PSYCH 230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Gestalt Psychology, Fundamental Attribution Error, Social Influence

• School: UMass Boston
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 230
• Professor: Marcus Patterson

Document Summary

What is social psychology: at the heart of social psychology is social influence. Social influence: the effect that the words, actions or mere precense of other people, effects behavior. Philosophy: address many of the same questions, but social psychology explores them scientifically. Social psychology vs. common sense: common sense= folk wisdom. Social psychologists predict behavior by forming hypotheses and testing them scientifically. Social psychology: the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. Sociology: broad/ group level of analysis; focuses on society at large. Underestimating the power of social influence: when we underestimate the power of social influence, we gain a sense of false security, oversimplify complex situations, decrease our understanding of the the causes. Behaviorism: school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior, one need consider only reinforcing effects of the environment: chooses not to deal with cognition, thinking and feeling; thinks these concepts are too vague.