THE SCIENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER 1
Social psychology: The scientific study of the causes and consequences of people’s thoughts,
feelings, and actions regarding themselves and other people.
FOUR CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
1. Behavior is a joint product of the person and the situation.
➔ Mixture of what the person brings to situation and what situation dictates
➔ Dispositions: consistent preferences, ways of thinking, and behavioral tendencies
that manifest across varying situations and over time.
➔ Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies
2. Behavior depends on a socially constructed view of reality.
➔ Virtually all human thoughts, feelings, and actions involve and are influenced by
other people and thus are social in nature.
➔ Our view of reality is shaped by our connections to others.
➔ Social comparisons
3. Behavior is strongly influenced by our social cognition.
➔ To understand behavior, we must learn how people think about themselves and their
social world.
4. The best way to understand social behavior is to use the scientific method
➔ Scientific method: the process of developing, testing, and refining theories to
understand the determinants of social behavior.
➔ The scientific method offers the best route to accurately understanding social
behavior.
PITFALLS OF INTROSPECTION AND INTUITIVE OBSERVATION
● People have a strong desire to understand the behavior of others, which is influenced by our
cultural knowledge.
● We form causal attributions about why people do what they do and use introspection to gain
insight into why people do what they do.
○ Cultural knowledge: a vast store of information, accumulated within a culture that
explains how the world works and why things happen as they do.
○ Causal attributions: explanations of why an individual engaged in a particular
action.
INTROSPECTION CAN BE MISLEADING
○ People do not always respond honestly.
○ People do not always know the accurate causes of behaviors.
■ A priori causal theories: preexisting theories acquired from culture or
factors that are particularly prominent in conscious attention at the
moment.
INTUITIVE REASONING MAY BE FAULTY
○ Seize and Freeze (Cognitive Misers) - the tendency to avoid expending effort and
cognitive resources when thinking and to prefer seizing on quick and easy answers
to questions.
○ Our inferences often are based on our own unique and limited perspectives and
preexisting expectations.
○ Our reasoning processes may be influenced by confirmation bias - the tendency to
view events and people in ways that fit how we want and expect them to be.
○ The process of observing may change the behavior sought to explain.
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
THE CYCLE OF THEORY AND RESEARCH
❖ Theories lead to hypotheses that are then tested. The outcomes of these tests
influence views and revisions of the theory.
● Theory: An explanation for how and why variables are related to each other
● Hypothesis: An “if-then” statement that follows logically from a theory and specifies how
certain variables should be associated with each other if the theory is correct
● Research: A process whereby scientists observe events, look for patterns, and evaluate
theories proposed to explain those patterns
○ Correlational method: Research in which two or more variables are measured and
compared to determine to what extent, if any, they are associated
■ Correlation does not imply causation.
● Reverse causality problem: correlations tell us nothing about which
of two interrelated variables is the cause and which is the effect.
● Third variable problem: the possibility that two variables may be
correlated but do not exert a causal influence on one another;
instead, both are caused by some additional variable.
○ Experimental method: A study in which a researcher manipulates a variable,
measures possible effects on another variable, and tries to hold other variables
constant
■ Internal validity: A judgment that, for a particular experiment, it is possible
to conclude that the manipulated independent variable caused the change in
the measured dependent variable
■ Experimental Method Allows for Causal Inferences
● Eliminates a causal sequence problem by design.
● Holding other variables constant removes a third-variable problem.
● Random assignment controls for individual differences.
● Experimental and Correlation Research in Concert
○ The correlational method and the experimental method provide
complementary information.
○ When applied together, social psychologists can document the role of
individual differences and situational forces in leading people to behave the
way they do.
THEORY BUILDING
● What Makes a Good Theory?
○ Well-organized facts or observations
○ Clear, logical, and coherent explanations of observations
○ Inspiration and direction for research
○ Generation of new questions
○ Practical application that contributes to solutions of pressing problems and
improvement of life quality
● Assessing Abstract Theories with Concrete Research
○ Developing an operational definition - a specific, concrete method of measuring or
manipulating a conceptual variable.
○ Measuring and manipulating what is intended
■ Construct validity - the degree to which the dependent measure assesses
what it intends to assess or the manipulation manipulates what it intends to
manipulate.
