Introduction to Social Psychology

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Chapter Reviews

Diagnostic Quizzes

Vocabulary Flashcards

Apply It! Exercises

Puzzle of Large Human Brain

Why do humans have super large neocortex?

Old assumption: the brain evolved to process factual information about objects of ecological relevance

The Social Brain Hypothesis (R. Dunbar, 1998)

• Only reliable predictor of brain size is social group size

• Human group size for which our brain was adapted for = 150

Outline Two How (proximal factors)

Power of situations Construal

The Why (distal factors) Evolution Culture

How we know: Basic research methods Selection versus treatment effects Correlational and experimental studies Avoiding the correlation-causation fallacy

Case of New York City Crime

Crime rates in NYC plummeted suddenly in the mid 1990s

Why?

The Power of The Situation

o Classic issue in social psychology: to what extent behavior is caused by personality or situational influences?o Batson and Darley’s “Good

Samaritan” Study

“Good Samaritan” Study

o Students at Princeton Theological Seminary

o Personality: religion as means to end vs. as end in itself

o Situation: plenty of time vs in a hurryo Who helped?

The Power of The Situation

The Fundamental Attribution Error

The Power of Construal

People often think about, perceive, or ‘construe’ the same stimulus in different ways. It is their construal which affects behavior in a situation.

Social reality is interpreted!Controlled, conscious, slowAutomatic, unconscious, rapid

The Cooperation Game

Personality: cooperators vs. competitors Construal: “Wall Street Game” vs.

“Community Game” Who cooperates?

Un petit yoghourt, s’il vous plait!

Higher obesity rates in France than in North America—why?

Portion sizes much smaller in France than in North America

Portion size or # of portions determine amount eaten?

“Unit bias” Study by Geier, Rozin, & Doros (2006)

Distal Explanations

o Evolution - explaining human behavior in terms of evolution by natural selection

o Culture – explaining human behavior in terms of the cultural context in which humans live

o Not mutually exclusive, but complementary

Evolution and Human Behavior

o Traits that enhance the probability of survival and reproduction are passed on to subsequent generations

o This principle is just as important for behavioral propensities as they are for biological characteristics

o Core innately given mental propensities that (along with cultural experiences) allow us to learn, achieve goals, and solve problems

Example: Kin Selection And Altruism

Degree of Relatedness

The stronger the genetic relatedness, the more volunteering to help (Cunningham et al, 1995)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

High Moderate Low None

% Help

This pattern holds across many cultures for many helping behaviors

Some Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology

Naturalistic fallacy:

Biology is destiny fallacy:

Both are false!

Culture

Socially transmitted beliefs, behaviors, and their material consequences which affect behaviour

1) Cultural learning 2) Cultural variation in psychology

Love and Marriage across Cultures (Levine et al, 1995)

If a man (woman) had all other qualities you desired, would you marry this person if you were not in love? (% AGREE)

HelpfulnessLow High

Fre

quen

cy

Average Difference

Culture is a statistical distribution of beliefs and behaviors, with average differences but individual differences within each culture

Culture A

Culture B

Levels of Explanation in Social Psychology

Culture

Evolution

Construal Situations

Social Behaviour

Doing Research

Treatment effects vs. selection effects Treatment: exposure to some cause

affects behaviour Selection: people with certain

characteristics tend to choose certain environments

Correlation is NOT causation!

X Correlation Y

Self-esteem Academic

Achievement

X Y

X Y

X

Z

Y

Doing Research

o Correlational Research: examine whether two variables are related (positive or negative)

o Experimental Research: examine whether one variable causes another variable, holding other variables constant

Doing Research

Experimental Research o Independent Variable

o Ex:

o Dependent Variableo Ex:

o Random Assignmento Control Group

Summary Two proximal themes of social psychology

1) Power of situations 2) Construal Small causes have big effects The Fundamental Attribution Error

The Why questions--distal explanations Evolution

• The naturalistic fallacy; the biology is destiny fallacy Culture

• Culture is not destiny either--statistical distribution of beliefs that influence behaviour

Summary How we know: Basic research methods

Selection versus treatment effectsCorrelational and experimental studiesCorrelation-causation fallacy