observable facts by postulating causal
LESSON 1 relations among variables enabling users
FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
● Systematic study of the nature and causes
of human social behavior.
4 CORE CONCERNS OF SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
1) The impact of one individual on
another’s behavior and beliefs.
● In everyday life, communication from
others may significantly influence a
person’s understanding of the social world.
One to One
2) The impact of a group on a member’s
behavior and beliefs.
● Groups influence and regulate the
behavior of their members typically by
establishing norms or rules
Group to One
3) The impact of a member on a group’s
activities and structure.
● A member may influence the group itself
because of contribution to group
productivity and group decision making.
One to Group
4) The impact of one group on another
group’s activities and structure.
● Relations between two groups may be
friendly or hostile, cooperative or
competitive.
Group to Group
THEORY
● A set of interrelated propositions that
organizes and explains a set of observable
phenomena. A theory goes beyond more
to explain phenomena under
considerations and make predictions about
events
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
Role Theory
● In everyday life , we all perform roles
which specify what goals should be
pursued, what tasks must be
accomplished and what performances are
required.
● Role theory holds that substantial
proposition or observable day to day social
behavior is simply a person carrying out
their roles.
● Impacts of Roles:
a) Implies that if we have information
about the roles of the person
occupying the position, we can predict
a significant portion of the person’s
behavior.
b) Maintains that a person’s role
determines not only behavior but also
beliefs and attitudes.
c) Roles can influence the values people
hold and affect the directions of their
personal growth and development.
- There are expectations when it comes to your
roles, ex. Being an adult, teacher, student etc.
Reinforcement Theory
● Its central proposition is that people will be
more likely to perform specific behavior if it
is followed directly by the occurrence of
something pleasurable or by the removal
of something aversive.
● A reinforcement is any favorable outcome
that results from a response; reinforcement
strengthens the response – that it
increases the probability it will be
repeated.
● Reinforcement is important in some forms
of learning, most notable through
conditioning where the connection
between response and reinforcement is
strengthened. The person will more likely
emit the same response in the future in
hope of again receiving reinforcement.
Social Learning Theory
● Its central proposition is that a person (a
learner ) can acquire new responses
simply by observing the behavior of
another person (the model).
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● This observational learning process is ● People can communicate successfully
called imitation where the learner watches when they ascribe similar meaning to
the model’s behavior and thereby comes objects and depend on what the person
to understand how to behave in a similar might do with the object. Meaning
manner. depends only on the person’s plans.
● This theory views humans as proactive and
Social Exchange Theory goal-seeking and people formulate plans
● Assumes that people have freedom of of actions to achieve goals which can be
choice and often face social situations in achieved through cooperation. This can be
which they must choose between established through the meaning of things
alternative actions like being provided shared and consensual.
some rewards or it entails some costs. - Other words may have a different meaning to
● The theory posits that individuals are their language, as well as certain actions.
hedonistic – they try to maximize rewards - Ex. Puto in Spanish and in Tagalog / Someone’s
inappropriate sitting may offend or disturb
and minimize costs, choosing actions that
others which can create miscommunication.
produce good profits and avoid actions
that produce poor profits.
Evolutionary Theory
● Social exchange theory views social
● Locates the root of social behavior in our
relationships primarily as exchanges of
genes and links the psychological and
goods and services and participates in
social to biological. In effect, social
relationships only if they find that they
behavior or the predisposition toward
provide profitable outcomes.
certain behaviors is encoded in our
● Exchange theory also is where people try
genetic material and is passed on through
to change or reconstruct their relationships
reproduction.
and involve the concept of equity – a state
● Concerns does not stop with just the
which exists in a relationship when
physical characteristics but extends to a
participants feel the rewards they receive
great deal of social behavior including
are proportional to the cost they bear.
- We choose our people, mainly for benefits.
altruism, aggression, mate selection and
sexual behaviors
● In physical evolution those characteristics
Cognitive Theory
that enable the individual to survive and
● The basic premise of this theory is that the
pass on its genetic code are the ones that
mental activities of the individual are
will eventually occur more frequently in
important determinants of social behavior.
the population.
● These mental activities called cognitive
- Ex. Skin color - racism towards POC
processes – include perception, memory,
- Altruism : We are innately good, help others who
judgment, problem solving and decision are hurt and if you don't it is not acceptable.
making not only interpret the meaning of How must we respond in these cases?
stimuli but also select the actions to be - Aggression : hurts others who hurt us in our
made in response. eyes, just because they look or act at us
● It views humans as active in selecting and wrongly.
interpreting stimuli and do more than react - Mate selection : they have certain types that
attract them.
to their environment but actively structure
- Survival of the weakest, the greatest gene
their world cognitively. They actively
adapts and survives.
control which categories or concepts they
use to interpret their environment to form
their impressions.
- There are times when feelings will dominate
over your logic, which will make you regret after
the feeling subsides.
- Ex. The person you’re talking to is distracted
with their phone. What will you do?

Symbolic Interaction Theory

● The basic premise is that human nature
and social order are products of symbolic
communication and a person's behavior
emerges continually through
communication and interaction with others.
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 LESSON 2
SOCIAL COGNITION
SOCIAL COGNITION
● Refers to the unique processes that enable
human beings to interpret social
information and behave appropriately in
a social environment. Social information
processing relies initially on attending to
and perceiving relevant cues.
● The nature and importance of social
information is then determined by rapid
automatic emotion-driven mechanisms,
and attitudes, biases, stereotypical
tendencies, and personality traits create
individual differences in how social
information is interpreted.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
● Further processed via conscious and
controlled mechanisms, involving
reasoning about other’s thoughts,
emotions, and intentions while using
acquired knowledge about social
concepts and common sequences of
behavior that typically occur in social
interchanges.
● After perceiving and interpreting social
information, a behavioral response is
selected and enacted, often requiring
executive and regulatory processes.
● There are some common factors identified
as being important:
● Social cognition involves:
a) The processes involved in perceiving
other people and how we come to
know about the people in the world
around us.
b) The study of the mental processes
that are involved in perceiving,
remembering, thinking about, and
attending to the other people in our
social world.
c) The reasons we attend to certain
information about the social world,
how this information is stored in
memory, and how it is then used to
interact with other people.
