Social Psychology
Definition
Social psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with how we have social interactions and social thoughts, what we think of ourselves, what we think about other people, how we behave in groups, how we think about different groups, and so on.
One very cool finding is that we are often influenced by factors outside of our control. Sometimes, it's called social priming. So, for instance, in one classic study, it turns out that if you're asked to judge a candidate for a job and you're holding warm coffee in your hands as you do it, you're slightly more likely to judge the candidate as a warm person. While if you're holding cold coffee, you'll judge the candidate as a cold person.
Psychology of Self
The Spotlight Effect
- The phenomena of interest here, is that we tend to think everybody notices us. We tend to think that the spotlight is on us. This was explored in some lovely work by Tom Gilovich and his colleagues.
- For the most part, we're focused on ourselves, and so we think that other people are focused on ourselves, but the truth is that other people tend to be focused on themselves.
- Lake Wobegon effect is based on Garrison Keillor's fictional town, where all the children are above average.
- People tend to believe that they are above average, and this shows up in all sorts of domains. It shows up as when you ask people to rate themselves as students, as teachers etc and it's an interesting question what, why.
- So, one answer is that often when we proceed in life, if we're fortunate we get a lot of feedback, but the feedbacks are often positive. Often we hear good things about our performance in certain domains. Also, we might have a general healthy motivation to feel good about ourselves
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
When we experience internal inconsistency it is unpleasant. We want to reduce that feeling.
- Avoiding inconsistent information.
- Insufficient justification effect
It is supported by a lovely and famous experiment by Leon Festinger. You give people a boring thing to do, and you either pay them very little money, in this case a dollar or a lot of money like $20. Then they have to lie and describe the experiment as exciting to somebody else.
Then, you get them to rate what they thought of the task, and interestingly, the people who got paid a small amount of money rated the task as more enjoyable, than to people getting a lot of money.
The explanation for this has to do with dissonance. You did something bad, you lied. Why did you do it? Well, if you get paid a lot of money, you could say, I wish I had a justification, everything's in accord, I have enough money to make me do it, it made sense. But, if you did it for a little bit of money, that may not sit well with you, and so then you say, ''Well, I must have enjoyed the task, the task was fun, the task was worth doing".
- Benjamin Franklin has another example, his advice on how to make an enemy love you, is surprising and interesting. Go up to the enemy, and ask him or her for a favor, that seems weird. Why would that make them love you, but cognitive dissonance tells a story, which is that they feel obliged to do the favor, they didn't have to explain themselves why did they do a favor for you, and then they'll conclude, they must have liked you.
Group Development Stages and Characteristics
Definitions:
Collective self-esteem
Feelings of self-worth that are based on evaluation of relationships with others and membership in social groups.
Common knowledge effect
The tendency for groups to spend more time discussing information that all members know (shared information) and less time examining information that only a few members know (unshared).
Group cohesion
The solidarity or unity of a group resulting from the development of strong and mutual interpersonal bonds among members and group-level forces that unify the group, such as shared commitment to group goals.
Group polarization
The tendency for members of a deliberating group to move to a more extreme position, with the direction of the shift determined by the majority or average of the members’ predeliberation preferences.
Prejudice, Discrimination and Stereotyping Among Groups.
Blatant biases
Blatant biases are conscious beliefs, feelings, and behavior that people are perfectly willing to admit, are mostly hostile, and openly favor their own group.
Prejudice
Prejudice is an evaluation or emotion toward people merely based on their group membership.
Self-categorization theory
Self-categorization theory develops social identity theory’s point that people categorize themselves, along with each other into groups, favoring their own group.
Social dominance orientation
Social dominance orientation (SDO) describes a belief that group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies and even good, to maintain order and stability.
Social identity theory
Social identity theory notes that people categorize each other into groups, favoring their own group.
Reliability and Validity
Reliability is if you test the same person over time, you should get the same result. For instance, you can determine if you're in test neurology your personality by the date of your birth. This is a highly reliable measure. You're tested over and over again and you'll always get the same results. But it's not a valid measure because it doesn't work. It doesn't actually measure your personality.
The Big 5 Personality Factors
Personality Traits
Machiavellianism
Named after the famous political philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, this trait refers to individuals who manipulate the behavior of others, often through duplicity. Machiavellians are often interested in money and power, and pragmatically use others in this quest.
Need for Achievement
Those high in need for achievement want to accomplish a lot and set high standards of excellence for themselves. They are able to work persistently and hard for distant goals. David McClelland argued that economic growth depends in part on citizens with high need for achievement.
Need for Cognition
People high in need for cognition find it rewarding to understand things, and are willing to use considerable cognitive effort in this quest. Such individuals enjoy learning, and the process of trying to understand new things.
Authoritarianism
Authoritarians believe in strict social hierarchies, in which they are totally obedient to those above them, and expect complete obedience from their subordinates. Rigid in adherence to rules, the authoritarian personality is very uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Narcissism
The narcissistic personality has self-love that is so strong that it results in high levels of vanity, conceit, and selfishness. The narcissistic individual often has problems feeling empathetic toward others and grateful to others.
Self- Esteem
The tendency to evaluate oneself positively. Self-esteem does not imply that one believes that he or she is better than others, only that he or she is a person of worth.
Optimism
The tendency to expect positive outcomes in the future. People who are optimistic expect good things to happen, and indeed they often have more positive outcomes, perhaps because they work harder to achieve them.
Alexithymia
The inability to recognize and label emotions in oneself. The individual also has a difficult time recognizing emotions in others, and often has difficulties in relationships.