Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Kurt Lewin, Fundamental Attribution Error, Behaviorism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Erin Heerey

Document Summary

Social influence is at the heart of social psychology. Direct persuasion, like ads or a political campaign. Social influence includes our thoughts, feelings, and overt acts, extends past behavior. We are influenced by others" presence, and just the mere thought of them. Social psychology can be defined as 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. Social psychology is not concerned with objective social situations, but with how people are influenced by the construal of their social environment. Construal: the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world. Lee ross (israeli-palestinian affairs) refers to a special type of construal known as "na ve realism," the conviction we all have that we see things "as they really are. " We assume that other reasonable people see things the same way we do. Social psychology is an empirical, experiment based science.