DEVELOPMENT
● Social cognition develops in childhood and
adolescence. As children grow, they
become more aware not only of their own
feelings, thoughts, and motives but also of
the emotion and mental stage of others.
Children become more adept at
understanding how others feel, learning
how to respond in social situations,
engaging in prosocial behaviors, and
taking the perspective of others.
- We tend to be more cooperative.
● According to Jean Piaget, a child’s
cognitive development goes through a
series of stages. During the earliest stages
of development, children are very
egocentric. They see the world from their
own perspective and struggle to think
about how other people may view the
world.
● As children grow older, children become
increasingly adept at perspective-taking
and have an increased ability to think
about how and why people act the way
they do in social situations.
THEORY OF MIND
● One of the most important developments
in the early emergence of social cognition
is the growth of a theory of mind. A theory
of mind refers to a person’s ability to
understand and think about the mental
states of other people.
● It is the emergence of a theory of mind that
is critical to being able to consider the
thoughts, motives, desires, needs, feelings,
and experiences that others may have.
Being able to think about how these
mental states can influence how people
act is critical to forming social impressions
and explaining how and why people do the
things that they do.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
● When looking at a social situation, any two
people may have wildly different
interpretations. Each person brings a
unique background of experiences,
knowledge, social influences, feelings, and
cultural variations.
● Some researchers have found that there
are also collective, cultural influences that
can affect how people interpret social
situations. The same behavior in one
cultural setting may have a very different
meaning and interpretations if it was to
take place or be observed in another
culture.
● As people interpret behavior, extract
meaning from the interaction, and then act
based upon their beliefs about the
situation, they are then further reinforcing
and reproducing the cultural norms that
influence their social cognitions.
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Terms that are used to refer to social cognition.
● In the research literature, terms that refer
to aspects of social cognition are often
used interchangeably and in different ways
by different researchers.
● Empathy carries the sense of feeling the
feelings of others. In Latin, the word means
“feeling inside” or “feeling with”.
● On the other hand, Theory of Mnd is often
used to highlight the idea that we normally
have complex metacognitive
understandings of our own minds, as well
as the minds of others - including cognitive
and affective aspects.
● Similarly, Frith and Frith (1999) introduces
the term mentalizing to capture the idea
that when we have a well-developed
theory of mind, we understand ourselves
and others not just as sensory objects but
also as subjective beings with mental
states. We understand others as having
mental states that we can anticipate and
use to guide our own behaviors.
● Mind reading, like mentalizing, identifies
our ability to attune our own behaviors to
the minds and anticipated actions of
others.
● Social cognition concerns the various
psychological processes that enable
individuals to take advantage of being part
of a social group. Of major importance to
social cognition are the various social
signals that enable us to learn about the
world. Such signals include facial
expressions, such as fear and disgust,
which warn us of danger, and eye gaze
direction, which indicate where interesting
things can be found.
● Signals are particularly important in infant
development. Social referencing, for
example, refers to the phenomenon in
which infants refer to their mothers’ facial
expressions to determine whether or not to
approach a novel object.
● We can learn a great deal simply by
observing others. Much of this signaling
seems to happen automatically and
unconsciously on the part of both the
sender and the receiver. We can learn to
fear a stimulus by observing the response
of another, in the absence of awareness of
that stimulus.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY
● Emphasizes the learning that occurs within
a social context. In this view, people are
active agents who can both influence and
are influenced by their environment. The
theory was founded most prominently by
Albert Bandura.
● One assumption of social learning is that
we learn new behaviors by observing the
behavior of others and the consequences
of their behavior.
● If the behavior is rewarded (positive or
negative reinforcement) we are likely to
imitate it however if the behavior is
punished imitation is less likely.
HISTORY AND OVERVIEW
● Social Cognitive theory views people as
active agents who can both influence and
are influenced by their environment.
● The theory is an extension of social
learning that includes the effects of
cognitive processes - such as conceptions,
judgment, and motivation - on an
individual’s behavior and on the
environment that influences them.
● Rather than passively absorbing
knowledge from environmental inputs,
social cognitive theory argues that people
actively influence their learning by
interpreting the outcomes of their action,
which, in turn, affects their environments
and personal factors, informing and
altering subsequent behavior (Schunk,
2012).
FEATURES OF SOCIAL COGNITIVE
THEORY
● The goal of social cognitive theory is to
explain how people regulate their behavior
through control and reinforcement in order
to achieve goal-directed behavior that can
be maintained over time.
RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM
● The central concept of social cognitive
theory, and refers to the dynamic and
reciprocal interaction of people -
individuals with a set of learned
experiences - the environment, or external
social context, and behavior - the response
to stimuli to achieve goals.
● Its main tenet is that people seek to
develop a sense of agency and exert
control over the important events in their
lives.
● This sense of agency and control is
affected by factors such as self-efficacy,
outcome expectations, goals, and self-
evaluation (Bandura, 1989).
4
 To illustrate the concept of reciprocal
determinism,
● Consider A student who believes they
have the ability to succeed on an exam
(self-efficacy) is more likely to put forth the
necessary effort to study (behavior).
● If they do not believe that they can pass
the exam, they are less likely to study. As a
result, their beliefs about their abi;ities
(self-efficacy) will be affirmed or
disconfirmed by their actual performance
on the exam (outcome).
● This in turn will affect future beliefs and
behavior. If the student passes the exam,
they are likely to believe they can do well
on future exams and put forth the effort to
study.
● If they fail, they may doubt their abilities
(Bandura, 1989).
BEHAVIORAL CAPABILITY
● Refers to a person’s ability to perform a
behavior by means of using their own
knowledge and skills.
● That is to say, in order to carry out any
behavior, a person must know what to do
and how to do it. People learn from the
consequences of their behavior, further
affecting the environment in which they
live (Bandura, 1989).
REINFORCEMENTS
● Refers to the internal or external responses
to a person’s behavior that affect the
likelihood or discontinuing the behavior..
● These reinforcements can be s;elf-initiated
or in one’s environment, and either positive
or negative.
