Social Psychology - Baron and Branscombe - 14th edition - BulletPoints

What is the science of social psychology? - BulletPoints 1

• Social psychology is the aspect of psychology that tries to explain the causes of behavior and cognition of individuals in social situations in a scientific way.

• In social psychology the focus lies on individual behavior, and how this behavior is shaped by many factors. Therefore, it is important to look at the influence of the group, the influence of culture, and the influence of emotions and mood. There has been more attention for factors such as culture and ethnicity, and how these shape individual behavior.

• A main goal of science is the development of basic principles that are accurate, no matter when or where they are being used. Social psychologists don’t develop mathematical formulas, but they do search for the basic principles that form social life. While they acknowledge that cultures differ and that the social world is continually changing, they are looking for basic principles that can be true in different times and cultures.

• Just like in other areas, social psychology aims not only to describe processes, but also to explain phenomena. To give explanations, theories are being formed. Theories are outlines of possible explanations for phenomena or processes.

• Social psychologists are not keen to tell the real goal of an examination to participants, because this can influence the behavior of the participants. This is called deception.

How do we think about the social world? - BulletPoints 2

• The social cognition is an important field of research of social psychology. Social cognition is the way we interpret, analyze, save and use information about the social world. We try to do this in the most efficient way, because our cognitive capacities are restricted. The most important aspects of social cognition are covered in this chapter.

• Heuristics are simple rules of thumb which we use to solve problems, make fast and efficient decisions, give answers to questions, or make conclusions.

• In social psychology, schemas are cognitive structures or frameworks that people have developed about a certain theme. Schemas are based on previous experiences, and help organizing large amounts of social information. When schemas are formed, they are persistent, they have a big influence on social thinking, and are not necessarily right.

• While we think we are very rational and logical, our social cognition falls short. We make many mistakes in our attempts to understand the social world. This is because we face different kinds of tendencies.

• There is a complex relation between our feelings and mood and our cognition (the way we process, store and retrieve social information). Our emotions influence our thinking, and the other way around.

What are important research findings about social perception? - BulletPoints 3

• Social perception is the process of observing others to gain insight in the motives of others. In this process, a lot of mistakes are made, because we can’t read minds and have to make conclusions based on appearance and openly behavior.

• To find out what the real feelings and thoughts of a person are, it is wise to pay attention to nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is the communication between people in which they use the unspoken language of facial expressions, eye contact and body language.

• Knowledge about the mood of a person is useful information. The characteristics and intents behind the behavior are also important to know. Attribution is the attempt to identify the causes of the behavior of others, and to form an image about his or her traits and dispositions.

• Most people believe that a first impression is the most important one, because it will stick the longest. Research to impression formation (this is the process in which we from an impression about others) shows that first impression is indeed important. In the classical research from Asch to impression formation, it is shown that the impression of others is more than just an addition of their traits.

What influences the Self, and how is the Self influenced? - BulletPoints 4

• There has been a lot of research of the Self, the personal identity. How we think about ourselves influences not only our choices and behavior, but also how we see others and interact with others.

• Everyone has to present themselves in different situations, in front of different people. We can take different roles in different context. Therefore, we have to make a choice about what, how and how much we want to show of ourselves.

• This chapter examines ways in which people gain knowledge about themselves. The first way is the direct analysis of ourselves, the second way is thinking about how other people see us.

• Individuals describe themselves in different ways, depending on where they are at a certain moment. Our personal identity consists of a description of ourselves as an individual. Our social identity consists of a description of ourselves as members of certain social groups. These two identities are on the personal-social-identity continuum.

• According to the social comparison theory by Festinger, we use others as a comparison to evaluate ourselves on many domains and attributes. How we feel ourselves, and how we think about ourselves, depends on the standard with which we compare ourselves.

• Self-esteem is the attitude we have to ourselves. We can have a more or less positive or negative attitude about ourselves. Self-esteem is influenced by specific situations.

• The amount of self-esteem, depends partially on the explanation you give for achieving (or not achieving) certain goals. Hiding the own identity can have many consequences for the rate of self-esteem.

