INTRODUCION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY NOTES

Social psychology – the scientific study of behavior and mental processes as they relate to how
people interact with, or relate to, others

Or

Scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual,
imagined, or implied presence of others

Social psychology works with: arts, religion, philosophy, ideologies, sociology

Social psychology’s siblings are: personality psychology, cognitive psychology and cognitive science,
clinical and health psychology, neuroscience

How does social psychology do research?

- Gathering the data

o Observation
o Measurement and recording
o Manipulation
- Making sense of the data
o Propose explanations
o Form predictions
o Test predictions

Social psychology can be divided into:

- Basic science
o To know how the world operates
 To be able to explain the events
 To be able to predict the events
- Applied science
o To know how to shape the world
 To be able to make things happen the way we want
 To be able to prevent things we don’t want

Philosophy:

- Dualism – mind and body dualism, property dualism, cosmological dualism

- Determinism – events are completely determined by previously existing causes
- Mechanism – natural wholes are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of
parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other
- Empiricism – epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes
only or primarily from sensory experience. It emphasizes the central role of empirical
evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. They may argue
that traditions arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences
History of social psychology:

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

- First laboratory of experimental psychology in Leipzig University (1879)

- Introspection
- Extensive use of laboratory equipment
- Structuralism

Floyd Henry Allport (1890-1979)

- Author of the first psychology book – “Social Psychology”, 1924

The contemporary social psychology:

- Social neuroscience
- Evolutionary psychology
- Cross-cultural research
- The internet and technology !!!!!

The scientific method:

1. Be curious
2. Ask the specific questions
3. Attempt to form the answer and explanation
4. Test your answer – hypothesis
5. Interpret the result
6. Draw conclusions
7. Communicate the findings

Research tool box in psychology:

1. Observational research
2. Case study
3. Survey/self-report data
4. Correlational research
5. Experiments
6. Archival research

Reliability – how well am I measuring the things I’m measuring

- Survey/self-report data
- Correlational research
- Experiments

Validity – how well am I studying the thing I want to study?

- Observational research
- Case study
Research ethics – when “could” doesn’t mean “should”

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Demonstration – psychological experiment conducted in August 1971. It

was a two-week stimulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational
variables on participants’ reactions and behaviors. Stanford University psychology professor Philip
Zimbardo led the research team who administered the study.

Miligram experiment – begun o August 7, 1961 a series of psychology experiments were conducted
by Yale University psychologist Stanley Miligram, who intended to measure the willingness of study
participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their
personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated
experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a “learner”. These fake electric shocks
gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.

The Self

Self-Concept – the way we see ourselves

Is it:

Sable? Or Malleable?

The individual constructs a working self-concept that integrate the core self-conceptions with those
elicited by the immediate context. In this sense, the self-concept becomes similar to that suggested
by the symbolic interactions. Thus, for Mead(1934) there was no fixed self-concept, only the current
self-concept that was negotiated from the available set of self-conceptions.

Self-schema – cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize
and guide the processing of the self-related information contained in an individual’s social
experiences.

Examples:
Possible-self:

How others influence our self-concept?

Self-esteem – the general evaluation of ourselves, can be positive and negative

Self-efficacy – the evaluation of our ability for coping with various challenges

Locus of control – the view we held about who or what is in control over the course of actions

- Internal or external
- Chance
- Powerful others

Self-esteem as a need:

It is a desire to be accepted and valued by others. People often engage in a profession or hobby to
gain recognition.

Self-esteem as a state:
Bolstering the self:

Self-serving bias: when you lose, you blame it on everything else but yourself

Fals-consensus effect: things we value, opinions we have are much more valuable as the one that
others holds. We tend to interact with people similar/do not touch hard topics that we disagree on

False uniqueness effect: “I’m an excellent driver” very similar to each other, but very unique.
Inconsistent. Among people we feel safe with, we feel better.

Better-than-average effect: the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and
personality traits as superior compared with their average peer.

Optimism:

- Dispositional
o Generalized, relatively stable tendency to expect good outcomes across important
life domains.
- Unrealistic/comparative
o “my chances are higher, than they actually are”
- Defensive
o An unrealistic belief in a positive future and/or optimistic expectancy of positive
outcomes higher than the objective probability would warrant

The perception of others

Social cognition – the study of the process of collecting and assessing information abut others so that
we can draw inferences and form impressions about them

Naive realism – the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really
are.

Categorization – the process by which people categorize themselves and others into differentiated
groups.