● Positive reinforcements increase the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated,
while negative reinforcers decrease the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
EXPECTATIONS
● Expectations, meanwhile, refer to the
anticipated consequences that a person
has of their behavior. As people anticipate
the consequences of their actions before
engaging in a behavior, these expectations
can influence whether or not someone
completes the behavior successfully
(Bandura, 1989).
● Expectations largely come from
someone's previous experience.
Nonetheless, expectancies also focus on
the value that is placed on the outcome,
something that is subjective from
individual to individual.
SELF-EFFICACY
● Self-efficacy refers to the level of a
person's confidence in their ability to
successfully perform a behavior. Self-
efficacy is influenced by a person's own
capabilities as well as other individual and
environmental factors.
● Self-efficacy is often said to be task-
specific, meaning that people can feel
confident in their ability to perform one
task but not another. For example, a
student may feel confident in their ability
to do well on an exam but not feel as
confident in their ability to make friends.
● This is because self-efficacy is based on
past experience and beliefs. If a student
has never made friends before, they are
less likely to believe that they will do so in
the future.
MODELING MEDIA AND SOCIAL
COGNITIVE THEORY
● Learning would be both laborious and
hazardous in a world that relied exclusively
on direct experience. Social modeling
provides a way for people to observe the
successes and failures of others with little
or no risk.
● This modeling can take place on a massive
scale. Modeling media is defined as "any
type of mass communication—television,
movies, magazines, music, etc.—that
serves as a model for observing and
imitating behavior" (Bandura, 1998).
● In other words, it is a means by which
people can learn new behaviors. Modeling
media is often used in the fashion and
taste industries to influence the behavior of
consumers.
● This is because modeling provides a
reference point for observers to imitate.
When done effectively, modeling can
prompt individuals to adopt certain
behaviors that they may not have
otherwise engaged in.
● Additionally, modeling media can provide
reinforcement for desired behaviors. For
example, if someone sees a model
wearing a certain type of clothing and
receives compliments for doing so
themselves, they may be more likely to
purchase clothing like that of the model.
5

LESSON 3
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
WHAT IS COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY?
● Cognitive psychology involves the study of
internal mental processes—all of the things
that go on inside your brain, including
perception, thinking, memory, attention,
language, problem-solving, and learning.
● Cognitive psychology is an area that
focuses on the science of how people
think. This branch of psychology explores a
wide variety of mental processes,
including how people think, use language,
attend to information, and perceive their
environments.
● Cognitive psychologists study internal
processes that include perception,
attention, language, memory, and thinking.
They ask questions like:
a) How do we receive information about
the outside world?
b) How do we store and process
information?
c) How do we solve problems?
d) How does a breakdown in our
perceptions cause errors in our
thinking?
e) How do errors in our thinking lead to
emotional distress and negative
behaviors?
APPROACHES
● There are currently three main approaches
in cognitive psychology: experimental
cognitive psychology, computational
cognitive psychology, and neural cognitive
psychology.
Experimental Cognitive Psychology
● Treats cognitive psychology as one of the
natural sciences and applies experimental
methods to investigate human cognition.
Psychophysical responses, response time,
and eye tracking are often measured in
experimental cognitive psychology.
Computational Cognitive Psychology
● Develops formal mathematical and
computational models of human cognition
based on symbolic and sub-symbolic
representations, and dynamical systems.
Neural Cognitive Psychology
● Uses brain imaging (e.g., EEG, MEG, fMRI,
PET, SPECT, Optical Imaging) and
neurobiological methods (e.g., lesion
patients) to understand the neural basis of
human cognition. The three approaches
are often inter-linked and provide both
independent and complementary insights
in every sub-domain of cognitive
psychology.
SUB-DOMAINS OF COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
● Traditionally, cognitive psychology
includes human perception, attention,
learning, memory, concept formation,
reasoning, judgment and decision-making,
problem solving, and language processing.
● For some, social and cultural factors ,
emotions, consciousness, animal cognition,
evolutionary approaches factors, emotion,
consciousness, have also become part of
cognitive psychology.
PERCEPTION
● Is the set of processes by which we
recognize, organize,and make sense of the
stimuli in our environment.
Constructive Perception
● Asserts that the perceiver constructs or
builds up the stimulus that is perceived. He
does so by using prior knowledge,
contextual information and sensory
information.
Direct Perception
● Asserts that all the information we need to
perceive is in the sensory input (such as
from the retina) that we receive.
Rationalism vs Empiricism
● In the Gibsonian view, much of what we
perceive derives from the structure of the
stimulus, independent of our experience
with it. In contrast, we construct what we
perceive. We build up mechanisms for
perceiving based on our experiences with
the environment.
● As a result, our perception is influenced at
least by our intelligence (rationalism) as it
is by the structure of the stimuli we
perceive (empiricism)
Bottom-up Processing
● Is an explanation for perceptions that start
with an incoming stimulus and work
upwards until a representation of the
object is formed in our minds. This process
suggests that our perceptual experience is
based entirely on the sensory stimuli that
6
 we piece together using only data that is
available from our senses.
● In order to make sense of the world, we
must take in energy from the environment
and convert it to neural signals, a process
known as sensation. It is in the next step of
the process, known as perception that our
brains interpret these sensory signals.
Top-down Processing
● Involves the brain 'sending down' stored
information to the sensory system as it
receives information from the stimulus,
enabling a plausible hypothesis to be
made without the need to analyze every
feature of the stimulus.
● Thus, top-down processing is using the
contextual information of things that we
already know or have already experienced
in combination with our senses to perceive
new information.
● In top-down processing, perceptions are
interpreted from individual frameworks
that help us perceive and interpret
information.
● These frameworks, also known as
schemas, are constructed from past
experiences, prior knowledge, emotions,
and expectations (Piaget, 1953).
ATTENTION
● Is the means by which we actively process
a limited amount of information from the
enormous amount of information available
through our senses, our stored memories,
and our other cognitive processes.
Heightened Attention
● Attention allows us to use our limited
mental resources by dimming the light on
many stimuli from the outside (sensations)
and inside (thoughts and memories), we
can highlight the stimuli that interest us.