What is the role of attitudes in social psychology? - BulletPoints 5

• In social psychology, attitude is the evaluation of different aspects of the social world. Attitudes can be positive or negative, but also a mix of both. Ambivalent attitudes are easier to influence than clear positive or negative attitudes. Strong attitudes are better forecasters of behavior.

• Almost all psychologists believe that attitudes are learned. We develop attitudes for example in situations where we interact with others or observe their behavior. The development often takes place in different processes of social learning.

• Having attitudes doesn’t mean that they reflect in behavior. Hereby plays social context a very important role. Research focusses on the factors that determine when attitudes influence behavior, and why this influence takes place.

• To examine how attitudes give direction to behavior, it is important to make a distinction between behavior based on argumentation and behavior based on spontaneity.

• Persuasion is the effort we make to change other people’s attitudes by using different messages. There are different factors that determine if persuasion is successful.

• Some people are easier persuaded than others. This difference lies in a combination of different factors that determines our ability to persuasion.

• Cognitive dissonance is the emotional state that occurs when someone experiences inconsistency between two or more attitudes or when the behavior doesn’t stroke with the attitudes. We try to reduce inconsistency because we find it uncomfortable.

What is the relation between stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination? - BulletPoints 6

• Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination are terms that are often used in the wrong way. Social psychologists try to make a clear distinction between the terms.

• Stereotypes are often used as cognitive schemas, and work like a theory. The social information that is relevant for an active stereotype is often faster processed and remembered, than information that is not related to the stereotype. In this way, cognitive effort is reduced.

• Prejudice is the affective component of attitudes in regards to the social group. This is because people believe that groups have an underlying essence. The essence is often a biologically based characteristic that is used to distinguish groups.

• Discrimination are striking, mostly negative, behaviors aimed at members of a different social group. Having prejudice doesn’t mean that it is reflected in discrimination.

• Social psychologists think that prejudice doesn’t have to be inevitable. It can be reduced by using different techniques.

How does liking, love and other close relationships work? - BulletPoints 7

• Interpersonal attraction consists of the positive or negative attitudes that we develop in regards to different people. These evaluations can be put on a dimension of ‘liking someone’ and ‘not liking someone’.

• Our first reactions about liking a person are partially influenced by internal sources.

• Physical proximity, like living next to each other or sitting next to each other in class, is an external factor in which a first meeting is often based. This often results in attraction.

• Next to the above explained factors, there are other important factors that are expressed in interaction. These factors are for example the similarity we have in relation to other people, and the rate in which others like us.

• Relations have an important role in our lives. The most important and close relationships are the relationship with our spouse or lover, the relationship with our family, and close friendships.

What are the causes and effects of social influence? - BulletPoints 8

• Important subjects that are studied by social psychologists, have to do with social influence. Social influence are the attempts of one or more individuals to change the attitudes, beliefs, points of view or behavior of one or more other individuals.

• People have the tendency to adapt. Conformity is an aspect of social influence in which people change their attitudes or behavior to adapt to the existing social norms. A social norm is a rule that states how people should act in specific situations. Mostly, a social norm is very clearly stated. Social norms can be explicit as well as implicit.

• Compliance is an aspect of social influence in which one person gives direct requests to another person, in the hope of receiving a positive answer to the request.

• Obedience is another form of social influence. Obedience means that one or more individuals demand of others to behave in a certain way, and directly suffice to that demand. Obedience is used less than conformity or compliance, because people prefer to use the nicer methods.

• The previous described all kinds of intentional social influence. However, there is also not-intentional social influence. This means that a person doesn’t intent to exert social influence. This kind of social influence happens a lot.

Which factors are important in prosocial behavior? - BulletPoints 9

• Prosocial behavior is behavior that is helpful and in favor of other people. The behavior doesn’t have any benefits for the person who is doing it, and can even have a certain risk. Prosocial behavior shouldn’t be confused with altruism. Altruism is behavior that is caused by non-selfish commitment to the well-being of others.

• To investigate the specific factors that increase or decrease the tendency to perform prosocial behavior, we should first look at the underlying motives of prosocial behavior.

