Psy 259 Outline

 

Chapter 1

The Mission and the Method

 

I.        History of Social Psychology

A.     The first studies of Social Psychology

B.     First textbooks in social psychology

C.     Two major ideas from the early 20th century that had a lasting influence

D.     Much research was stimulated by the events of World War II

E.      Changes in Paradigms

II.     What Do Social Psychologists Do?

A.     Study How Other People Affect Us - ABC triad

1.      Other people affect how we interpret events – a cognitive influence

2.      Other people affect how we feel about ourselves- an emotional influence

3.      Other people affect how we behave – a behavioral influence

B.     Social Psychologists focus on the Situation.

C.     Scientific Method.

III.   Social Psychology’s Place in the World

A.     Social Psychology’s place in the social sciences

1.      Anthropology

2.      Economics

3.      History

4.      Political science

5.      Sociology

B.     Social Psychology’s place within psychology

1.      Biological psychology (physiological psychology, neuroscience)

2.      Clinical psychology

3.      Cognitive psychology

4.      Developmental psychology

5.      Personality psychology

IV.  Why People Study Social Psychology

A.     Curiosity about people

B.     Experimental Philosophy

C.     Making the World Better

D.     Social Psychology Is Fun!

V.     How Do Social Psychologists Answer Their Own Questions?

A.     The Scientific Method

1.      Research in social psychology poses challenges not found in other sciences

2.      Social psychologists rely on a wide range of creative research methodologies

B.     Theories and Hypotheses

1.      What makes a theory “Good”

2.      Hypothesis

3.      Translating Concepts into Operations

a.       Operationalization

C.     Research Concepts

1.      Independent variable

2.      Dependent variable

3.      Construct validity of the cause

4.      Construct validity of the effect

D.     Research Design

1.      Experimental studies

a.       An experiment

1.      Random assignment

2.      Cause and effect relationships.

b.      A quasi-experiment

c.       Internal validity

d.      External validity

2.      Nonexperimental studies

a.       The correlational approach

1.      Correlation coefficient

2.      Cause and effect can not be concluded

 

Chapter 3

The Self

I.      What is the Self?

A.     The Self’s Main Jobs

1.      Structure vs. function

2.      Self vs. Society

3.      Three main parts of the self

a.       Self-knowledge (self-concept)

b.      Interpersonal self (public self)

c.       Agent self (executive function)

B.     Who Makes the Self, the Individual or Society?

1.      Biological processes and the sociocultural network.

2.      True or Real Self?

3.      Culture and Interdependence (Indivdiualistic vs. Collectivist cultures)

4.      Social Roles

C.     Self-Awareness

1.   “Attention directed at the self”

2.   Two main types of self-awareness

a.       Private self-awareness

b.      Public self-awareness

c.       Self-awareness and behavior

d.      Escaping self-awareness

II.            Where Self-Knowledge Comes From Looking Outside: The Looking-Glass Self

A.     Looking Outside: The Looking-Glass Self

1.      Looking-Glass Self  Charles Horton Cooley (1902)

a.       3 components

b.      Generalized other

B.     Looking Inside: Introspection

C.     Looking to Other: Social Comparison

1.      Social comparison – Upward vs. Downward

D.        Self-Perception and the Overjustification Effect

1.   Self-perception theory

a.       Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

b.      Overjustification effect

D.     The Fluctuating Image(s) of Self

E.      Why People Seek Self-Knowledge

1.   Three reasons for wanting self-knowledge

a.       Appraisal motive

b.      Self-enhancement motive

c.       Consistency motive

2.   When motives compete

G.        Tradeoffs: Self-Handicapping

III>      Self-Esteem, Self-Deception, and Positive Illusions

A.        Self-Esteem

B.         Reality and Illusion.

1.   How People Fool Themselves

2.   Self-deception strategies

3.   Self-serving bias

C.        Benefits of Self-Esteem

D.        Is High Self-Esteem Always Good?

1.      Narcissism

2.      Benefits and Poor Consequences

E.         Pursuing Self-Esteem

IV.       Self-Presentation

A.     Who’s Looking?

B.     Making an Impression

C.     Self-Presentation and Risky Behavior

 

Chapter 4

Behavior Control: The Self in Action

 

I.        What You Do, and What It Means

A.     Action Identification

B.     Goals, Plans, Intentions

II.     Freedom and Choice

A.     Freedom of Action.

                              1.            Self-determination theory

B.     Making Choices

                              1.            Two Steps of Choosing

                              2.            Influences on choice—Major patterns

a.       Risk aversion

b.      Temporal discounting

c.       The certainty effect

d.      Keeping options open.