This heightened attention or focus
increases the likelihood that we can
respond speedily and accurately to
interesting stimuli. It also paves the way
for memory processes and we are more
likely to remember information to which
we paid attention than information we
ignored.
Conscious Attention
● Serves three purposes in playing causal
role for the cognition:
a) First, it helps us monitor our
interactions with the environment so
that we maintain awareness of how
well we are adapting to the situations
in which we find ourselves.
b) Second, it assists us in linking our past
(memories) and our present
(sensations) to give us a sense of
continuity of experience and such
continuity may even serve as a basis
for personal identity.
c) Third, it helps us in controlling and
planning for our future actions. We can
do so based on the information from
monitoring and from the links between
past memories and present situations.
Vigilance
● Refers to the person’s ability to attend to a
field of simulations over a prolonged
period, during which a person seeks to
detect the appearance of a particular
target stimulus of interest. Typically
vigilance is needed in setting when a given
stimulus occurs only rarely but requires
immediate attention as soon as it does
occur.
Selective Attention
● People use selective attention to track one
message and simultaneously ignore
others.
● People use selective attention to track one
message and simultaneously ignore
others. Attention solves the problem of
information overload in cognitive
processing systems by selecting some
information for further processing, or by
managing resources applied to several
sources of information simultaneously.
Divided Attention
● Attentional processes also are involved
during divided attention, when people
attempt to handle more than one task at
once. Generally, the simultaneous
performance of more than one
automatized task is easier to handle than
7
 the simultaneous performance of more
than once controlled tasks.
Dealing with an Overwhelming World
● Sometimes it is a blessing if there are
stimuli in which we habituate or which we
get accustomed to so that we don’t notice
them anymore. Habituation involves our
becoming accustomed to a situation so
that we gradually pay less and less
attention to it.
● In dishabituation, a change in a familiar
stimulus prompts us to start noticing the
stimulus again. Both processes occur
automatically given the stability and
familiarity of the stimulus that govern these
processes.
MEMORY
● Is the means by which we retain and draw
on our past experiences to use that
information in the present. (Tulving, 2000)
As a process, memory refers to the
dynamic mechanisms associated with
storing, retaining, and retrieving
information about past experience
(Schneider, 2003)
● Tasks Used for Measuring Memory:
a) Recall or produce a fact, a word, or
other item from memory. Fill in the
blank and most essay tests require
recall.
b) Recognition or selecting or
identifying an item as being one that
you have been exposed to previously.
c) Recognition memory task is also
referred to as receptive knowledge
and means ‘responsive to stimulus’,
responding to stimulus whether you
have seen them before or not. And
recall as expressive knowledge, or
producing an answer.
Implicit Memory
● Is a phenomenon in which one uses
information from memory but is not
consciously aware but is aware of doing.
Explicit Memory
● One engages in conscious recollection or
one might recall or recognize words, facts
or pictures from a particular prior set of
items.
Procedural Knowledge
● Memory for processes can be tested in
implicit memory. Many of our activities
that we do everyday fall under procedural
memory, these range from brushing out
teeth to writing.
Autobiographical Memory
● Refers to memory of an individual’s history.
Autobiographical is constructive. One does
not remember exactly what has happened,
rather one remembers one’s construction
or reconstruction of what happened.
People’s autobiographical memories are
generally quite good. They are
differentially good for different periods in
life.
Flashbulb Memory
● Is a memory of an event so powerful that
the person remembers the event as vividly
as it was indelibly preserved on film.
Memory Distortions
● People have tendencies to distort their
memories (Aminoff, 2008) These
distortions occur in several ways:
1) Transience
● Memory fades quickly.
2) Absent-mindedness
● People sometimes enter a room looking for
something only to discover that they have
forgotten what they were seeking.
3) Blocking
● People sometimes have something they know
they should remember, but they can’t. It’s as
though the information is on the tip of their
tongue, but they cannot retrieve it.
4) Misattribution
● People often cannot remember what they heard
or read what they read. Sometimes people think
they saw things they did not see or heard ,
things they did not hear.
5) Suggestibility
● People are susceptible to suggestions like when
asked whether they have seen a television film.
6) Bias
● People are often biased in their recall like
people who currently are experiencing chronic
pain in their lives are more likely to remember
pain in the past whether or not they actually
experienced it.
7) Persistence
● People sometimes remember things that are
consequential that in a broad context are
inconsequential. For example, someone with
many successes but one notable failure may
remember the single failure better than the
many successes.
CONCEPT FORMATION
● The fundamental unit of symbolic
knowledge is what we call concept – an
idea about something that provides a
means of understanding the world.
(Bruner, 2003). Often a concept may be
captured in a single word like an apple.
8
 Other concepts that relate to it are
redness, roundness of a fruit.
● People amass a large number of concepts
over their course of lives. How do they
organize all of them? One way is by means
of categories. A category is a group of
items into which different objects can be
placed together because they share some
common features or because they are in
the same prototype – an abstract average
of all the objects to the category we have
encountered before.
● Concepts appear to have a basic level – is
the one that has the largest number of
distinctive features that set it apart from
other concepts at the same level. People
often identify objects at their basic level.
● Instead of using a single prototype for
categorizing, we use multiple specific
exemplars – are typical representatives of
a category (Ross, 2000). Objects are then
compared to exemplars to decide whether
or not they belong in the category the
exemplars represent.
● In finding the essence of things. The view
of essentialism holds that certain
categories have an underlying reality that
cannot be observed directly. For example,
someone could be a female even if they
were incapable in our observation on the
street of detecting that femaleness.
Essentialist beliefs about characteristics of
groups are often associated with the
devaluation of these groups and increased
prejudice – preconceived opinion that is
not based on reason or actual experience.
These beliefs suggest that members of a
particular group are intrinsically one way
and can’t change. Therefore they cannot
really belong to another group.
● Culture influences many cognitive
processes including intelligence. Schuller,
2004) what appears to be differences in
general intelligence may in fact be
differences in cultural properties.
(Poortuga, 2003) People in different
cultures have quite different ideas of what
it means to be smart.
● Another way in which we organize many
concepts in our minds is by means of
schemas. A schema is a mental
framework for organizing knowledge. It
creates a meaningful structure of related
concepts. Example, our schema for a
kitchen tells us what we might find in a
kitchen and where we might find them.
