Notes from Wesleyan's Social Psychology
Note: These notes are from Ongoing Course. I will update them as I go along.
Table of Contents
Social Perceptions and Misperceptions
Social Psychology, the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. What makes for a happy life? How does friendship, romantic attraction work? How can we reduce violence, prejudice, climate change? How to promote peace, social justice, sustainable living.
Psychological construction of reality
"How could I have missed that??" We often see what we expect to see, and don't see what we don't expect to see
Assumptions and expectations can lead to trouble
Hindsight Bias, or the "I knew-it-all-along effect". Tendency to exaggerate, after learining an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen the outcome
Findings are harder to predict when you don't already know the outcome. People forget the uncertainty they originally faced and assume they "knew it all along."
Social psychology lies at psychology’s boundary with sociology. Compared with sociology (the study of people in groups and societies), social psychology focuses more on individuals and does more experimentation
Big Ideas in Social Psychology
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How we construe our social worlds
There is an objective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values. We explain people’s behavior, usually with enough speed and accuracy to suit our daily needs. When someone’s behavior is consistent and distinctive, we attribute that behavior to his or her personality. Fundamental attribute error -
How our social intuitions guide and sometimes deceive us
Our intuitive capacities are revealed by studies"Automatic Processing", "Implicit memory", "Heurestics", “spontaneous trait inference". System 1 and 2 from "Thinking fast and slow" -
How our social behavior is shaped by other people, by our attitudes and personalities, and by our biology
Aristotle observed, Humans are social animals. As social creatures, we respond to our immediate contexts. Sometimes the power of a social situation leads us to act contrary to our expressed attitudes. This may lead to evil condition like the Holocaust, or good outcome when people pour in assistance in aftermath of a natural disaster. Our cultures help define our situations To understand social behavior, we must consider both under-the-skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influences. Mind and body are one grand system. Stress hormones affect how we feel and act: A testosterone dose decreases trust, oxytocin increases it. Social ostracism elevates blood pressure. Social support strengthens the disease-fighting immune system. We are bio-psycho-social organisms -
How social psychology’s principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study