■ Confounds - a variable other than the conceptual variable intended to be
manipulated that may be responsible for the effect on the dependent
variable, making alternative explanations possible.
■ External Validity (the judgment that a research finding can be generalized to
other people, in different settings, at various times) and Field Research
(research that occurs outside the laboratory, for example, in schools, office
buildings, medical clinics, football games, or even in shopping malls or on
street corners)
■ Replications (Direct and Conceptual) - the repetition of a study with
different operationalizations of the crucial variables but yield similar
results.
FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
CHAPTER 2
GENERAL ADAPTATIONS OF THE CULTURAL ANIMAL
BACKGROUND
○ Evolution: Species evolve from common ancestors acquiring different genetic
characteristics due to various environmental demands.
○ Natural selection: Traits that aid survival/reproduction become more common.
■ Reproduction causes variability.
● Mutation - random DNA replication errors.
● Sexual recombination - offspring inherit a mix of parental genes.
■ Animals engage in competition for mating partners and other resources.
■ Animal adaptations improve survival and reproduction, shaping populations.
○ “Fittest” ≠ strongest - fitness depends on the environment.
■ Naturalistic fallacy - assuming biological adaptations are always good.
FOUR DOMAIN-GENERAL ADAPTATIONS THAT SHAPE HUMAN BEHAVIOR
● Domain-specific adaptations - attributes that evolved to meet a particular challenge
but that are not particularly useful when dealing with other types of challenges.
● Domain-general adaptations - attributes that are useful for dealing with various
challenges across different areas of life.
1. Humans are social beings.
● Survival depends on relationships.
● The brain evolved for social sensitivity:
○ Face recognition (fusiform face area)
○ Social exclusion sensitivity
○ Categorization (friend/foe, status/hierarchy)
○ Socialization - learning cultural norms.
2. Humans are intelligent beings.
● Future planning provides control.
● Symbolic thought and language enable communication.
● Self-awareness allows meaning-making.
● Humans have two mental systems
○ Experiential System (automatic) - quick, unconscious
processes.
○ Rational System (controlled) - slow, deliberate thought.
3. Humans are motivated, goal-striving beings.
● Motivation: Directs energy toward/away from outcomes.
○ Varies by strength and direction
○ Needs - necessary for survival/thriving.
○ Goals - desired outcomes to meet needs.
■ Hierarchy of goals - abstract -> concrete.
○ Hedonism - preference for pleasure over pain.
○ Two basic motives:
■ Security - avoiding harm, seeking acceptance
■ Growth - seeking self-expression and progress
4. Humans are emotional beings.
● Emotions drive actions to meet goals/needs.
● External displays communicate internal emotions.
○ Three-Part Emotion Division
■ Background emotion: Mood
● Good mood -> positive outlook and reliance
on existing knowledge
● Bad mood -> negative views and critical
thinking
■ Primary emotions
● Universal
● Involve amygdala and anterior cingulate
cortex
● Distinct facial expressions
■ Secondary emotions
● Variations of the primary emotions
● Include social emotions (e.g., guilt, jealousy)
○ Draw attention to inappropriate
behavior
○ Reinforce appropriate social behavior
○ Help repair disrupted social
relationships
○ How Emotions Influence Cognition
■ Affects attention, memory, and interpretation.
■ Higher-order cognition is dependent on adequate
emotional functioning.
● Cognitive appraisal theory:
○ Primary appraisal - quick good/bad
judgment.
○ Secondary appraisal - leads to a
refinement, a modification, or even a
change in the nature of the emotion
people experience.
CULTURE: THE UNIQUELY HUMAN ADAPTATION
● Culture: Shared beliefs, values, norms, morals, customs, roles, symbols, and rituals. Group
members self-identify as part of a collective.