1)      Status quo bias

2)      Omission  bias

                              3.            Reactance

a.       Reactance theory

b.      Main consequences

                              4.            Is Bad Stronger Than Good? Avoiding Loses Versus Pursuing Gains

III.   Self-Regulation

A.     Self-regulation

                              1.            3 main components

a.       Standards

b.      Monitoring

c.       Capacity for change

 

Chapter 5

Social Cognition

 

I.        What is Social Cognition?

A.     Social cognition

B.     Thinking About People: A Special Case?

C.     Why People Think, and Why They Don’t

1.      Cognitive miser

2.      Goals of Thinking

3.      Automatic and Controlled Thinking

a.       Automatic can be distinguished  from the controlled

b.      Automatic structures rely on knowledge structures

c.       Schemas

d.      Scripts

e.       Priming

f.        Framing

D.     Thought Suppression and Ironic Processes

II.     Attribution:

A.     Attributions

B.     It’s Not My Fault: Explaining Success and Failure

1.      Heider: internal vs. external

2.      Weiner: internal vs. external and stable vs. unstable

3.      Self-serving bias

C.     The Actor/Observer Bias

1.      Actor/Observer Bias

2.      Fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias)

3.      Ultimate attribution error

4.      4 Explanations for the fundamental attribution error

D.     The Attribution Cube and Making Excuses

1.      Covariation principle

a.       3 types of covariation information are used

1)      Consensus

2)      Consistency

3)      Distinctiveness

III.   Heuristics

A.     Heuristics

B.     Representativeness Heuristics

C.     Availability Heuristic

D.     Simulation Heuristic

IV.  Errors and Biases

A.     Information overload

B.     Confirmation Bias

C.     Conjunction Fallacy

D.     Illusory Correlation

E.      Gambler’s Fallacy

F.      False Consensus Effect

G.     False Uniqueness Effect

H.     Statistical Regression

I.        Illusion of control

J.       Magical thinking

K.    Counterfactual Thinking

1.      First instinct fallacy

2.      Upward counterfactuals

3.      Downward counterfactuals

Chapter 6

Emotion and Affect

 

I.        What Is Emotion?

A.     Definition

B.     Conscious Emotion Versus Automatic Affect

II.     Emotional Arousal

A.     Arousal

B.     James-Lang Theory of Emotion

C.     Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

D.     Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion

E.      Misattribution of Arousal

III.   Some Important Emotions

A.     Happiness

1.      Defining Happiness

a.       Affect balance

b.      Life satisfaction

2.      Objective Roots of Happiness

3.      Hedonic Treadmill

4.      Subjective Roots of Happiness

5.      Increasing Happiness

B.     Anger

1.      Causes of Anger

a.       Is anger adaptive?

b.      Hiding Versus Showing Anger

C.     Tradeoffs: Affect Intensity, or the Joys of Feeling Nothing

D.     Guilt and Shame

1.      Guilt vs. Shame

a.       Guilt

b.      Shame

2.      Effects of Guilt

3.      Guilt and Relationships

IV.  Why Do We Have Emotions?

A.     Feedback System

B.     Emotions Promote Belongingness

C.     Emotions Cause Behavior??

D.     Emotions Guide Thinking and Learning

E.      (Anticipated) Emotion Guides Decisions and Choices

1.      Affective Forecasting

2.      Status Quo Bias

F.      Emotions Help and Hurt Decisions Making

1.      Risk-as-feelings hypothesis

G.     Benefits of Possible Emotions

V.     Individual Differences in Emotion

A.     Are Emotions Different Across Cultures?

B.     Are Women More Emotional Than Men?

VI.  Arousal, Attention, and Performance

A.     Yerkes-Dodson law

B.     Easterbrook

VII.            Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

A.     Four Branches

1.      Perceiving emotions

2.      Facilitating Thought

3.      Understanding Emotions

4.      Managing Emotions)

VIII.         Affect Regulation

A.     How to Cheer Up.

B.     Affect Regulation Goals.

C.     Gender Differences in Emotion Control Strategies

 

Chapter 7

Attitudes, Beliefs, and Consistency

 