Attributions – guessing the hidden cause of behavior e.g. why is he running

- Dispositional attribution – because he loves to

- Situational attribution – because he wants to catch a bus

Heuristic – mental shortcuts used to solve problems or to help explain ambiguous information

Errors and biases in judgements about others:

- Fundamental attribution error

o The tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore
situational factors in judging other’s behavior.
o We tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people
- Self-serving bias
o Any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and
enhance self-esteem, or tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner
 o For example a student who performs well on an exam may ascribe their success to
their excellent perception of intelligence
- Actor-observer bias
o The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal causes, while attributing
our own behavior to external causes
- Overconfidence
- Base-rate fallacy
o The tendency for people to erroneously judge the likelihood of a situation by not
taking into account all relevant data
- Pygmalion effect
o High expectations leading to improving performance in a given area and low
expectations leads to worse
- Halo effect
o If we think highly of a person it tends to spread to other domains
o For example: she’s smart so she’s funny

Attitudes

Assessment of ourselves, other people, ideas, and objects in our world

Theory of planned behavior:

Self-perception theory – posist that people determine their attitudes and preferences by interpreting
the meaning of their own behavior. “I do therefore I think, therefore I do”

Cognitive dissonance theory (Leon Festinger) - a theory proposing that people have a fundamental
motivation to maintain consistency among elements in their cognitive systems

Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein) – suggests that behavior is determined by
intentions, attitudes (beliefs about a behavior), and subjective norms (beliefs about other’s attitudes
toward a behavior)

Persuasion

Persuasive communication – information that is intended to change or bolster a person’s attitude or

course of action and is presented in written, audio, visual, or audiovisual form.

The communication model of persuasion

Strategies of persuasion:

- Low-balling
o A persuasion tactic in which an item is initially offered at a lower price that one
expects in order to get the buyer to commit, then, the price is suddenly increased
- Foot-in-the-door
o Persuasion tactic that starts with a modest request, then follows up later with a
larger request, in order to increase the chances of succeeding with the larger request
- Door-in-the-face
o Making a large, unreasonable request first, followed by a smaller, more acceptable
one
o The idea is that the contrast between the two request makes the second one seem
more reasonable and appealing, increasing the likelihood of compliance
- Social proof
o A phenomenon where people follow and copy the actions of other is order to display
accepted or correct behavior, based on the idea of normative social influence
- Reciprocity
o A social norm where any positive action is responded to with a similar or equal
positive action
o In sales, “you have to give to get” refers to the reciprocity law
- Perceptual contrast
o A skillful copywriter can alter the way a prospective buyer perceives a product or
service, even though there’s been no actual change to the offer

Group influence

What is a group? – a group has two or more people who interact and influences one another (Shaw,
1981)

Social facilitation (Norman Triplett) – strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) response in the
presence of others
Mere presence effect – the mere presence of others produces some arousal hinting an innate social
arousal mechanism.

Social loafing – the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a
common goal than when they are individually accountable

Deindividuation – when do people lose their sense of

self in a group

Deindividuation has faced some controversies – is it

real? Or is it just conformity?

- Normative influence
- Informational influence

Group polarization – group-produced enhancement of

member’s preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split
within the group

Social comparison – evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others.

- We are most persuaded by people in our “reference groups” – groups we identify with

Pluralistic ignorance – a false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how
they are responding

Groupthink – “the model of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so
dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of
action.” – Irving Janis (1971)

Prejudice

Stereotype (cognition) – a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people

- Sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, resistant to new information

Prejudice (cognition) – preconceived negative judgement

Discrimination (behavior) – unjustified negative behavior towards a group or its members

Social identity theory (Turner and Tajfel):

- We categorize: we find it useful to put people, ourselves into categories – labels

- We identify: we associate ourselves with certain groups (ingroups); gain self-esteem doing so
- We compare: we contrast or groups with other groups (outgroups), with a favorable bias
toward our own group

Ingroup bias:

- The group definition of who you are – your race, religion, gender, academic major – implies a
definition of who you are not
- The circle that includes “us” (the ingroup) excludes “them” (the outgroup)
- Thus, a mere experience of being formed into groups may promote ingroup bias
- Due to human quest for a positive self-concept
- Overestimating the lack of division in the outgroup
Minimal group paradigm – it is best know as a method for investigating the minimal conditions
required for discrimination to occur between groups

Attribution errors:

- Fundamental attribution error (Lee Ross)

o Cognitive attribution bias where observers underemphasize situational and
environmental factors for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing
dispositional or personality factors
o Observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality (e.g. he is
late because he’s selfish) and underattribute them to the situation or context (e.g. he
is late because of the traffics)
- Just-world phenomenon (Linda Carli, 1999)
o Cognitive bias that assumes that “people get what they deserve” – that actions will
necessarily have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor.
o For example, the assumptions that noble actions will eventually be rewarded and evil
actions will eventually be punished full under the hypothesis

Realistic conflict theory:

