SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER
reproduce.
What is Social Psychology?
-A science that studies how situations influence
us, with special attention to how people view and
affect one another. More precisely, it is the
scientific study of how people think about,
influence, and relate to one another.
-Power of the situation in influencing behavior.
Social Psychology’s Big Ideas
-We Construct Our Social Reality-There is an
objective reality out there, but we always view it
through the lens of our beliefs and values.
-Our Social Intuitions are often powerful but
sometimes perilous- We intuitively trust our
memories more than we should. We misread our
own minds; in experiments, we deny being
affected by things that do influence us.
-Social Influences Shape Our Behavior-“People
are, above all, malleable.” Said differently, we
adapt to our social context
Social psychology is the scientific study of . . .
Social thinking Social Social
• How we influence relations
perceive • Culture • Prejudice
ourselves and • Pressures to • Aggression
others conform • Attraction
• What we • Persuasion and intimacy
believe • Groups of • Helping
• Judgments people
we make
• Our attitudes
Social Psychology’s Big Ideas
-Personal Attitudes and Dispositions also Shape
Behavior- Our inner attitudes affect our outer
behavior.
-Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted- Our
inherited human nature predisposes us to behave
in ways that helped our ancestors survive and
-Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable in
Everyday Life-Make visible the subtle influences
that guide your thinking and acting. It also offers
many ideas about how to know ourselves better,
how to win friends and influence people, how to
transform closed fists into open arms.
4. Social influences shape
behavior
5. Dispositions shape
behavior
SOCIAL INFLUENCES
1. We construct our social
6. Social behavior is also
biological behavior
reality
2. Our social intuitions are
7. Feelings and actions toward
people are sometimes
powerful, sometimes perilous
negative (prejudiced,
3. Attitudes shape, and are
aggressive) and sometimes
shaped by, behavior
SOCIAL THINKING
positive (helpful, loving)
SOCIAL RELATION
Social psychology’s
principles are applicable
to everyday life
APPLYING SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
How Do Human Values Influence Social
Psychology?
 Social psychologists’ values penetrate
their work in obvious ways, such as their
choice of research topics and the types of
people who are attracted to various fields
of study.
 They also do this in subtle ways, such as
their hidden assumptions when forming
concepts, choosing labels, and giving
advice.
 This penetration of values into science is
not a reason to fault social psychology or
any other science. That human thinking is
seldom dispassionate is precisely why we
need systematic observation and
experimentation if we are to check our
cherished ideas against reality.
Is Social Psychology simply a common sense?
“It is easy to be wise after the event.” —Sherlock
Holmes
Social psychology faces two contradictory
criticisms: first, that it is trivial because it
documents the obvious; second, that it is
dangerous because its findings could be used to
manipulate people.
We blame not only others but also ourselves for
“stupid mistakes” Looking back, we see how we
should have handled it. We forget that what is
obvious to us now was not nearly so obvious at
the time.
One problem with common sense is that we
invoke it after we know the facts. Events are far
more “obvious” and predictable in hindsight than
beforehand.
This hindsight bias (the I-knew-it-all-along
phenomenon) often makes people overconfident
about the validity of their judgments and
predictions.
RESEARCH METHODS
Forming and Testing Hypotheses
-Theory is an integrated set of principles that
explain and predict observed events.
-Theories not only summarize but also imply
testable predictions, called hypotheses.
Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and
Effect
-Random assignment- The process of assigning
participants to the conditions of an experiment
