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Summary literature social psychology Heinzen & Goodfriend
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Summary Literature Social psychologyWeek 1: Chapter 1 & 3: Introduction to SP & the social self
Chapter 1: An introduction to social psychology
What is social psychology?
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people influence each other’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors.
The origins of social psychology
In the late 1800s Wilhelm Wundt started the first scientific laboratory, designed to apply the
scientific method to human thought and experience. By many he was considered the ‘father
of psychology’ and first person to call himself psychologist.
Sigmund Freud was shocked by World Wars I and II and perceived a ‘cosmic struggle’
between life and death. He tried to provide answers in his book Civilization and Its
Discontents. However, they were often speculative and based on private observations.
They asked questions about personality, individual perceptions, and how culture affects
thought. Many psychologists were interested in explaining abormal behavior or in thought
processes, not many in everyday social interactions like conformity, prejudice and heroism.
One of social psychology’s pioneers was the German World War I veteran Kurt Lewin, whom
many people consider the ‘father of social psychology’. He was a Jewish man greatly
influenced by both World Wars. When he immigrated to the United States, he devoted his
academic career to understanding social dynamics. He suggested that each person’s social
behaviors are influenced by both personality and the social environment. His vision of
psychology could be summed up as action research, the application of scientific principles
to social problem solving. Lewin’s equation: B = f(P, E). Every person’s behavior (B) is a
function of both P, the individual person, and E, their immediate environment. Individual
choices and actions are based on who we are – factors like personality and how we are
raised- and the immediate situation.
Social psychologists value diversity
Intersectionality theory is the study of how multiple identity factors (such as race, gender,
and socioeconomic status) combine to form how people are perceived and treated by
others).
Many others influential social psychologists followed in his footsteps. Some of these later
social psychologists were women (Mary Whiton Calkins (first female president of APA and of
American Philosophical Association), her student Beatrice Ann Wright, Alice Eagly, Lisa
Diamond), people of color (Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark (social justice), Claude
Steele and Mahzarin Banaji (culture and stereotypes affecting people of color)), or differently
abled or people of various sexual orientations that helps us recognize the inherent value of
diversity.
Content domains: social thinking, social influence, and social behavior
Social psychology includes the study of:
- Social thinking: how we define the ‘self’ and how we perceive the world
, - Social influence: how we can persuade other people, why we conform, and the
dynamics of stereotypes and prejudice
- Social behavior: helping, aggression, and romantic relationships.
Why social psychology has become such a popular college course:
- It satisfies some of our curiosity about everyday social interactions
- Doing it develops marketable skills
- It helps you become a social problem solver
Similar academic fields are sociology, the study of human society and social behavior at the
group level; anthropology,
the study of culture and
human behavior over time;
clinical or counseling
psychology, a subfield of
psychology that helps
people who have
maladaptive or problematic
thoughts and behaviors.
Positive psychology is the
scientific study of human
strengths, virtues, positive emotions, and achievements. It explores healthy, adaptive
behaviors.
What are some big questions within social psychology?
Big question 1: Is behavior shaped more by biological factors (nature) or
by environmental factors (nurture)?
Nature refers to influences on our thoughts and behaviors from biology or physiology, such
as genetics and hormones. Nurture refers to influences on our thoughts and behaviors from
our life circumstances, how we were raised, experiences, and our environment. The nature
vs nurture debate is often described as a false dichotomy, a situation presented as two
opposing and mutually exclusive options when there may really be additional options or a
compromise. In almost every case both nature and nurture influence behavior: interaction
(the combination of several influences on an outcome).
Big question 2: How can we explain why good people do bad things and
vice versa?
Social psychologists explore what many call ‘good’ and ‘evil’ by creating controlled
experiments that explore the situations that reliably produce prosocial behaviors that help
others and aggressive behaviors that are intended to harm others. The more pressing
question they can answer is how we all justify our actions using our own personal
perspectives, politics, culture, and social norms.
Big question 3: How do humans think?
