Hearing myself talk informs me of my attitudes;
seeing my actions provides clues to how strong my
beliefs are. If we observe ourselves acting as a
leader, we begin to think of ourselves as leaders
(Miscenko et al., 2017)

WHEN DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT OUR

ATTITUDES?
 The attitude–action relation also works in the
reverse direction: We are likely not only to think
ourselves into action but also to act ourselves into
a way of thinking.
 Similarly, what we say or write can strongly
influence attitudes that we subsequently hold.
 Actions also affect our moral attitudes: That which
we have done, even if it is evil, we tend to justify
as right.
 Role Playing

WHY DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT OUR

ATTITUDES?
We all care about what other people think of us.
We have seen that several streams of evidence
merge to form a river: our behaviors influence our attitudes.
Do these observations offer clues to why behavior affects
attitude? Social psychology’s detectives suspect three
possible sources:
 Self-presentation theory
 Cognitive dissonance theory
 Self-perception theory

SELF-PRESENTATION THEORY
 Assumes that for strategic reasons, we express
attitudes that make us appear consistent.
 We see making a good impression as a way to gain
social and material rewards, to feel better about
ourselves, and even to become more secure.