I.        What are Attitudes and Why Do People Have Them?

A.     Attitudes Versus Beliefs

B.     Dual Attitudes

1.      Implicit attitudes

2.      Explicit attitudes

3.      The Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

4.      Stigma

C.     Why People Have Attitudes

II.     How Attitudes are Formed

A.     Formation of Attitudes

1.      Mere exposure effect

2.      Classical Conditioning

a.       unconditioned stimulus

b.      unconditioned response

c.       neutral stimulus

d.      conditioned stimulus

e.       conditioned response

3.      Operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning)

4.      Social learning (observational learning, vicarious conditioning)

B.     Polarization

III.   Consistency

A.     Humans feel the need to be consistent)

B.     Heider’s P-O-X Theory

C.     Cognitive Dissonance and Attitude Change

1.      Cognitive dissonance theory/ Festinger and Carlsmith task.

2.      Effort justification

IV.  Do Attitudes Really Predict Behaviors?

V.     Beliefs and Believing

A.     Believing Versus Doubting.

B.     Belief Perseverance

C.     Belief and Coping

1.      Assumptive worlds

2.      3 Main Types of Assumptions.

3.      Cognitive coping (p. 244).

D.     Religious Belief

E.     Irrational Belief

Chapter 8

Prosocial Behavior: Doing What’s Best for Others

 

I.        What Is Prosocial Behavior?

A.     Prosocial Behavior

B.     Born to Reciprocate - Reciprocity

C.     Born to Be Fair – Fairness

1.      Norms

a.       Norms related to fairness

1)      Equity

2)      Equality

b.      Two types of unfairness:

1)      Underbenefited

2)      Overbenefited

II.     Your Fair Share

A.     Tragedy of the Commons.

B.     Hoarding

III.   Cooperation, Forgiveness, Obedience and Conformity

A.     Cooperation

1.      .Prisoner’s dilemma

B.     Forgiveness.

C.     Tradeoffs: The Prisoner’s Dilemma).

D.     Obedience.

E.      Conformity

1.      Conformity is influenced by:

a.       Normative social influence,

b.      Informational social influence.

c.       Public conformity,

d.      Private attitude change

IV.  Why Do People Help Others?

A.     Evolutionary Benefits

B.     Two Motives for Helping: Altruism and Egoism

1.      Egoistic Helping

2.      Altruistic Helping

3.      Empathy-altruism hypothesis

4.      Is Altruism Possible?

V.     Who Helps Whom?

A.     Helpful Personality

B.     Similarity.

C.     Gender

D.     Beautiful Victims

E.      Belief in a Just World.

F.      Emotion and Mood.

VI.  Bystander Helping in Emergencies

A.     Five Steps to Helping

1.      Step 1: Notice that something is happening

2.      Step 2: Interpret meaning of event

3.      Step 3: Take responsibility for providing help

4.      Step 4: Know how to help

5.      Step 5: Provide help

B.     Too Busy to Help?

Chapter 9

Aggression and Antisocial Behavior

 

I.        Defining Aggression and Antisocial Behavior

A.     Aggression

B.     Hostile aggression).

C.     Instrumental aggression .

D.     Other Distinctions

1.      Passive aggression

2.      Active aggression

E.      Violence

F.      Antisocial behavior

II.      Is Aggression Innate or Learned?

A.     Instinct Theories

B.     Learning Theories

C.     Nature and Nurture.

III.   Inner Causes of Aggression

A.     Frustration

1.      Frustration-aggression hypothesis

2.      Frustration .

B.     Being in a Bad Mood

C.     Hostile Cognitive Biases.

1.      Hostile attribution bias

2.      Hostile perception bias

3.      Hostile expectation bias

D.     Age and Aggression

1.      Children are the most aggressive but also the least capable of doing real damage..

E.      Gender and Aggression

1.      Fight or flight syndrome

2.      Tend and befriend syndrome

3.      Relational aggression

IV.  Interpersonal Causes of Aggression

A.     Selfishness and Influence

B.     Domestic and Relationship Violence: Hurting Those We Love

C.     Displacement

V.     External Causes of Aggression

A.     Weapons Effect

B.     Mass Media

C.     Unpleasant Environments

D.     Chemical Influences

1.      Testosterone

2.      Serotonin

3.      Alcohol

VI.  Self and Culture

A.     Norms and Values

B.     Self-Control

C.     Wounded Pride

D.     Culture of Honor

VII.            Other Antisocial Behavior

A.     Cheating

B.     Stealing

C.     Littering

Chapter 10

Attraction and Exclusion

 