such that all persons have the same chance of
being in a given condition.
-Control: Manipulating Variables- An
experimental factor that a researcher
manipulates.
-Replication- Repeating a research study, often
with different participants in different settings, to
determine whether a finding could be reproduced.
The Ethics of Experimentation
-mundane realism Degree to which an experiment
is superficially similar to everyday situations.
Experimental realism Degree to which an
experiment absorbs and involves its participants.
CHAPTER TWO:’ THE SELF A SOCIAL WORD
The spotlight effect means seeing ourselves at
center stage, thus intuitively overestimating the
extent to which others’ attention is aimed at us.
 Concerned with the impression we make
on others, we tend to believe that others
are paying more attention to us than they
are (the spotlight effect).
 We also tend to believe that our emotions
are more obvious than they are (the
illusion of transparency).
Social surroundings affect our self-awareness-
When we are the only member of our race,
gender, or nationality in a group, we notice
how we differ and how others are reacting to
our difference.
Self-interest colors our social judgment-
When problems arise in a close relationship;
we usually attribute more responsibility to our
partners than to ourselves. When things go
well at home or work or play, we see
ourselves as more responsible.
Self-concern motivates our social behavior- In
hopes of making a positive impression, we
agonize about our appearance. Like savvy
politicians, we also monitor others’ behavior
and expectations and adjust our behavior
accordingly.
Social relationships help define our sense of
self- How we think of ourselves is linked to the
person we’re with at the moment. And when
relationships change, our self-concepts can
change as well.
Concerned with the impression we make on
others, we tend to believe that others are
paying more attention to us than they are (the
spotlight effect).
We also tend to believe that our emotions are
more obvious than they are (the illusion of
transparency).
AT THE CENTER OF OUR WORLDS: OUR SENSE
OF SELF THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF
YOURSELF IS YOURSELF.
SELF-CONCEPT
What we know and believe about ourselves.
SELF-SCHEMA
Beliefs about self that organize and guide the
processing of self-relevant information.
SOCIAL COMPARISON
Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by
comparing oneself with others.
Cultures shape the self, too. Many people in
individualistic Western cultures assume an
independent self. Others, often in
collectivistic cultures, assume a more
interdependent self. These contrasting ideas
contribute to cultural differences in social
behavior.
our self-knowledge is curiously flawed. We
often do not know why we behave the way we
do. When influences upon our behavior are
not conspicuous enough for any observer to
see, we, too, can miss them. The unconscious,
implicit processes that control our behavior
may differ from our conscious, explicit
explanations of it.
 Self-esteem is the overall sense of
self-worth we use to appraise our
traits and abilities. Our self-concepts
are determined by multiple influences,
including the roles we play, the
comparisons we make, our social
identities, how we perceive others
appraising us, and our experiences of
success and failure.
 ∙ Self-esteem motivation influences
our cognitive processes: Facing failure,
high-self-esteem people sustain their
self-worth by perceiving other people
as failing, too, and by exaggerating
their superiority over others.
 Although high self-esteem is generally
more beneficial than low, researchers
have found that people high in both
self-esteem and narcissism are the
most aggressive. Someone with a big
ego who is threatened or deflated by
social rejection is potentially
aggressive.
 Self-efficacy is the belief that one is
effective and competent and can do
something. Unlike high self-esteem,
high self-efficacy is consistently linked
to success.
SELF SERVING BIAS
Contrary to the presumption that most
people suffer from low self-esteem or feelings
of inferiority, researchers consistently find