○ Beliefs: Accepted ideas about some aspect of reality; cultural truisms
○ Attitudes: Preferences shaping good/bad evaluations
○ Values: Guiding principles and shared goals
■ Top-10 Cross-Cultural Values Ranked by Importance
1. Benevolence - Caring for close others; being honest, and responsible.
2. Self-direction - Independence, creativity, autonomy.
3. Universalism - Tolerance, justice, respect for people/nature.
4. Security - Stability, trust, and social order.
5. Conformity - Self-discipline, politeness, obedience.
6. Achievement - Success through competence and ambition.
7. Hedonism - Pleasure and enjoyment of life.
8. Stimulation - Excitement, novelty, and challenge.
9. Tradition - Respect for customs, humility, devoutness.
10.Power - Status, dominance, and control over resources.
○ Norms: Shared expectations for behavior
○ Morals: Beliefs about right/wrong
■ Community morals - social role obligations, respect for authority, and
loyalty to the group.
■ Autonomy morals - individual rights and freedoms.
■ Divinity morals - sacred, purity-based beliefs.
○ Customs: Specific patterns or styles of dress, speech, and behavior, deemed
appropriate in a particular context within a given culture
○ Social roles: Defined positions with responsibilities
○ Cultural symbols: Represent cultural beliefs/values
○ Rituals: Repeated actions marking important transitions
● Culture as Creative Adaptation
○ Cultural Evolution: Ideas/behaviors develop to support societal success.
○ Culture Diffusion: Spread of knowledge, ideas, and inventions.
○ Culture Transmission: Learning through imitation and socialization.
● Culture in the Round
○ Aspects of culture both illuminate and obscure reality
○ Balance
■ Cultures strike a balance between human needs for accurate information
and for comforting beliefs that often obscure reality.
○ Vital Functions
■ Culture serves many vital functions that promote happiness and well-being.
■ Culture also contributed to a variety of social ills in creating divides between
people within and outside a culture.
THE CORE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL
COGNITION
CHAPTER 3
THE “WHY” OF SOCIAL COGNITION
● Everyday thinking about the social world is largely a matter of choices, many of which are
made without conscious awareness.
○ Theory of lay epistemology
■ Need for accurate knowledge
● A desire to achieve an accurate understanding.
● Activated when inaccuracy has consequences.
■ Need for nonspecific closure
● A desire for a simple, clear-cut understanding as opposed to
confusion and ambiguity.
● Activated when thinking is effortful or unpleasant (e.g., when under
time pressure).
■ Need to confirm what one already believes
● A desire to understand something in a way that fits well with
previously held beliefs and values.
● Activated when beliefs/values are central or threatened.
THE “HOW” OF SOCIAL COGNITION
● The human brain allows governance of social cognition by interconnected systems of
thinking.
○ Cognitive system: A conscious, rational, and controlled system of thinking
■ Explicit attitudes - attitudes people are consciously aware of through the
cognitive system.
● “Speak your mind”
○ Experiential system: An unconscious, intuitive, and automatic system of thinking
■ Implicit attitudes - automatic associations based on previous learning
through the experiential system.
● “Know your mind”
○ Dual process theories: Explain thinking using both systems
○ Heuristics: mental shortcuts for quick decisions
■ “More is better”
■ Framing - context influences perception
■ “Don’t Waste”
○ Automaticity: Behavior on autopilot
○ Controlled reasoning processes: Overriding automatic thoughts when aware,
motivated, and able
THE “WHAT” OF SOCIAL COGNITION
● Categories: Mental “containers” in which people place things that are similar to each other
● Schemas: Mental structures based on experience
○ Scripts: Event schemas (e.g., restaurant sequence)
○ Impressions: Schemas about people
○ Stereotypes: Overgeneralized beliefs about groups
WHERE DO SCHEMAS COME FROM?
○ Cultural source of knowledge
■ Direct (people/events)
■ Indirect (media, books, social influences)
○ Rumors and gossip
■ Information about people or events is often passed from one person to
another.
■ Information is altered by schemas.
■ Stories are simplified.
■ Stereotypes bias recall/retelling.
○ Mass media
HOW DO SCHEMAS WORK?
○ Accessibility: Ease of recall
○ Salience: Active schema influences perception
○ Priming: Exposure makes schema more salient
○ Associative networks: Links between related ideas
■ Semantic associations - similar in meaning or that are parts of the same
category.
■ Experiential associations - experienced close together in time or space.
CONFIRMATION BIAS
○ We tend to seek out and evaluate new information so that it confirms what we
already believe or feel.
