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versie 1.2 | maart 2015 | door Jasper Verkroost 1
,Index
1. What is social psychology? ............................................................................................................... 3
2. Asking and answering research questions ........................................................................................ 9
3. Perceiving individuals ..................................................................................................................... 18
4. The self .......................................................................................................................................... 32
5. Perceiving groups ........................................................................................................................... 51
6. Social identity ................................................................................................................................ 64
7. Attitudes and attitude change ........................................................................................................ 77
8. Attitudes and behavior .................................................................................................................. 90
9. Groups, norms and conformity .................................................................................................... 101
10. Norms and behavior................................................................................................................... 114
11. Liking and loving ........................................................................................................................ 126
12. Interaction in groups .................................................................................................................. 144
13. Aggression and conflict .............................................................................................................. 157
14. Helping and cooperation ............................................................................................................ 172
Epilogue ........................................................................................................................................... 182
Appendix A: Definitions ................................................................................................................... 183
Appendix B: Samenvattingen Werkboek .......................................................................................... 206
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versie 1.2 | maart 2015 | door Jasper Verkroost 2
,1. What is social psychology?
definition of social psychology
- the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive,
influence, and relate to others
- seeks an understanding of the reasons people act the way they do in social situations
- helps us comprehend the factors that contribute to the complex events of our times
- if we understand how people are influenced by social and cognitive processes, we can begin
developing solutions for such pressing social problems
social and cognitive processes
- cognitive: the ways in which people's memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions and motives
influence their understanding of the world and guide their actions; emotion, motivation, memory
and thought are intrinsic parts of every cognitive process
- social: the ways in which our thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by the people around us,
the groups to which we belong, our personal relationships, the teachings of our parents and culture,
and the pressures we experience from others
- social: affect us even when others are not physically present: even during many of our most private
activities (studying, practicing a musical instrument, exercising, showering) we are motivated by our
concern for what others think of us
- social: when others are present depend on how we interpret those others and their actions, and
therefore on the operation of cognitive processes
- when we are alone or together with others, then, both social and cognitive processes operate
together to affect everything we think, feel, and do
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,history of social psychology
philosophy (ancient Greeks)
- crowd mind (Plato): "even the wisest individuals, if assembled into a crowd, might be transformed
into an irrational mob"
empirical science (late 19th century)
- emerge of scientific psychology
- researchers begin considering questions about social influences on human thoughts and action
split from general psychology (20th century)
- throughout much of the 20th century North American psychology was dominated by behaviorism
(Watson, Skinner), but social psychologists maintained an emphasis on the important effects of
thoughts and feelings on behavior: "individuals often hold divergent views of, and react in different
ways to, the same object or idea; such findings could only be explained by differences in individuals'
attitudes, personality traits, impressions of others, group identifications, and emotions"
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,the rise of Nazism (1930s-1940s)
- many social psychologists fled to USA where they had a major influence on the field's direction
- significant questions generated by the rise of the Nazism and World War II (prejudice, hate) shaped
research interests during this period
- search for immediate practical problems (post-WW II): change eating habits, maintain military troop
morale, improve performance of aircraft and tank crews, teach troops to resist enemy propaganda
growth and integration (1950s-1960s)
- social psychology grew and flourished, moving toward an integrated theoretical understanding of
social and cognitive processes and toward further applications of social-psychological theory to
important applied problems
- research contributions during this period laid the foundations of what we now know about self-
esteem, prejudice and stereotyping, conformity, persuasion and attitude change, impression
formation, interpersonal attraction and intimate relationships, intergroup relations, group
membership, influence within groups, competitive relationships between groups
cognitive revolution (1960s)
- tight grip on behaviorism on North American psychology finally broken; cognitive themes and
theories swiftly gained attention in experimental, developmental, personal and clinical psychology
- was no revolution for social psychology; cognitive themes such as the importance of people's
interpretations in shaping their reactions to events were familiar to social psychologists because
their foundations had been laid decades earlier in the 1930s and 1940s
perception and memory (1970s-1980s)
- concepts such as attitudes, norms, and beliefs, already common currency in social psychology,
began to be applied to new areas of study: personal relationships, aggression, altruism,
stereotyping, and discrimination
social processes (1990s)
- personal and group relationships and social influence impinge on everything people do
- our perceptions, interpretations, attitudes, and beliefs are fundamentally shaped by our
relationships to others, our thoughts about their reactions, and the group membership that help us
to define who we are (Markus, Kitayama & Heiman, 1996)
cognitive and social processes (today)