Schemas may be viewed at different levels
of analysis and depend on the mind and
the context.
● A problem with schema is that they can
give rise to stereotypes – a widely held
but fixed and oversimplified image of a
particular type of person or thing. For
example we might have a schema for a
person considered responsible, a schema
for a terrorist.
● One particular schema is a script – which
contains information about the particular
order in which things occur. Scripts include
default values for the actors, the props, the
setting and the sequence of events
expected to occur.
● In relation to the scripts , certainly a jargon
– specialized vocabulary commonly used
within a group such as profession or
trade ,may play into the way of
conversation.
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
● Language is the use of organized means
of combining words in order to
communicate with those around us. It
makes it possible for us to think about and
processes we currently cannot see, hear,
think, feel, touch or smell or ideas that may
not have any tangible form.
● Not all communication or exchange of
thoughts and feelings is through language.
Communication encompasses other
aspects, nonverbal communications such
as gestures or facial expressions can be
used. Glances may serve many purposes
and sometimes may be deadly, other
times seductive. Communication can also
be touches such as handshakes, hits and
hugs. Psycholinguistics is the psychology
of the language as it interacts with the
human mind.
● The communicative property of the
language is the most remarkable. For
example, you can write what you are
thinking and feeling so that others may
read and understand your thoughts and
feelings. Despite the many
miscommunications, however, for one
person to be able to use language to
communicate to another is impressive.
● We communicate through our shared
system of arbitrary symbolic reference to
things, ideas, processes, relationships and
descriptions. (Steedman, 2003). Words are
symbols that were chosen arbitrarily to
represent something else. The thing or
concept in the real world that a word refers
to is called referent. By consensual
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 agreement these combinations of letters
or sounds may be meaningful to us.
● Conversation thrives on the basis of
cooperative principle, by ways in which
we seek to communicate in ways that
make it easy for our listener to understand
what we mean. (Mooney, 2004)
● According to Grice, (1967) successful
conversations follow 4 maxims:
a) maxim of quantity – make
contribution to a conversation as
informative as required but no more
informative that is appropriate.
b) maxim of quality – contribution to a
conversation as truthful, and one is
expected to say what one believes to
be the case.
c) maxim of relation – make contribution
to a conversation relevant to the aims
of conversation.
d) maxim of manner – avoid obscure
expressions, vague utterances, and
purposeful obfuscation to the point.
● Gender differences have been found in
the context of what we say. Older
adolescent and young adult males prefer
to talk about political views, sources of
personal pride and what they like about
the other person. In contrast, females of
this age prefer to talk about their feelings
towards parents, close friends, classes and
their fears. (Rubin, 1980) In general, women
tend to disclose more about themselves
than me.
● Male and female differences in
conversational styles largely center on
differing understanding of their goals of
conversation. (Tanmen, 1994)
● Man sees the world as a hierarchical social
order in which the purpose of
communication is to negotiate the upper
hand , to preserve independence and to
avoid failure. Women , in contrast, seek to
establish a connection between two
participants to give support and
confirmation to others and to reach
consensus through communication.
(Tanmen, 1994).
● The researchers found that when both
male and female participants were
performing the letter recognition and word
meaning tasks, they showed activation in
the left temporal lobe of the brain. When
both were performing the rhyming task,
however, different areas were activated for
men versus women. Only the inferior
frontal region of the left hemisphere was
activated in men but for women both the
left and right hemisphere were activated in
women. Results suggested that men were
localized there. phonological processing
more than did women.
● Brain Structures involved in Language
a) Wernicke’s area is responsible for the
understanding of spoken words and
sentences.
b) Broca’s area is responsible for
production of grammatical speech at
the same time verbal comprehension.
c) Aphasia is an impairment of language
functioning cause y the damage to the
brain
JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING
● Judgment and decision making are used to
select from among the choices or to
evaluate opportunities.
Classical Decision Theory
● The model reflects an economic
perspective and strength of this model is
the use of mathematical models for human
behavior and has three assumptions:
1) Decision makers are fully informed
regarding all possible options and
possible outcomes of their decisions.
2) They are infinitely sensitive to the
subtle distinctions among options.
3) They are fully rational in regards to
their choice of options.
● The assumption of sensitivity means
people can evaluate the difference
between outcomes no matter how subtle
the distinctions among options.
● The assumption of rationality means that
people make their choices to maximize
something of value.
Subjective Expected Utility Theory
● Views that the goal of humans is to seek
pleasure and avoid pain. According to this
theory, in making decisions, people will
seek to maximize pleasure (positive utility
)and to minimize pain (negative utility)
● However, each of us uses calculations of
two things, our subjective utility – which is
a calculation based on the individual’s
judged weights of utility (value) rather than
an objective criteria. Another is the
subjective probability – which is a
calculation based on the individual’s
estimates of likelihood rather than
objective statistical computations.
● Heuristics are mental shortcuts that
lighten the cognitive load of making
decisions. It helps make a decision within a
reasonable time frame to reduce available
information to a manageable amount.
● Satisficing is a form of heuristic formulated
by Simon, (1957) where options are
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 considered one by one, and then select an
option as soon as we find one that is
satisfactory or just good enough to meet
our minimum level of acceptability.
Satisficing is also used in the industrial
contexts in which too much information
can impair the quality of decisions.
Eliminating by Aspects
● (Tversky, 1972) In which we eliminate
alternatives by focusing on each
alternative by:
a) focusing on one aspect (attribute) of
the various options
b) forming a minimum criterion for that
aspect.
c) eliminating all options that do not
meet the criterion
d) for remaining options, select a second
aspect of for which to set a criterion
e) continue using the sequential process
of elimination.
Representativeness Heuristic
● We judge the probability of an uncertain
event according to:
a) how obviously it is similar to or
representative of the population from
which it is derived
b) the degree to which it reflects the
salient features of the process by
which it is generated.
● People tend to use representativeness
heuristics because it is easy to use and
often works and when it relies on
anecdotal evidence.
Availability Heuristics
● Is used when making judgments on the
basis of how easily we can call in mind
what we perceive as relevant instances of
a phenomenon. Also availability heuristics
has been observed in regard to everyday
conditions and many engage in using this
because it confirms their belief about
themselves.