that most people exhibit a self serving bias. In
experiments and everyday life, we often take
credit for our successes while blaming failures
on the situation.
Self-serving bias can be adaptive in that it
allows us to savor the good things that happen
in our lives. When bad things happen,
however, self-serving bias can have the
maladaptive effect of causing us to blame
others or feel cheated out of something we
“deserved.”
SELF PRESENTATION
Self-presentation refers to our wanting to
present a favorable image both to an external
audience (other people) and to an internal
audience (ourselves). With regard to an
external audience, those who score high on a
scale of self-monitoring adjust their behavior
to each situation, whereas those low in self-
monitoring may do so little social adjusting
that they seem insensitive.
SELF CONTROL
Self-control is like a muscle: It can get tired
when you use it too much. Willpower requires
energy. But self-control can get stronger if it’s
used more. Improving self-control in one area
leads to improvements in others.
CHAPTER 3
SOCIAL BELIEF AND JUDGEMENT
SYSTEM 1
The intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast
way of thinking. Also known as automatic
processing.
SYSTEM 2
The deliberate, controlled, conscious, and
slower way of thinking. Also known as
controlled processing.
PRIMING
Is the awakening or activating of certain
associations. Experiments show that priming
one thought, even without awareness, can
influence another thought, or even an action
(Herringet al., 2013).
Most of a person’s everyday life is determined
not by their conscious intentions and
deliberate choices but by mental processes
that are put into motion by features of the
environment and that operate outside of
conscious awareness and guidance
Things we don’t even consciously notice can
subtly influence how we interpret and recall
events.
EMBODIED COGNITION
The mutual influence of bodily sensations on
cognitive preferences and social judgments.
Our social cognition is embodied. The brain
systems that process our bodily sensations
communicate with the brain systems
responsible for our social thinking.
Intuitive Judgments- “intuitive management”
believe we should tune into our hunches—to
use System 1.
We know more than we know we know.
Our thinking is partly automatic (impulsive,
effortless, and without our awareness—
System 1) and partly controlled (reflective,
deliberate, and conscious—System 2).
Automatic, intuitive thinking occurs not
“onscreen” but offscreen, out of sight, where
reason does not go.
Automatic processing-“Implicit” thinking that
effortless, habitual, and without awareness;
roughly corresponds to “intuition.” also known
as System 1.
Controlled processing- “Explicit” thinking that
is deliberate, reflective, and conscious. also
known as System 2.
Example of automatic:
Schemas are mental concepts or templates
that intuitively guide our perceptions and
interpretations. Whether we hear someone
speaking of religious sects or sex depends on
how we automatically interpret the sound.
Emotional reactions are often nearly
instantaneous, happening before there is time
for deliberate thinking.
Given sufficient expertise, people may
intuitively know the answer to a problem.
Given but a very thin slice of someone—even
just a fraction of a second glance at their
photo—people’s snap judgments can beat
chance at guessing whether someone is
outgoing or shy, straight or gay
Overconfidence
As we interpret our experiences and construct
memories, our automatic System 1 intuitions
are sometimes wrong. Usually, we are
unaware of our errors—in other words, we
display overconfidence.
CONFIRMATION BIAS
People also tend not to seek information that
might disprove what they believe.
We are eager to verify our beliefs but less
inclined to seek evidence that might disprove
them.
 A tendency to search for information
that confirms one’s preconceptions.
HEURISTICS: METAL SHORTCUTS
 A thinking strategy that enables quick,
efficient judgments.
 Heuristics enable us to make routine
decisions with minimal effort
Representativeness Heuristic- The tendency to
presume, sometimes despite contrary odds,