The study of social cognition explains why decision-making humans rely on two thinking
systems:
- One system is fast and intuitive
- The other is slower and logical
,Big question 4: Why do humans live in groups?
We are social animals; it is our social impulse. An evolutionary perspective offers
explanations in terms of how it increases our chances of meeting, mating and safely
delivering our genes into the next generation. A functioning group improves our survival
skills, teaches us how to share resources, and socializes us to help others. Groups also help
develop self-identity, through comparisons to other people.
However, group decisions aren’t always better. Group interactions may encourage a shift in
group opinions that lead to more dangerous decisions, a mob mentality.
Big question 5: Why do stereotypes and prejudices exist and persist?
It seems to be an automatic instinct (like every question, further discussed in other chapters).
Big question 6: Is science the best way to learn about social behavior?
A problem in social psychology: replication crisis: a recent concern in psychology that the
results of some studies aren’t found again when scientists try to repeat them. The crisis
seemed to develop in three stages:
1. A few years ago, some well-known social psychologists were caught cheating. They
had made up data or manipulated them.
2. An investigation revealed a research culture that rewarded original studies but offered
few rewards for replicating someone’s research.
3. Few replications suggest that our literature may be stocked by many false
positives/Type I errors, errors in which scientists believe a finding exists when it
really doesn’t, because of weak or incorrect statistics.
The answer to the replication crisis:
- People who conduct replications should be praised for their contribution to science
- Scholars in the field need to change some of their practices to make their process
more open and honest, such as willing to share their raw data with the public
How can social psychology make my life better now?
Apply each topic to your own life
Use self-report scales to compare yourself to others
Critically analyze your opinions after each section
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, apply, and explore ideas in new and open-minded
ways. It requires deeper processing, which makes it easier to remember information.
, Chapter 3: the social self
How do we understand the ‘self’?
Self-awareness or self-recognition is the understanding that we are a separate entity from
other people and objects in our world.
We have self-awareness: the mirror self-recognition test
In 1968, Gordon Gallup created the mirror self-recognition test (the mark test): a mark is
placed on an animal’s forehead, and then the animal is placed in front of a mirror. Self-
awareness is assumed if the animal touches the mark on its own forehead. However, the
mark test only indicates awareness of a physical self, not if the animals have a psychological
sense of self.
The self requires a self-concept
Self-concept is the personal summary of who we are, including our positive and negative
qualities, relationships to others, group memberships, and beliefs. The self-concept is formed
through schemas, mental structures and frameworks that help us summarize and organize
how we perceive and experience the world. Self-schemas are mental structures that help us
summarize and organize our perceptions about self-relevant information.
Comparing the self to others: social comparison theory
Social comparison theory: we make assessments about who we are by comparing how we
think or act to those around us. There are two types of social comparisons we can make:
- Upward social comparisons: when we compare ourselves to someone who is better
than us.
- Downward social comparisons: when we compare ourselves to someone who is
worse than we are.
The W.I.D.E. guide to social comparisons identifies four factors that influence how social
comparisons influence subjective information processing:
- Who: we evaluate our abilities automatically by comparing ourselves to similar others.
- Interpretation: how we interpret social comparisons (optimistically or pessimistically).
- Direction: the direction of our social comparison. Downward social comparisons tend
to enhance our self-concept.
- Esteem: protecting our self-esteem.
Group memberships and culture: social identity theory
Henri Tajfel: Your self-concept is organized around the social identity theory, which
proposes both a personal identity and a social identity. Your personal identity is restricted to
your individual traits, goals, and behaviors. Your social identity is made up of your group
memberships and relationships to others.
Self-concept in many Western cultures is
one of an independent self, meaning one
that is focused on individual needs. They
emphasize the self, independence, personal
success, competitive spirits, and individual self-esteems. These cultures are individualistic.
Many Eastern or Asian cultures lead to an interdependent self, one that is focused on
family or group needs. These cultures emphasize collective goals; values include working for
the greater good of a family, company, or other such social group. They are collectivistic.
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