I.        The Need to Belong

A.     Belongingness as a Basic Need

B.     The Effects of Testosterone—A Blessing and a Curse

C.     Two Ingredients to Belongingness.

D.     Not Belonging Is Bad for You

II.     Attraction: Who Likes Whom?

A.     People may work to make others like them.

B.     Similarity, Complementarity, Oppositeness

1.      Similarity

2.      Self-monitoring

3.      Matching hypothesis

C.     Social Rewards

D.     Tit for Tat: Reciprocity and Liking

E.      Mere Exposure

1.      Propinquity,

2.      Familiarity doesn’t always breed liking - social allergy effect

F.      Is Bad Stronger than Good?: Neighbors Make Friends—And Enemies.

G.     Looking Good

III.   Rejection

A.     Ostracism

B.     Effects of Rejection: Inner Reactions

C.     Behavioral Effects of Rejection.

D.     Loneliness

E.      What Leads to Social Rejection?

F.      Romantic Rejection and Unrequited Love

 

Chapter 11

Close Relationships: Passion, Intimacy, and Sexuality

 

I.        What Is Love?

A.     Passion and Companionate Love

B.     Love and Culture

C.     Love Across Time

D.     Sternberg’s Triangle

1.      Passion

2.      Intimacy

3.      Commitment,

II.     Different Types of Relationships

A.     Exchange Versus Communal.

B.     Attachment

1.      John Bowlby

2.      Types of Attachment

3.      Two Dimensions of Attachment

a.       Four styles relate to high or low levels of each.

4.      Attachment and Sex

C.     Loving People Who Love Themselves

III.   Maintaining Relationships

A.     I Love You More Each Day (?)

B.     Investment Model

C.     Thinking Styles of Couples

1.      The relationship enhancing style of attribution

2.      The distress-maintaining style of attribution

D.     Being Yourself: Is Honesty the Best Policy?.

IV.  Sexuality

A.     Sexuality and Love

B.     Theories of Sexuality

1.      Social constructionist theories

2.      Evolutionary theory

3.      Social exchange theory

C.     Sex and Gender

D.     Extradyadic Sex

E.      Jealousy and Possessiveness

F.      Culture, Female Sexuality, and the Double Standard

Chapter 12

Prejudice and Intergroup Relations

 

I.        Prejudice.

A.     Prejudice

B.     Racism

1.      Aversive racism

C.     Discrimination

D.     Stereotypes

E.      The “ABCs” of intergroup relationships.

1.      A – affective: prejudice

2.      B – behavioral: discrimination

3.      C – cognitive: stereotyping

F.      Categorization

G.     Social categorization .

H.     Outgroup members (“them”)

I.        Ingroup members (“us”)

a.       Outgroup homogeneity bias

II.     Why Prejudice Exists

A.     Prejudice is natural.

1.      Ingroup favoritism

2.      Minimal group effect

B.     Us Versus Them: Groups in Competition

1.      Superordinate goals

2.      Realistic conflict theory (p. 413). .

a.       Evolution has a role in these attitude formations

b.      Competition

c.       Cooperation (p. 413).

3.      Discontiunity effect 

C.     Ignorance? The Contact Hypothesis

D.     Rationalization for Oppression

E.      Stereotypes as Heuristics

F.      Prejudice as Self-Esteem

III.   Content of Prejudice and Stereotypes

A.     Accuracy of Stereotypes: Kernels of Truth? 

B.     Are Stereotypes Always Negative?

IV.  Inner Processes

A.     Salienc

B.     Scapegoat theory

1.      Self-serving bias . 

C.     Confirmation bias

V.     Overcoming Stereotypes, Reducing Prejudice

A.     Conscious Override

B.     Contact

C.     Superordinate Goals

VI.        Impact of Prejudice on Targets

A.     Self-fulfilling and Self-Defeating Prophecies

1.      Self-fulfilling prophecy

2.      Self-defeating prophecy

B.     Stigma and Self-Protection

1.      Stereotyped groups have a higher self-esteem

a.       Social comparison

b.      Self-worth

c.       Attribution Theory

C.     Stereotype Threat.

 

 

Chapter 13

Social Influence and Persuasion

I.        Two Types of Social Influence

A.     Being Liked: Normative Influence

B.     Being Correct: Informational Influence

1.      Informational influence arises in two types of situations:

a.       Ambiguous situations (the person is unsure how to act).

b.      Crisis situations (the stress of the time and situation prevents people from thinking individually). .