that someone or something belongs to a
particular group if resembling (representing) a
typical member.
To judge something by intuitively comparing it
to our mental representation of a category is
to use the representativeness heuristic.
Availability Heuristic- A cognitive rule that
judges the likelihood of things in terms of their
availability in memory. If instances of
something come readily to mind, we presume
it to be commonplace
Counterfactual Thinking
 Imagining alternative scenarios and
outcomes that might have happened,
but didn’t.
Counterfactual thinking underlies our feelings of
luck. When we have barely escaped a bad event—
avoiding defeat with a last-minute goal or standing
near a falling icicle—we easily imagine a negative
counterfactual (losing, being hit) and therefore
feel “good luck” (Teigenet al., 1999). “Bad luck”
refers to bad events that did happen but easily
might not have.
Illusory Thinking
Another influence on everyday thinking is our
search for order in random events, a tendency
that can lead us down all sorts of wrong paths.
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
It is easy to see a correlation where none exists.
When we expect to find significant relationships,
we easily associate random events, perceiving an
illusory correlation.
Moods and Judgments
Social judgment involves efficient information
processing. It also involves our feelings: Our
moods infuse our judgments.
Moods infuse judgments. Good and bad moods
trigger memories of experiences associated with
those moods. Moods color our interpretations of
current experiences. And by distracting us, moods
can also influence how deeply or superficially we
think when making judgments.
INTERPRETING EVENTS
PERCEIVING AND INTERPRETING EVENTS
Despite some startling biases and logical flaws in
how we perceive and understand one another,
we’re mostly accurate (Jussim, 2012). Our first
impressions of one another are more often right
than wrong.
Moreover, the better we know people, the more
accurately we can read their minds and feelings.
POLITICAL PERCEPTIONS
We view our social worlds through the spectacles
of our beliefs, attitudes, and values.
That is one reason our beliefs are so
important; they shape our interpretation of
everything else.
BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
Persistence of one’s initial conceptions, such
as when the basis for one’s belief is
discredited but an explanation of why the
belief might be true survives.
MISINFORMATION EFFECT
 Incorporating “misinformation” into
one’s memory of the event, after
witnessing an event and receiving
misleading information about it.
Attributing Causality: To the Person or
the Situation
We endlessly analyze and discuss why
things happen as they do, especially when
we experience something negative or
unexpected
MISATTRIBUTION
 Mistakenly attributing a behavior to
the wrong source.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
 The theory of how people explain
others’ behavior—for example, by
attributing it either to internal
dispositions (enduring traits, motives,
and attitudes) or to external
situations.
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION
 Attributing behavior to the person’s
disposition and traits.
SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTION
 Attributing behavior to the
environment.
SPONTANEOUS TRAIT INDERENCE
 An effortless, automatic inference of a
trait after exposure to someone’s
behavior.
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
 The tendency for observers to
underestimate situational influences
and overestimate dispositional
influences upon others’ behavior.
Although we usually make reasonable attributions,
we often commit the fundamental attribution error
when explaining other people’s behavior. We
attribute their behavior so much to their inner traits
and attitudes that we discount situational
constraints, even when those are obvious. We make
this attribution error partly because when we watch
someone act, that person is the focus of our
attention and the situation is relatively invisible.
When we act, our attention is usually on what we are
reacting to—the situation is more visible.

