01:830:321 Lecture 3: Social+Psychology+01-830-321+Lecture+1

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:321
• Professor: David Wilder

Document Summary

Social psychology: scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to each other social thinking: categories, stereotypes, reasoning social influence: affecting one another social relations: attraction, aggression. Some material in textbook not covered in class and vice versa. In a sense, we are all social psychologists. Main difference: social psychologists apply scientific methods to generate these ideas through: careful observation experimentation use of statistics to help draw conclusions. Behavior observable responses of people: physical actions (external to the person, motor behavior, physiological changes, self-reports (internal, thoughts (cognitions, feelings (affect, self-reports of behavior past actions intentions. Self-report can be false because people lie and because people don"t realize they aren"t accurate. 3 building blocks of all topics in course. ^ these should be consistent, but that"s not always the case. Life: humans are material organisms who act to promote self and genetic survival. Accuracy: humans are thinking organisms who create functional representations of the world.