What is Social Psychology?
What are the two questions that will continuously show up throughout the class?
What do you notice?
This focuses on describing human behavior
What do you wonder?
This focuses on explaining human behavior
What are the two types of variables? What does it mean to operationalize?
a characteristic of a person or thing that can have different possible states
independent variable (IV) → what we manipulate
dependent variable (DV) → what we measure
how can we measure perceptions of the possible state?
What is the sociometer theory? What is it similar to?
The sociometer theory of self-esteem is where self-esteem is a gauge of social acceptance
Gas gauge
What are the products of evolution?
Adaptations - Adaptations are created by selection (both natural and sexual) traits that exist now because they increased reproduction of genes in the past
Byproducts - Features that exist because they are tied to an adaptation & are non-functional
Noise - Completely random features that aren’t functional or linked to an adaptation
Do most mammals have committed long-term relationships?
NO
What is social psychology and what does it do?
Scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by other people.
What does it do?
1. Describes and explains human social cognition and behavior
List all the steps in the research process.
Form a hypothesis
Identify variables
Operationalize variables
Choose a method of data collection
Collect and Analyze data
Draw conclusions
Communicate your research
What is self presentation? What is the worst form?
The process through which we try to control the impressions people form of us
Humblebrgagging
What are the four forces of evolution that biologists talk about?
Mutation
Gene flow
Genetic drift
Selection
What is the difference between small vs. large gametes?
Small gametes are energetically cheaper, however with large gametes, offspring is more likely to survive BUT one cannot make as many
Small gametes are produced by males, and large gametes are produced by females
Describe the Mack & Rock (1998) basketball study.
You are focusing on the basketball and counting the number of times it gets passed by the players in white to the point where you miss the person in the gorilla suit, the curtain changing color, and the player in black leaving the game.
Inattentional blindness → when one fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely due to a lack of attention rather than any vision defects or deficits
There are two types of experimental methods, describe them.
Lab studies - Studies in which every aspect is controlled and people agree to participate
Field studies - Studies that focus more on observing natural behavior, without the awareness of participating in a study
What is the self? How do we know one is self-aware?
a mental representation capturing our view and beliefs about ourselves
Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) Test
What is evolution? Which one of the four questions do we focus on for the evolutionary approach?
Changes in gene frequencies over time due to differences in their rates of replication
function
Describe Clark & Hatfeild’s (1989) study about approaching people on campus.
Both men and women were highly likely to say yes to the date. Women were extremely unlikely to say yes to the “go to bed” invitation while men were more likely to say yes to the invitation over the date one.
What the four perspectives from KNCK and describe them?
Sociocultural - locates causes of social cognition and behavior in group-level factors; People learn local norms (rules about appropriate behavior)
Evolutionary - Locates causes of social cognition and behavior in predispositions that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce (natural selection)
Social learning - locates causes of social cognition and behavior in the individual’s past experiences of reward and punishment [Learning - Direct (it happens to you) & Indirect (you see it happen to others)]
Bandura et al.’s (1961) bobo doll study
Social cognitive - locates causes of social cognition and behavior in people’s subjective interpretations of the social world
What are some of the failures to replicate that we see in social psychology?
Shrinking results - The scientific evidence for many phenomena tends to get weaker over time
Impossible results - Results that claim something that is bizarre
Fraudulent results - Faked data
Engineered results - When researchers make decisions about how to collect and analyze data (whether to collect more data, which outliers to exclude, which measures to analyze, which statistics to use) while the data is being analyzed potentially causing it to be compromised since they may (AKA p-hacking)
What is the Social Comparison Theory? Compare SCT to ECT.
By comparing ourselves to others, we can learn about ourselves - our abilities, beliefs, attitudes
Social comparison theory (SCT) suggests that other people’s positive social media posts should negatively affect our emotions
Emotional contagion theory (ECT) suggests that other people’s positive social media posts should positively affect our emotions
What are adaptive problems?
A problem posed by the (physical or social) environment that, if solved, would increase reproduction (Why did this behavior evolve in this species? What if any function does this behavior serve?)
What is Bateman’s principle?
Male reproductive success increases directly with mating success, while female reproductive success is more limited
Benefits of short-term mating are higher for males, while the costs of short-term mating are lower for males
Men, on average, should be more interested in short-term mating than women
What are the four questions (not really questions) that Niko Tinbergen says when you are asking the question “why humans do x?” Describe them.
Mechanism - How does it work? What are the immediate causal processes that make this behavior happen?
Phylogeny - What is the exact evolutionary history of this behavior? When did it originate? How did it spread from there?
Function - Why did this behavior evolve (in this species)? What, if any, function does this behavior serve?
Ontogeny - How does it develop? How does this behavior develop over the course of an individual’s lifetime?
List and explain the five major types of descriptive methods.
Naturalistic observation
Definition: observing (and sometimes quantifying) behavior as it unfolds in its natural setting
One problem: observer bias
Case study
Definition: intensive examination of a single person, group, or event/phenomenon
One problem: low generalizability
Archival studies
Definition: researchers can also examine archives, or public records of social behaviors
Advantages:
Easy access to large amounts of pre-recorded data
High generalizability
Disadvantages:
Don’t get to decide what you study (have to study what they focused on)
Many interesting social behaviors are never recorded
Surveys
Definition: Researchers ask people about their thoughts, feelings, opinions, & behaviors
One problem: social desirability bias
Established psychological tests
Definition: instruments for assessing an individual’s abilities, cognitions, and motivations
Example: The Big 5 (personality dimensions) and correlation
What are the two types of environment? Is there a link between the situation and the person?
Social & physical
Different situations or environments can attract some people (but not others)
These people create their own norms in that place
What are the two types of selection? Describe them.
natural selection
Avoid predators
Hunt prey
Fight infections
Etc.
Sexual selection
Increase in gene frequency due to effects on mating success
Intersexual selection
Reproductive success as a function of ability to attract mates
Intrasexual competition
Reproductive success as a function of ability to win competitions for mates
Compare and contrast the sexual strategies theory in regards to long term mating and short term mating.
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