CHAPTER 4
ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR
ATTITUDE
Beliefs and feelings related to a person or an
event (often rooted in one’s beliefs, and
exhibited in one’s feelings and intended
behavior).
WHEN ATTITUDES PREDICT BEHAVIOR??
The reason why our behavior and our
expressed attitudes differ is that both are
subject to other influences — many other
influences.
Our attitudes do predict our behavior when
these other influences on what we say and do
are minimal, when the attitude is specific to
the behavior, and when the attitude is potent.
 WHEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON WHAT
WE SAY ARE MINIMAL
 WHEN ATTITUDES ARE SPECIFIC TO
THE BEHAVIOR
 WHEN ATTITUDES ARE POTENT
WHEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON WHAT WE SAY
ARE MINIMAL
Today’s social psychologists have some clever
means at their disposal for minimizing social
influences on people’s attitude reports.
IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST (IAT)
 A computer-driven assessment of
implicit attitudes. The test uses
reaction times to measure people’s
automatic associations between
attitude objects and evaluative words.
Easier pairings (and faster responses)
are taken to indicate stronger
unconscious associations.
Implicit biases are pervasive- For example, 80
percent of people show more
implicit dislike for the elderly compared with
the young.
People differ in implicit bias- Depending on
their group memberships, their con-
scious attitudes, and the bias in their
immediate environment, some people exhibit
more implicit bias than others.
People are often unaware of their implicit
biases- Despite thinking themselves
unprejudiced, even researchers themselves
show implicit biases against some social
groups.
WHEN ATTITUDES ARE SPECIFIC TO THE
BEHAVIOR
Attitudes (positive or negative evaluations or
feelings) people hold about a particular
behavior or action are more predictive of their
actual behavior when those attitudes are
closely aligned with or specific to that
behavior.
Attitude toward the
Subjective norms
“My neighbors seem Perceived control
behavior
to be jogging and “I could easily do this.”
“I’m for physical fitness.”
going to the gym.”
BEHAVIOR
Behavior intention
“I’m going to start
next week.”
WHEN ATTITUDES ARE POTENT
Much of our behavior is automatic. We act out
familiar scripts without reflecting on what
we’re doing.
BRINGING ATTITUDES TO MIND
Attitudes predicted behavior (verdicts) only
for those who were first induced to remember
their attitudes — by giving them “a few
minutes to organize your thoughts and views
on the affirmative-action issue.” Our attitudes
become potent if we think about them.
WHEN DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT OUR
ATTITUDES?
The attitude–action relation also works in the
reverse direction:
We are likely not only to think ourselves into
action but also to act ourselves into a way of
thinking.
Similarly, what we say or write can strongly
influence attitudes that we subsequently hold.
Actions also affect our moral attitudes: That
which we have done, even if it is evil, we tend
to justify as right.
 ROLE PLAYING- (role- A set of norms
that defines how people in a given
social position ought to behave.
 Research on the foot-in-the-door
phenomenon reveals that committing a
small act makes people more willing to do
a larger one later.
 Actions also affect our moral attitudes:
That which we have done, even if it is evil,
we tend to justify as right.
 Similarly, our racial and political behaviors
help shape our social consciousness: We
not only stand up for what we believe, we
also believe in what we have stood up for.
 ∙ Political and social movements may
legislate behavior designed to lead to
attitude change on a mass scale.
WHY DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT OUR
ATTITUDES?
We have seen that several streams of evidence
merge to form a river: our behaviors influence our
attitudes. Do these observations offer clues to why
behavior affects attitude? Social psychology’s
detectives suspect three possible sources:
 Self-presentation theory
 Cognitive dissonance theory
 Self-perception theory
Self-presentation theory assumes that for
strategic reasons, we express attitudes that make
us appear consistent. We see making a good
impression as a way to gain social and material
rewards, to feel better about ourselves, and even
to become more secure.
Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that to
reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to
ourselves.
 Cognitive dissonance Tension arises when
one is simultaneously aware of two
inconsistent cognitions.
Self-Presentation: Impression Management
We see making a good impression as a
way to gain social and material rewards, to feel
better about ourselves, even to become more
secure in our social identities
Two other theories explain why people sometimes
internalize their self-presentations as genuine
attitude changes:
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
One theory is that our attitudes change
because we are motivated to maintain consistency
among our cognitions.
Another way people minimize dissonance,
Festinger believed, is through selective exposure.
Selective exposure is the tendency to seek
information and media that agree with one’s
views and to avoid dissonant information.
Three competing theories explain why our
actions affect
our attitude reports.

Self-presentation theory assumes that people,

especially those who self-monitor their behavior
hoping to create good impressions, will adapt
their attitude reports to appear consistent with
their actions. The available evidence confirms that
people do adjust their attitude statements out of
concern for what other people will think. But it
also shows that some genuine attitude change
occurs.

Two of these theories propose that our actions

trigger genuine attitude change.

Dissonance theory explains this attitude change

by assuming that we feel tension after acting
contrary to our attitudes or making difficult
decisions. To reduce that arousal, we internally
justify our behavior. Dissonance theory further
proposes that the less external justification we
have for our undesirable actions, the more we feel
responsible for them, and thus the more
dissonance arises and the more attitudes change.

Self-perception theory assumes that when our

attitudes are weak, we simply observe our
behavior and its circumstances, then infer our
attitudes. One interesting implication of self-
perception theory is the “over justification effect”:
Rewarding people to d what they like doing
anyway can turn their pleasure into drudgery (if
the reward leads them to attribute their behavior
to the reward).