• People react differently on an emergency. One person will come to the rescue, another won’t. Social psychologists try to explain the enormous differences that can be found between people in this aspect.

• There are different factors that have an effect on the tendency of people to perform prosocial behavior and help others. These factors can be internal as well as external.

• Crowdfunding is the process in which entrepreneurs ask for money to set up or maintain a small business. The investors get nothing in return, except for a small reward for example.

• Whilst is sounds logical to put aggression and prosocial behavior like helping against each other, research shows that this is not necessarily the case. Motives for helping and aggression can for example be quite similar. Also, the specific actions in prosocial behavior and aggression can resemble more than you would think in advance. Third, the effects of aggression and prosocial behavior are sometimes similar. At last, research shows that both prosocial and aggressive behavior are used by individuals that want to increase their status.

What are the origin and causes of aggression? - BulletPoints 10

• Aggression is behavior aimed at another person, with the intent to hurt that certain person. This chapter shows causes of aggression on different levels (e.g. biological and emotional), gives attention to bullying, and investigates how aggression can be controlled.

• There are different theoretical perspectives about aggression. These are – sometimes contrasting – insights about the origin and causes. Expressions of violence and aggression are never caused by a single factor; it is often the combination of factors.

• There are different factors that play a role in human aggression. Aggressive behavior can be caused by social, cultural, personal and situational factors.

• Bullying is a phenomenon that happens very often. In different age groups there is a big chance that people are bullied, or have bullied someone themselves. There is proof about why bullying exists, who will be the victims and the bullies, the effects of bullying, and how it can be reduced.

• Aggression is not a form of behavior that can never be changed. It exists because of a complex cooperation between cognitions, personal traits, and situational factors. If intervention is set on the interaction between all those factors, aggression can be prevented or controlled.

What are the consequences of being part of a group? - BulletPoints 11

• People are members of many different groups. Some groups are formally organized; others are more informal. In these groups, communication is very important. A cohesive group is characterized by strong bonds between the different group members.

• A group consists of people who believe that they are part of a coherent unit that is different than another group. In common-bound groups, the members are connected to each other as people. In common-identity groups, members are connected to each other through the category as a whole. Groups also differ in the extent of entitativity, or how much they are looked at as a cohesive unit.

• People are strongly influenced by just the presence of other people. These effects occur in different forms, like effects on our performance and effects that occur whilst being in a very large crowd.

• Cooperation is helping each other in a mutual way, through which both sides experience benefits. A conflict happens when people believe that other people perform actions that don’t stroke with the communal interests. If there is social embeddedness, all group members are well aware of the reputation of other parties involved. Cooperation from a distance can make embeddedness more difficult in some situations.

• When speaking of perceived justice, two questions are important. The first question is what makes people have the feeling that they are treated unfairly. The second question is what people do to deal with this perceived unfairness.

• Decision-making is choosing an alternative from many different alternatives. In this process, it is important to pay attention to the way in which these decisions are taken, to how decision-making by groups differs from decision-making by individuals, and what can cause groups to make a bad decision.

• Leadership is influencing others in a group by determining the course and encouraging the group to perform activities that contribute to the goals in the determined course. Research focusses on why some individuals become leaders and others don’t, when non-traditional leaders occur most, and how performance in the group is affected by leadership.

How do you deal with adversity and achieve a happy life? - BulletPoints 12

• Life isn’t always easy; different kinds of adversity can occur. This chapter looks at how adversity can be overcome, and how people make sure they have a happy life.

• Our reactions on events that threaten our physical and psychological well-being, are called stress. It seems impossible to completely prevent stress in a human life, but there has been a lot of research on the causes of stress and ways in which you can deal with it.

• Social groups can deal with stress by physical exercise, social identification, and other coping mechanisms. Furthermore, it is important to accept ourselves for who we are when dealing with stress.

• In real life, it is very hard to achieve the system of justice to be fair and honest. To achieve this in the future, we first have to be aware of the errors that are now in our justice system, according to scientists.

• Happiness in life consists of different, related factors. The extent in which these factors are present in our lives, determines the amount of happiness we experience.