Biases
● Several biases occur when people make
decisions like:
a) Illusory Correlation – we are
predisposed to see particular events
or attributes and categories as going
together even if they do not.
b) Overconfidence – an individual’s over-
evaluation of her or his own skills,
knowledge or judgment.
c) Hindsight Bias – when we look at a
situation retrospectively, we believe
we can see all the signs and events
leading to a particular outcome.
PROBLEM SOLVING & CREATIVITY
● Problem solving is an effort to overcome
obstacles obstructing the path to a
solution. (Roed, 2000)
● How people solve problems depends on
how they understand the problem.
(Whitten, 2003)
Problem Solving Cycle
● The problem solving cycle includes:
problem identification, problem definition,
strategy formulation, organization of
information, allocation of resources,
monitoring and evaluation. (Stein, 1993)
● Strategy formulation: How can we solve
the problem? The strategy may involve:
a) Analysis – breaking down the whole
complex problem into manageable
elements.
b) It may also involve the complementary
process of synthesis – putting
together various elements to arrange
them into something useful.
● Another pair of complementary
strategies involves:
a) Divergent thinking – generating a
diverse assortment of possible
alternative solutions to a problem.
b) Convergent thinking – to narrow
down the multiple possibilities to
converge on a single best answer.
Algorithms
● Are sequences of operations that may be
repeated over and over again and that in
theory guarantee the solution to a
problem. Generally, an algorithm continues
until it satisfies a condition determined by a
program. The computer can readily
calculate all possible operations and
combinations of operations within the
problem space – is the universe of all
possible actions that can be applied to
solving problems, given any constraints
that apply to the solution of the problem.
Insight
● Is a distinctive and sometimes sudden
understanding of a problem or of a
strategy that aids in solving the problem.
Often an insight involves reconceptualizing
a problem or a strategy in a totally new
way. Although insight might feel as though
they are sudden, they are often the result
of much prior thought and hard work.
● EEG records a burst of high frequency of
activity during insight and even before
insight becomes conscious, activity in the
right hemisphere can be observed. It is
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 therefore generally assumed that the right
hemisphere has a special role in the
insightful process. (Bowden, 2005)
Obstacles to Problem Solving
1) Mental Set
● A frame of mind involving an existing
model for presenting a problem, a problem
context, a procedure for problem solving
and is sometimes referred to as
entrenchment. The fixed strategy and
procedure may have worked in many
problems but not in solving the particular
problem at hand.
2) Functional FIxedness
● Is a type of mental set which is the inability
to realize that something known to have
particular use may also be used for
performing other functions. Functional
fixedness prevents us from solving new
problems by using old tools in novel ways.
3) Stereotypes
● A type of mental set which are beliefs that
members of a social group tend more or
less uniformly to have particular type of
characteristics. It hinders problem-solving
abilities of the individual who used them.
These people limit their thinking by using
set stereotypes.
4) Creativity
● Is the process of producing something that
is both original and worthwhile. (Runco,
2010). Conventional wisdom suggests that
highly creative individuals also have
creative lifestyles. These lifestyles are
characterized by flexibility, non-
stereotyped behaviors and non-
conforming attitudes.
● Several factors characterize a highly
creative individual:
a) First, extremely high motivation to be
creative in the field of endeavor.
b) Second, non-conformity in violating
any conventions that might inhibit the
creative work and dedication in
maintaining standards of excellence
and self-discipline.
c) Third, deep belief in the value of
creative work as well as willingness to
be criticized to improve work.
d) Fourth, careful choice of the
problems or subjects on which to
focus creative attention.
e) Fifth, thought processes characterized
by both insight and divergent
thinking.
f) Sixth, risk taking.
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
● Social perception refers to the ability to
make accurate interpretations and
inferences about other people from their
general physical appearance, verbal, and
nonverbal patterns of communication.
Things like facial expressions, tone of
voice, hand gestures, and body position or
movement are all ques people with higher
levels of social perception pick up on to
work out what other people are thinking,
feeling or are likely to do next. (Aronson et
al, 2010)
● Having at least one person with higher
levels of social perception on a team has
been found to increase the likelihood of
better performance of the team and of the
team developing collective intelligence.
(Chikersal, Prerna, et al., 2017)
● Social perception refers to identifying and
utilizing social cues to make judgments
about social roles, rules, relationships,
context, or the characteristics (e.g.,
trustworthiness) of others. This domain also
includes social knowledge, which refers to
one’s knowledge of social roles, norms,
and schemas surrounding social situations
and interactions. Tests of social perception
include videotaped scenes that require the
viewer to make inferences and judgments
about ambiguous social situations based
on limited verbal and nonverbal social
cues
● Social Perception—the process through
which we seek to know and understand
other people. Social Perception allows
people to know and understand other
people in their, social world.
● This is a crucial process and one we must
perform every day because perceiving and
understanding others accurately provides
a basic foundation of all social life.
A. Observation
The processes of social perception begin with
observing persons, situations, and behaviors to
gather evidence that supports an initial impression.
1. Persons – physical influence
Although society tries to train people not to judge
others based on their physical traits, as social
perceivers, we cannot help but be influenced by
others' hair, skin color, height, weight, style of
clothes, pitch in voice, etc., when making a first
impression. People have the tendency to judge
others by associating certain facial features with
specific personality types. For example, studies
12
indicate that people are perceived as stronger,
more assertive, and competent if they have small
eyes, low eyebrows, an angular chin, wrinkled skin,
and a small forehead. People tend to associate
baby-faced people with impotence and
harmlessness.
2. Situations – context from prior experiences
are able to easily predict the sequences or results
of an event based on the extent and depth of their
past experiences with a similar event. The ability to
anticipate the outcomes of a situation is also greatly
influenced by an individual's cultural background
because this inevitably shapes the types of
experiences. Situational observations either lead
humans to have preset notions about certain events
or to explain the causes of human behaviors.