2.      Private acceptance

3.      Public compliance

II.     Techniques of Social Influence

A.     Techniques Based on Commitment and Consistency

1.      Foot–in–the Door Technique

2.      Low-ball Technique

3.      Bait–and-Switch Technique

4.      Labeling Technique

5.      Legitimization-of-paltry-favors technique

B.     Techniques Based on Reciprocation

1.      Two influence techniques based on reciprocation

a.       Door-in-the-face

b.      That’s-not-all technique

C.     Techniques Based on Scarcity

1.      Rare opportunities or Scare items

D.     Techniques Based on Capturing and Disrupting Attention

1.      Pique technique

2.      Disrupt-then-reframe technique­ .

E.      Most influence and persuasion techniques capitalize on the human mind’s automatic functioning. 

III.   Persuasion

A.     Persuasion

1.      Aristotle’s three elements for audience persuasion are:

a.       Emotional appeal (pathos)

b.      Intellectual appeal (logos)

c.       Charisma (ethos)

2.      Hovland - “who,” “says what,” and “to whom. 

B.     Who: The Source

1.      Source Credibility

a.       The sleeper effect

b.      What makes a source credible?

1)      Expertise

2)      Trustworthiness

3)      Other Characteristics

2.      Source Likeability

a.       Similarity

b.      Physical attractiveness 

C.     Says What: The Message

1.      Reason Versus Emotion

a.       Two approaches to delivering a message

1)      Cold, hard facts

2)      Appeal to emotions

b.      Stealing Thunder

2.      Repetition

D.     To Whom: The Audience

1.      Intelligence

2.      Need for cognition

3.      Concern About Public Image

4.      Age

5.      Cultural Differences

6.      Overheard Messages

7.      Distraction.

E.      Two Routes to Persuasion

1.      Models:

a.       The elaboration likelihood model (ELM)

b.      The heuristic/systematic model

2.      Routes

a.       The central route (systematic processing)

b.      The peripheral route (heuristic processing)

3.      ELM

a.       Is the person motivated to process the message?

b.      Is the person able to process the message?

c.       Outcomes of the processing depend on the quality of the argument and the initial attitude.  

F.      Alpha and Omega Strategies

1.      Alpha strategies

2.      Omega strategies

IV.  Resisting persuasion

A.     Attitude Inoculation.

B.     Forewarned Is Forearmed.

1.      Negative attitude change (boomerang effect) often occurs as a result. This is “doing exactly the opposite of what one is being persuaded to do” (p. 469).

C.     Stockpile Resources

D.     Defense Against Influence Techniques

1.      Defenses Against Techniques Based on Commitment and Consistency

2.      Defenses Against Techniques Based on Reciprocation

3.      Defenses Against Techniques Based on Capturing and Disrupting Attention.

E.      Defenses Against Techniques Based on Social Proof

 

Chapter 14

Groups

 

I.         What Groups Are and Do

A.     Defining a Group

B.     Unity of a Group

1.      Similarity

2.      Presence of an Outgroup

3.      Group Accomplishment

II.     Groups, Roles, and Selves

A.     Groups

1.      Deindividuation .

B.     Roles

C.     Optimal distinctiveness theory

III.   Group Action

A.     Social Facilitation

1.      Triplett

2.      Evaluation apprehension

3.      Dominant Response

4.      Zajonc’s social facilitation theory  

B.     Social Loafing

C.     Punishing Cheaters and Free Riders

D.     Deindividuation and Mob Violence

E.      Shared Resources and the Commons Dilemma

IV.  How Groups Think

A.     Brainstorming, and the Wisdom of Groups

B.     Why Do People Love Teams?

C.     Transactive Memory: Here, You Remember This

D.     Group Think

E.      Foolish Committees

F.      Group Polarization and the “Risky Shift”

1.      The risky shift

2.      The group polarization effect

V.     Power and Leadership.

A.     Effective Leadership

B.     What is Power?

C.     Effects of Power on Leaders

D.     Effects of Power on Followers

E.      Legitimate Leadership