PSYB10H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Rotten Apples, Cognitive Psychology, Personality Psychology
Chapter 1: An Invitation to Social Psychology
• Hooseualit ad etal illess used to e see as a theat ut is’t aoe--social
psychology is interested in knowing why
• Social psychologists try to establish a scientific basis for understanding human behaviour
from the folk wisdoms
• Social psychology is the scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of
individuals in social situations
o Why are some people inclined to stereotype certain groups?
o Why do people risk their lives to save others?
• There was footage of American soldiers torturing Arabs in Iraq
o People assued the soldies ho did this ee just otte apples
▪ Exceptions to a rule of common decency prevailing in the military and the
general population
o Social psychologists did not make this assumption
▪ They picked people from Stanford University who were known to have
good character and mental health
▪ Chose people to be prisoners and guards
▪ Right away, guards turned to verbal abuse and physical humiliation
▪ Study was shortened from 14 days and just ended in 6 because the
guards got so power hungry and started torturing them
o People suggest that guards in Iraq were just following orders: but why?
▪ Social psychologists try to find answers to this, they study situations in
which people exert influence over one another, as well as the ways
people respond to influence attempts of various kinds
▪ Also interested in how people make sense of their world
• Social psychology research regularly influences government policy
Comparing Social Psychology with Related Disciplines
• Personality psychology
o Emphasizes individual differences in behaviour rather than the social situation
o Try to find consistent pattern in the way a person behaves across situations--an
idiidual’s positio o a tait diesio
o Social psychologists would examine the general situation in Iraq, personality
would look at whether certain traits or dispositions (ie sadism or hostility) would
predict cruel behaviour across a range of situations
• Cognitive psychology
o The study of how people perceive, think about, and remember aspects of the
world
o Social is diff primarily in that topics they study are usually social, like social
behaviour and perceptions of other people
▪ Cognitive would be more likely to study categorization processes or
memory for words or objects
• Sociology
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o Study of behaviour of people in the aggregate
o Study institutions, subgroups, bureaucracies, mass movements, and changes in
the demographic characteristics of populations
o Social psychologists sometimes do sociological work themselves, although they
are likely to bring interest to indv behaviour to the study of aggregates
o Sociologist might study how economic or governmental policy influences
marriage and divorce rates, whereas social psychologist would be more likely to
study why individuals fall in love, get married, and sometimes get divorced
The Power of the Situation
• Arendt called her vies aout Nazi Gea aalit of eil; she asiall said that
the ee’t sadisti ostes, ut athe just folloig odes
• Main situational influences on our behaviour are the actions of other people
o Can produce drastic changes in our beliefs and behaviour not by what they tell
us explicitly but also by modelling through their actions what they think we
should do
Milgram Experiment
• Teacher and learner
• Administer shocks every time learner messed up (learner was an actor)
• Shock levels increased etc
• 80% of participants kept going despite the learner screaming and growing
• 62.5% went all the way to the highest voltage
• Why did they do that?
o “ituatio as effetie i gettig the to do hat the oall ould’t
Seminarians as Samaritans
• Psychologists asked seminarian to go to another building to deliver a short sermon, told
them which route to take
• Some were told they had plenty of time, some were told they were already late and
should hurry
• On the way, they would see a man coughing and groaning, clearly needing help
• Tus out, eligio does’t atte to see ho ould help o ot
• If they were in a hurry or not was a big predictor
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• Ppl governed by situational factors (are they pressures) more than they assume
o Internal factors (personality) has less of an effect
• Dispositions are beliefs, personality traits, and abilities (internal factors) that guide
behaviour
o Not always the cause of behaviour, refer to prison guard experiment
• Fundamental attribution error is the failure to recognize the importance of situational
influences on behaviour, together with the tendency to overemphasize the importance
of dispositions
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