3. Behaviors – nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication helps people express
their emotions, attitudes, and personalities. The
most dominant form of nonverbal communication is
the use of facial expressions to channel different
emotions. Greatly influenced by Charles Darwin's
research on facial expressions and book The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(1872), it is believed that all humans, regardless of
culture or race, encode and decode the six
"primary" emotions, (happiness, sadness, anger,
fear, surprise, and disgust), universally in the same
way. To encode means to communicate nonverbal
behavior, while to decode means to interpret the
meaning or intention of the nonverbal behavior.
Decoding sometimes is inaccurate due to affect
blend, (a facial expression with two differently
registered emotions), and/or display rules,
(culturally dictated rules about which nonverbal
behaviors are acceptable to display). Other
nonverbal cues such as: body language, eye
contact, and vocal intonations can affect social
perception by allowing for thin-slicing. Thin-slicing
describes the ability to make quick judgements
from finding consistencies in events based only on
narrow frames of experience.
Non-Verbal Communication
Think for a moment: Do you act differently when
you are feeling very happy than when you are
feeling really sad? Most likely, you do. Non-Verbal
Communication
People tend to behave differently when
experiencing different emotional states. But
precisely how do differences in your inner states—
your emotions, feelings, and moods—show up in
your behavior?
This question relates to the basic channels through
which such communication takes place. Research
findings indicate that five of these channels exist:
facial expressions, eye contact, body movements,
posture, and touching.
Facial Expressions
More than 2,000 years ago, the Roman orator
Cicero stated: “The face is the image of the soul.”
By this he meant that human feelings and emotions
are often reflected in the face and can be read
there in specific expressions. Modern research
suggests that Cicero was correct: It is possible to
learn much about others’ current moods and
feelings from their facial expressions.
In fact, it appears that five different basic emotions
are represented clearly, and from a very early age,
on the human face: anger, fear, happiness, sadness,
and disgust (Izard, 1991; Rozin,Lowery, & Ebert,
1994). Surprise, has also been suggested as a basic
emotion reflected clearly in facial expressions.
Eye Contact
We often learn much about others’ feelings from
their eyes.
For example, we interpret a high level of gazing
from another as a sign of liking or friendliness In
contrast, if others avoid eye contact with us, we
may conclude that they are unfriendly, don’t like us,
or are simply shy.
If another person gazes at us continuously and
maintains such contact regardless of what we do,
he or she can be said to be staring A stare is often
interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility—as in cold
stare—and most people find this particular
nonverbal cue disturbing .
In fact, we may quickly terminate social interaction
with someone who stares at us and may even leave
the scene.
Body movements and Posture
Our current moods or emotions are often reflected
in the position, posture, and movement of our
bodies. Together, such nonverbal behaviors are
termed body language. They, too, can provide
useful information about others.
First, body language often reveals others’
emotional states. Large numbers of movements—
especially ones in which one part of the body does
something to another part (touching, rubbing,
scratching)—suggest emotional arousal. The
greater the frequency of such behavior, the higher
the level of arousal or nervousness
Touching
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Suppose that during a brief conversation with
another person, he or she touched you briefly. How
would you react? What information would this
behavior convey? The answer to both questions is,
it depends.
And what it depends on is several factors relating to
who does the touching (a friend, a stranger, a
member of your own or the other gender). Further
the nature of this physical contact (brief or
prolonged, gentle or rough, what part of the body is
touched). And the context in which the touching
takes place (a business or social setting, a doctor’s
office).
Depending on such factors, touch can suggest
affection, sexual interest, dominance, caring, or
even aggression. Despite such complexities,
existing evidence indicates that when touching is
considered appropriate, it often produces positive
reactions in the person being touched. But
remember, it must be viewed as appropriate to
produce such reactions!
"Communication through touch is a form of physical
contact that expresses feelings or emotion. Often,
touch is used to show that you care or to help
someone by directing them. Touch sends different
messages depending on the context.
Haptic communication is a branch of nonverbal
communication that refers to the ways in which
people and animals communicate and interact via
the sense of touch. Touch is the most sophisticated
and intimate of the five senses.[1] Touch or haptics,
from the ancient Greek word haptikos is extremely
important for communication; it is vital for survival.
B) Attribution
The process through which we seek such
information and draw inferences is known as
attribution. More formally, attribution refers to our
efforts to understand the causes behind others’
behavior and, on some occasions, the causes
behind our behavior, too.
APA defines it as – an inference regarding the
cause of a person’s behavior or an interpersonal
event.
How does it affect?
You meet an attractive person from your class. You
ask them to hangout with you next week.
The person answers, “No, sorry . . . I can’t do it next
week.” Now, you are left wondering why they
refused your invitation. Because they don’t like you
as much as you like them or they are currently in a
serious relationship? Because they are so busy with
other commitments ?
The conclusion you reach will be important to your
self-esteem. And it will also strongly influence what
you do next. The conclusion you reach will be
important to your self-esteem. And it will also
strongly influence what you do next.
This simple example illustrates an important fact
about social perception: Often, we want to know
more than simply how they are feeling right now. In
addition, we want to know why they have said or
done various things, and further, what kind of
person they really are. What lasting traits, interests,
motives, and goals they have.
For instance, to mention just one of countless
possibilities, we want to know if other people are
high or low in self-control.
If they are high in self-control we tend to view them
as trustworthy. While if they are low on this aspect
of self-regulation, we may conclude that they are
unpredictable and not someone we can rely on
(Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011).
Attribution Theories
A large component of social perception is
attribution. Attribution is the use of information
gathered through observation to help individuals
understand and rationalize the causes of one's own
and others' behaviors. Psychological research on
attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in
1958, and was subsequently developed by others
such as Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. People
make attributions to understand the world around
them in order to seek reasons for an individual's
particular behavior.
When people make attributions they are able to
make judgments as to what was the cause or
causes of a certain behavior. Attribution theory is
the study of what systems and models people
implement to make attributions about the behavior
of others. It attempts to explain how we use
information about the social environment to
understand others' behavior.
One common bias people exhibit in attribution is
called the fundamental attribution error. The
fundamental attribution error is the tendency for
people to attribute others' actions or behaviors to
internal traits as opposed to external
circumstances.