- researchers in all domains of social psychology are weaving together the effects of cognitive and
social processes to provide explanations of people's experience and behavior
early research results
- Norman Triplett (1898), Max Ringelmann (1913): the presence of others often facilitates
performance when individual contributions are easily identified (Triplett), but it reduces
performance when people are 'lost in the crowd' (Ringelmann)
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,- Edward Alsworth Ross (1908): people are heavily influenced by others, whether those others are
physically present or not
- Floyd Henry Allport (1924): individuals often hold divergent views of, and react in different ways to,
the same object or idea; such findings could be explained only by differences in individuals'
attitudes, personality traits, impressions of others, group identifications, and emotions
- Kurt Lewin (1936): all behavior depends on the individual's life space, a subjective map of the
individual's current goals and his or her social environment; people's subjective interpretation of
reality is the key determinant of their beliefs and behaviors
- Muzafer Sherif (1936): a social group can influence even a person's perception and interpretation of
physical reality
- Samuel Stouffer (1949): comparisons with others can lead to feelings of relative deprivation
- Carl Hovland (1953): persuasion depends on who delivers the message, who receives it and how it is
processed
focus areas
- health: the emotions we experience, the amount of stress we encounter from daily hassles, our
ability to find love and acceptance in close relationships, the way we feel about ourselves can
influence our bodies as well as our minds
- education: teachers' expectations can shape their pupils' self-esteem, self-confidence and even their
actual performance
- law: from crime to conviction, social-psychologists processes are at work as police enforce laws,
juries weight evidence, and societies try to distribute justice
- environment: human dimensions of environmental change are motivating social-psychologists to
discover how individuals can be encouraged to conserve energy or to recycle used materials; or how
groups can be convinced to cooperate in harvesting renewable resources instead of overexploiting
and destroying them
- business: effective leadership can mold diverse individuals into a smoothly functioning work team,
while ineffective leadership generates only conflict, dissatisfaction, and low productivity
fundamental axioms
construction of reality [construeren van de eigen werkelijkheid]
- discovering how different the reactions of others can be to the 'same' social event overturns our
usual lack of awareness of the extent to which we construct our own reality; at such times we
discover that we do not, in fact, share the same experience
- real for each of us, shaped in part by cognitive processes (the way our minds work) and in part by
social processes (influence from others who are actually present or whose presence we imagine)
- cognitive processes operate as we piece together fragments of information, draw inferences from
them, and try to weave them into a coherent whole
- social processes enable us to influence and be influenced by the view of others as we pursue
agreement about the nature of reality; within the groups that are important to us, agreement is our
standard for interpreting and responding to events
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,pervasiveness of social influence [onvermijdelijke sociale invloed]
- other people influence all of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior whether those others are
physically present or not
- our thoughts about others' reactions and our identification with social groups mold our innermost
perceptions, thoughts, feelings, motives, and even our sense of self
- our membership in a group provides a frame and a filter through which we view social events
- social influence is most profound when it is least evident: when it shapes our most fundamental
assumptions and beliefs about the world without our realizing it
- changes often seem so natural that we attribute them not to social influence but to simple reality
motivational principles
striving for mastery [streven naar mastery]
- mastery: understanding ourselves and the world around us and applying that understanding to help
us to control outcomes in our lives
- we seek to understand and predict events in the social world in order to obtain rewards
- is an important incentive in our attempt to form and hold accurate opinions and beliefs about the
world, because accurate beliefs can guide us to effective and satisfying actions
seeking connectedness [zoeken naar verbondenheid]
- each person attempts to create and maintain feelings of mutual support, liking, and acceptance
from those they care about and value
- conforming to group standards, even standards that have destructive consequences for people
outside the group, fulfills a need for belonging and connectedness
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, people value me and mine [mensen hechten waarde aan zichzelf en personen waarmee men zich
verbonden voelt]
- we are motivated to see ourselves and anything or anyone connected to us in a positive light
- our biased views of those who are connected to us often explain why members of different groups
see the same events in very different ways, to make them feel good about themselves
processing principles
conservatism [conservatisme]
- the principle that individuals' and groups' views of the world are slow to change and prone to
perpetuate themselves; established knowledge tends to perpetuate itself
accessibility [toegankelijkheid van informatie]
- the principle that whatever information is most readily available to us usually has the most impact
on our thoughts, feelings and behavior
- every social situation provides an incredibly rich array of information, so rich that we could not
consider all its details; consequently we are likely to consider, remember, and use only a tiny
fraction of the potentially relevant information when we make judgments or decisions
- in many situations, what comes most easily to mind is what we were already thinking; in other
situations we base our judgments on the information that is most easily noticed and interpreted
superficiality vs. depth [oppervlakkigheid versus diepte van informatieverwerking]
- much of the time, people seem to operate on automatic, putting little effort into forming a
superficial picture of reality and relying heavily on whatever information is most accessible
- when we notice that events fail to match our expectations or when our important goals are
threatened, we take the time and trouble to process information more extensively
- disagreement or rejection challenges not only our sense of mastery and understanding but also our
feelings of connectedness, triggering anxiety and uncertainty
- threats to any of our important goals may motivate us to consider information in more depth and to
think hard about our own beliefs and actions
common processes, diverse behaviors
- exactly the same processes that produce useful and valuable outcomes in some situations produce
misleading and destructive outcome in others
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versie 1.2 | maart 2015 | door Jasper Verkroost 8
