PSYC 2120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Fritz Heider, Dependent And Independent Variables, Construct Validity
16 Oct 2018
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Social psychology: scientific study of the causes and consequences of people"s thoughts, feelings and actions regarding themselves and other people. Argued that social behavior is the result of the same evolutionary process that produce physical characteristics such as body size and eye colour. Felt that societies evolve just as organisms do. Freud claimed human behaviour was directed by aggressive and sexual drives. Aggressive behavior; critical for warding off predators and competing for resources. Sexual behavior; critical for reproducing and perpetuating genes. Freud proposed that human beings" desires for sex and aggression are kept unconscious until they are transformed in ways that allow them to be consciously expressed in a socially acceptable fashion. John watson: only overt behavior can be directly observed and measured; feelings, thoughts, wishes are all unobservable fictions. Human behavior is determined by nature of experiences in response to the demands of the environment. Behaviors followed by desirable outcomes would be likely to reoccur, undesirable outcomes will not.