An example of how this may manifest in the real
world as pointed out in research by Furnham and
Gunter is how one's view of the justness of poverty
may be affected by one's financial status: one who
has not experienced poverty may see it as being
more or less deserved than might someone who
has been impoverished at some point. In this way,
fundamental attribution error can be a barrier to
14
empathizing with others, as one does not consider
all the circumstances involved in the actions of
others.
Two-step process of Attributions
Unlike conventional attribution theories, the two-
step process of attribution suggests that people
analyze others' behaviors first by automatically
making an internal attribution and only then
considering possible external attributions that may
affect the initial inference. Heider's most valuable
contribution to the topic of attribution is the
dichotomy: When attempting to decide why
individuals behave a certain way, we can make
either an internal or external attribution.
Internal attribution, (also called dispositional
attribution or personal attribution, is the assumption
that an individual is acting a certain way due to
something about that individual, such as
personality, character, or attitude. External
attribution, also called situational attribution, is the
inference that an individual is acting a certain way
due to the situation he or she is in; the assumption
is that most individuals would respond in the same
way in that similar situation. Essentially, people first
assume that a person's behavior is due to his or her
personality, and then attempt to modify this
attribution by also factoring in the person's situation.
Kelley’s Covariation Theory
According to American social psychologist Harold
Kelley, individuals make attributions by utilizing the
covariation principle. The covariation principle
claims that people attribute behavior to the factors
that are present when a certain behavior occurs
and the factors that are absent when it does not
occur. There are three types of covariation
information that are particularly helpful: consensus,
distinctiveness, and consistency.
If a single individual and a large majority of
individuals behave similarly in reaction to a specific
stimulus, then the individual's behavior is attributed
to the stimulus and is high in consensus. The
individual's behavior due to this specific stimulus
should be compared to the individual's behavior in
reaction other stimuli within the same broader
category. This helps judge whether the level of
distinctiveness information is high, and thus
attributed to the stimulus. Lastly, consistency
information is used to see what happens to the
behavior at another time when the individual and
the stimulus both remain unchanged.[1]
c) Impression Formation and Management
A. Impression Formation
When we meet another person for the first time, we
are—quite literally—flooded with information. We
can see, at a glance, how they look and dress, how
they speak, and how they behave.
Although the amount of information reaching us is
large, we somehow manage to combine it into an
initial first impression of this person—a mental
representation that is the basis for our reactions to
him or her. Clearly, then, impression formation is an
important aspect of social perception.
In many cases, in order to form impression about
others’ personality, we combine information in
terms of personality traits. Moreover, we do it
possibly in a mathematical way. We assign some
positive or negative value to all the traits inferred in
the person. Then we derive an additive or average
value of those traits.
Impression Management
The desire to make a favorable impression on
others is a strong one, so most of us do our best to
“look good” to others when we meet them for the
first time.
Social psychologists use the term impression
management (or self-presentation) to describe
these efforts to make a good impression on others,
and the results of their research on this process
suggest that it is well worth the effort: People who
perform impression management successfully do
often gain important advantages in many situations.
The different techniques for boosting image fall into
two categories:
Self Enhancement – Effort to increase their appeal
to others. With respect to self-enhancement, the
strategies include effort to boost one’s physical
appearance through style of dress, personal
grooming and the use of various props. (example:
eye glasses).
Additional tactics of self enhancement involves
efforts to describe oneself in positive terms.
Other Enhancement
Individuals use many different tactics to induce
positive moods and reaction in others example:
flattery. In addition there are acts like soothing
others, taking interest in their work, helping them,
etc.
Integration
Unless a snap judgement is made from observing
persons, situations, or behavior, people integrate
the dispositions to form impressions.
Information Integration Theory
Norman H. Anderson, an American social
psychologist, developed the information integration
theory in 1981. The theory states that impressions
are made from the perceiver's personal dispositions
and a weighted average of the target individual's
characteristics. The differences among perceivers
are due to people using themselves as a standard,
15
or frame of reference, when judging or evaluating people's descriptions of others, while the other
others. People also tend to view their own skills and dimensions appeared in many, but not all, people's
traits as favorable for others to also have. assessments. Thus, the dimensions included in
These impressions formed about others can also be implicit personality theories on which others are
influenced by the current, temporary mood of the rated vary from person to person, but the "good-
perceiver. A concept called, priming also affects a bad" dimension appears to be part of all people's
perceiver's impressions of others. Priming is the implicit personality theories.
tendency for recently perceived or implemented
concepts or words to come to mind easily and
influence the understanding of the new information.
Trait information also impacts people's impressions
of others, and psychologist Solomon Asch was the
first to discover that the existence of one trait tends
to indicate the existence of other traits. Asch
claimed that central traits exist that exert a strong
effect on the perceiver's overall impressions. Lastly,
the sequence in which a trait is realized can also
influence the trait's impact. Research shows that
there is a tendency for information presented at the
beginning of a sequence to have a greater effect on
impressions than information presented later on, a
concept called primacy effect.

Implicit Personality Theory

Implicit personality theory is a type of model
people use to group various kinds of personality
qualities together. Put in another way, implicit
personality theories describe the way an observer
uses the traits displayed by another person to form
impressions about that other person. People pay
attention to a variety of cues, including: visual,
auditory, and verbal cues to predict and understand
the personalities of others, in order to fill in the gap
of the unknown information about a person, which
assists with social interactions.
Certain traits are seen as especially influential in the
formation of an overall impression of an individual;
these are called central traits. Other traits are less
influential in impression formation, and are called
peripheral traits. Which traits are central or
peripheral is not fixed, but can vary based on
context. For instance, saying that a person is warm
versus cold may have a central impact on an
individual's impression formation when paired with
traits such as "industrious" and "determined", but
have a more peripheral impact when paired with
traits such as "shallow" or "vain".[7]
Kim and Rosenberg[8] demonstrate that when
forming impressions of others, individuals assess
others on an evaluative dimension. Which is to say
that, when asked to describe personality traits of
others, individuals rate others on a "good-bad"
dimension. People's implicit personality theories
also include a number of other dimensions, such as
a "strong-weak" dimension, an "active-passive"
dimension, an "attractive-unattractive" dimension,
etc. However, the evaluative "good-bad" dimension
was the only one that universally appeared in

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