1. Initial situation  commonly desired, scarce resource

2. Conflict  two or more groups engaged in a competition over scarce resource
3. Prejudice  mutual, negative attitudes as a result of an ongoing conflict

Aggression

Any behavior, whether physical or verbal, that is carried out with the intent to harm another person

- Intention to harm
- Action to harm
- Person to harm (who is motivated to avoid it)

Types of aggression:

1. Instrumental
a. When harm is a mean towards other ends
2. Hostile
a. When harm is an end in itself
3. Relational
 a. aimed at damaging the relationship

Historical theories and aggression:

- William James – functionalism, evolutionism, instinct

- Sigmund Freud – Thanatos drive, displacement
- Konrad Lorenz – etology, instinct, imprint
- John B. Watson – social conditioning, environment, behaviorism

Frustration-aggression theory (Dollard, Miller):

Experiencing obstacle in fulfilling your needs  feeling of frustration  aggression

Causes of aggression:

- Dispositional causes
o What is about us that may cause violence?
- Situational causes
o What is about the circumstances that may cause violence

Prosociality

Prosocial behavior – any act we willingly take, that is meant to help others

- Intention of helping
- Action of helping
- Person/people to help

Altruistic behavior – any act we willingly take, that is meant to help others and for which we expect
no reward or acknowledgement

- Intention of helping
- Action of helping
- Person/people to help
- No reward

Evolutionary explanations of prosociality:

1. Kin selection
a. Natural selection favors a trait due to its positive effects on the reproductive success
of an organism’s relatives
b. By helping others, we are helping our genes
2. Reciprocity
a. By helping others, we are gaining future help for ourselves

Negative state relief:

Observing someone in need  experiencing negative emotions  deciding to help  relieving the
unpleasant emotions

Social exchange theory:

Expected benefits of helping – expected costs of helping = decision to help/not to help

Empathy-altruism hypothesis:

Expected benefits of helping > expected costs of helping = decision to help

Feeling empathy towards someone in need  decision to help

Psychology of polarization

Polarization in physics – the process or phenomenon in which the waves of light or other
electromagnetic radiation are restricted to certain directions of vibration, usually specified in terms of
the electric field vector

Polarization in psychology – the act of separating or making people separate into two groups with
completely opposite opinions

Affective polarization – subsets of a population adopt increasingly dissimilar attitudes toward parties
and party members

Ideological polarization – subsets of a population adopt increasingly dissimilar attitudes toward

ideologies and policies

The reason behind polarization:

Interactionist model of polarization:

Partisan bias – general tendency for people to think or act in ways that unwittingly favor their own
political group or cast their own ideologically based beliefs in a favorable light
Social science and real-life outcomes

Top choices were psychologists and public health experts.

Q3: „Imagine that you want to get a good idea about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect human
behavior and society in the long-term. Who would you want to ask? Pick your top three, ranking
them in order”

All scientists, except for political scientists were trusted more than the „average American”.
Politicians were trusted less than the „average American”.

Why scientists fail to predict the outcomes of events like global pandemic?

1. Psychologist have little to training in prediction-oriented designs and models

2. Psychological scientists might be able to form narrow “if, then” predictions, but not
necessarily the largest scale predictions about the outcomes of one-in-a-century event
3. Psychologist might spent not enough time elaborating and testing theories, but rather jump
from one super-specific phenomenon to another
4. Psychologists might not spend enough time studying actual behavior, focusing of artificial
experiments and self-reports

Reproducibility crisis in psychology and other disciplines

Why is there a reproducibility crisis?

1. Science as a treasure hunt

a. A single discovery is an end in itself
b. The discovery is unquestionable
c. Discovery is a source of individual prestige
d. Lack of discovery is worthless
2. Publication bias
3. Garden of forking paths/researcher’s degree of freedom
a. The typically-invisible decision tree traversed during operationalization and statistical
analysis given that there is a one-to-many mapping from scientific to statistical
hypotheses
4. Insufficient statistical power to detect small effects

Science as an attempt to map an underground world

- A single discovery is a minor addition to the total picture

- A single discovery is an approximation and subject to correction
- A single discovery serves to create a hostilic picture
- Lack of discovery can be as valuable as a discovery
Credibility revolution in psychology

Open science practices as a change in the way science is practiced

- Credibility revolution  transparency

- 21 word solution
o We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusion (if any), all
manipulations, and all measures in the study
- Open sharing of:
o Data bases
o Study materials
o Analyses
o Code
- Preregistration
o Specifically all hypotheses and methodological choices in writing prior to data
collection
 Reduces RDoF
 Can’t p-hack
 Can’t HARK
- Multiverse analysis
o Conduct multiple analyses (even every possible analysis) and assess whether the
results depend on the analyses chosen
- Register reports
o Traditional publishing

o Registered reports