Transcript Social Psychology

Social Psychology
(Pp 3-14)
Elliot Aronson
University of California, Santa Cruz
Timothy D. Wilson
University of Virginia
Robin M. Akert
Wellesley College
slides by Travis Langley
Henderson State University
6th edition
Chapter 1
Introducing Social
Psychology
“The head monkey at Paris puts on
a traveller's cap, and all the
monkeys in America do the same.”
–Henry David Thoreau
WHAT IS SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY?
Social psychology
The scientific study of the way in which
people's thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are influenced by the real or
imagined presence of other people.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
WHAT IS SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY?
• At the very heart of social psychology is the
phenomenon of social influence:
We are all influenced by other people.
Social Influence
The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other
people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior.
• Social psychologists are interested in
understanding how and why the social
environment shapes the thoughts and feelings
of the individual.
The Power of Social
Interpretation
To understand social influence it is more
important to understand how people
perceive and interpret the social world
than it is to understand that world
objectively.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
The Power of Social
Interpretation
The term "construal" refers to the world as it
is interpreted by the individual.
Given the importance placed on the way
people interpret the social world, social
psychologists pay special attention to the
origins of these interpretations.
Example:
Consider what happens in a murder trial.
• Even when the prosecution presents compelling evidence,
these construals rest on a variety of events and perceptions
that often bear no objective relevant evidence.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Example:
Consider what happens in a murder trial.
• Even when the prosecution presents compelling evidence,
these construals rest on a variety of events and perceptions
that often bear no objective relevant evidence.
• Did a key witness
hesitate before
answering, suggesting
to some jurors that
she might not be
certain of her data?
• Or did some jurors
consider the witness
too remote, arrogant,
certain of herself?
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
A special kind of construal is what Lee
Ross calls “naïve realism.”
Naïve Realism
The conviction all of us have that we
perceive things “as they really are.”
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
A special kind of construal is what Lee
Ross calls “naïve realism.”
Naïve Realism
The conviction all of us have that we
perceive things “as they really are.”
Example:
Although both Israelis and Palestinians
understand intellectually that the other
side perceives the issues differently,
both sides resist compromise, fearing
that their “biased” opponent will benefit
more than they.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Another distinctive feature of social psychology
is that it is an experimentally based science.
As scientists, our goal is to find objective answers to
a wide array of important questions:
• What are the factors that cause aggression?
• How might we reduce prejudice?
• What variables cause two people to like or love
each other?
• Why do certain kinds of political advertisements
work better than others?
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
How Else Can We Understand
Social Influence?
 Social psychologists approach the
understanding of social influence
differently than philosophers, journalists,
or the lay person.
 Social psychologists develop
explanations of social influence through
experiments in which the variables being
studied are carefully controlled.
How Else Can We Understand
Social Influence?
Why do people behave the way they do?
• One way to answer this question might be
simply to ask them.
• The problem with this approach is that
people are not always aware of the
origins of their own responses and
feelings.
Folk Wisdom
Although a great deal can be learned from
“common sense” knowledge, there is at least
one problem with relying entirely on such
sources: They frequently disagree with one
another, and there is no easy way of
determining which of them is correct.
• Are we to believe that “out of sight is out of
mind” or that “absence makes the heart grow
fonder”?
• Which is true, that “haste makes waste” or that
“he who hesitates is lost”?
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Philosophy
• Throughout history, philosophy has been a
major source of insight about human nature.
• The creativity and analytical thinking of
philosophers are a major part of the foundation
of contemporary psychology.
• But what happens when
philosophers disagree?
• Social psychologists address
many of the same questions
that philosophers address,
but we attempt to answer
them scientifically.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
One of the tasks of the social psychologist
is to make educated guesses (called
hypotheses) about the specific situations
under which one outcome or the other
would occur.
• Just as a physicist performs experiments
to test hypotheses about the nature of
the physical world, the social
psychologist performs experiments to
test hypotheses about the nature of the
social world.
• The next task is to design well-controlled
experiments sophisticated enough to
tease out the situations that would result
in one or another outcome.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Common Sense vs Scientific Research
Social Psychology Quiz
Social Psychology Compared
with Personality Psychology
• When trying to explain
social behavior—how an
individual act within a
social context (in relation
to others)--personality
psychologists explain the
behavior in terms of the
person's individual
character traits.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
Social Psychology Compared
with Personality Psychology
• While social psychologists
would agree that
personalities do vary, they
explain social behavior in
terms of the power of the
social situation (as it is
construed by the individual)
to shape how one acts.
Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
(1) Do you often make contributions to class discussions in
small seminars?
(2) Are you more of a talker than a listener on a first date?
(3) Do you regularly strike up conversations with strangers
on buses or airplanes?
(4) Are you typically lively and outgoing at a party?
(5) Are you typically lively and outgoing with your close
friends?
Raise your hand if you responded
“yes” or “no” to
ALL OF THE QUESTIONS
PURPOSE OF EXERCISE:
To illustrate that personality traits do not account
for all of the variance in social behavior
Since few students invariably will raise their hand.
discuss the relative contributions of traits versus
situational factors to behavior.
Social Psychology Compared
with Sociology
• Sociologists are more concerned with why a
particular society or group within a society
produces behavior (e.g., aggression) in its
members.
• The major difference is that sociology, rather
than focusing on the psychology of the
individual, looks toward society at large.
Social Psychology Compared
with Other Social Sciences
The difference between social psychology and
other social sciences in level of analysis
reflects another difference between the
disciplines: what they are trying to explain.
• Other social sciences are more concerned with
broad social, economic, political, and historical
factors that influence events in a given society.
• For the social psychologist, the level of analysis
is the individual in the context of a social
situation.
The End