■ Ambiguous information is interpreted in a schema-confirming manner.
■ People pay more attention to schema-consistent information.
○ Biased information gathering
■ Schemas can lead to biased efforts to gather information.
■ There is a tendency to seek evidence that fits rather than does not fit a
hypothesis.
○ Self-fulfilling prophecy - the phenomenon whereby initially false expectations cause
the fulfillment of those expectations.
■ Schemas can create the social reality that one expects.
○ Does Confirmation Bias Always Occur?
■ Revision of our view of particular people and events may occur:
● When observations dramatically conflict with initial expectations
● When awareness of or concern about bias exists
■ People usually grant exceptions but keep the underlying schema.
METAPHOR’S INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT
○ Schemas organize knowledge about a given idea.
○ Metaphors connect an idea to knowledge of a different type of thing.
■ Metaphor - link abstract concepts to familiar experiences.
○ Humans construct an understanding of abstract ideas by drawing on their
knowledge of the sensory and motor experiences they have had from the earliest
moments of life.
THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE AND EVENTS
CHAPTER 4
INFERRING CAUSE AND EFFECT IN THE SOCIAL WORLD
BASIC DIMENSIONS OF CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION
○ Causal attribution: Explanations for why events/behaviors happen.
■ Locus of causality - behavior attributed to:
● Internal factors (the person)
● External factors (the situation)
■ Stability - behavior seen as:
● Stable (consistent over time)
● Unstable (temporary/situational)
THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
○ Correspondent inference - Assuming actions reflect personality traits
■ When people observe an action, they tend to attribute to the actor an
attitude, desire, or trait that corresponds to the action.
○ Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Overemphasizing personal traits,
underestimating situational influences.
■ Stronger when cognitive resources are limited.
■ FAE affects how people judge others and social issues related to individuals
and groups.
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION
○ A Three-Stage Model
1. Observe and label behavior
2. Automatically assume it reflects personality
3. If motivated and able, adjust for situational factors
○ This model predicts that people will be especially likely to ignore situational factors
and to make the FAE when they are cognitively challenged and thus have limited
attention and energy to devote to attributional processing.
ELABORATE THE ATTRIBUTIONAL PROCESS
○ Attributional thinking - like testing a hypothesis, shaped by motivation and biases
■ Generating possible causal hypotheses
● Actor/Observer Effect: we blame situations for our own behavior, but
blame others’ traits for theirs.
● Covariation principle: we link cause and effect when events happen
together.
WHY THEN ARE CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS SO IMPORTANT?
○ Causal attributions play a large role in the judgments and decisions people make
about other people and about themselves.
○ They are derived from complex and ambiguous circumstances that encourage a
variety of motivations.
○ They help us maintain our preferred view of the world.
FORMING IMPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE
IMPRESSION FORMATION
○ There are two ways in which humans form impressions of others.
1. Impression from bottom-up
● Observing behaviors to form an impression
○ Thin slices - quick judgments from limited info
○ Theory of mind - inferring others’ thoughts, emotions, and
intentions based on context
2. Impression from top-down
● Using preconceived ideas and schemas as the basis for impression
formation
○ Transference - A process whereby we activate schemas of a
person we know and use the schemas to form an impression
of someone new.
○ False consensus - A general tendency to assume that other
people share our own attitudes, opinions, and preferences.
● Creating individualized impressions is effortful.
● Stereotyping is a type of mental shortcut.
IMPLICIT PERSONALITY THEORIES
○ Some traits are more central than others to overall impressions (e.g., warm vs. cold)
○ Halo effect: The tendency of social perceivers’ assessments of an individual on a
given trait to be biased by the perceivers’ more general impression of the individual
TOP-DOWN PROCESSING AND STEREOTYPING
○ Representativeness Heuristic: The tendency to overestimate the likelihood that a
target is part of a category if the person has features that seem representative of
that category.
○ Stereotypes and Individuation
■ More likely to use bottom-up processing and less reliance on stereotyping
when we
● Are highly motivated to get to know someone (e.g., need to work
together)
● Feel similar to someone
○ Changing First Impressions
■ Initial impressions can be changed with disconfirming evidence.
● Negativity bias
