Principles of Psychobiology: Social Psychology and Cognitive Processes, Summaries of Psychology

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C. Chandler,

Principles of psychobiology

General Info Social Psychology: the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another

• Social psychology is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thoughts in social interactions. History: Social interactions What affects them?
• Others, cognitive process, environment, culture, biological factors

1. People construct their social worlds
2. People tend to process info about the social world as effectively as possible
3. People tend to view themselves in an unrealistic positive light
4. People need to feel connected to other people
5. People tend to underestimate the impact of the social situation The Cognitive Us Cognitive Misers

• A cognitive miser is the term that describes how humans have limited amounts of energy when we make quick judgements and we make assessment of the world in a quick fashion. We don’t waste energy on things where we don’t need it. Heuristic (general def. & availability)
• Availability heuristic: shows why people are quick to infer general truth from vivid instance
• The more common, the more weight it has cognitively
• Simple rules to make complex decisions and judgements quickly to analyze and explain the world
• Trading off accuracy for speed and it’s not always 100% right Schemas (general def. & 4 types)
• categories/framework in the processing and organizing social information
• infer behavior based on the situation

1. Person - archetype that we make, exists to make assumptions to function socially. Forming assumptions about an individual
2. Prototypes - characteristics of groups of people that we think describe a member
3. Role - behavior on who the person is (ex: expectations of a professor)
4. Scripts - refer to how we should behave in certain situations (where?) Cognitive Processing - 3 steps
5. Attention: automatic vigilance

False Uniqueness Effect

• tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behavior EX: if i am good at soccer I think only a few are good too, that allows me to feel good about myself. Overconfidence Phenomena
• the tendency to be more confident than correct, to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs. EX: coming late to work everyday because you think they will never fire you. Illusions of Control module 8
• perception of uncontrollable events as subjects to one’s control or as more controllable than they are. EX: while flipping a coin the person thinks they have more control over the outcome than if someone else throws the coin for them. Just World Phenomenon - In general understand how we are error-prone- Notion of a just world that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. — “Blaming the Victim”
• We do this to protect ourselves physically from the potential fear that it will happen to us. Theories Lewin, B = f (P,E)
• Behavior is a function of the person and the environment Cognitive Dissonance
• Rationalization of our actions to make us feel better
• The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes, often in a self-justifying way. Heider’s Balance Theory - Fritz Heider originated Balance Theory to show how people develop

their relationships with other people and their environment

- if people see a set of cognitive elements as being a system, then they will

have a preference to maintain a balanced state among these elements.

• we like things to make sense, we try to make things make sense.

Person → Object positive, negative (leads to anger, defend, or acknowledge)

● We try to establish balance

Three Theories on the Development of Self

1. Birth- 5 yr old : role playing
2. 6 - adolesence : role-taking
3. Adolescence- whatever: generalized other Symbolic Interactionism - people act toward things on the basis of the meanings these things have for them (ex. CSULB Tuition Costs)

• Meanings are the product of social interaction, not developed from an individual assessment or inherent within an object. Meanings are social products.
• Meanings are modified through interpretations. People make their current dealings with things. People are not passive in their interpretation but rather they are creators of meaning. (ex. Professor’s “chair”) Role Theory
• the focus is on the manner in which the existence of social rules and the accompanying expectations, as a part of the social structure, influence individual behavior.
• They are performed by individuals (that is, behavioral) and limited in context.
• Sequential roles ; one role ends before another must starts
• Ex: being a parent ; focus on what you must do ;
• Simultaneous: roles that are taking place at the same time
• Ex: Gender Roles } continuous
• ethnicity/ race : expectations and rules for each group Reinforcement Theory - The focus is on what people put into relationships and what they get out of them. And is a very economic model. People will attempt to maximize their rewards from relationships and minimize their relationship costs.

1. People will engage in actions that are rewarded
2. The more similar the current situation is to one experienced in the past, the more likely it is that the actions rewarded in the past will be engaged in now
3. Rewards gain value when we have been deprived of them, and lose value when they are more readily available.
4. When we fail to obtain an expected reward, we tend to view the situation negatively.
5. When we obtain an unexpected reward, we tend to view the situation positively
6. Finally, the frequency with which a person engages in an action depends on the value of the outcome to them and the probability that the action will lead to the outcome. Interdependence Theory - Prisoner’s Dilemma Social Learning Theory

• Our behaviors are learned through 2 processes

• find balance Self
• a person’s distinct identity that is developed through social interaction Social identity Self-reference effect
• We pay attention to things we relate to
• Ex. Someone with the same name Self-concept (Self schema)
• what we know and believe about ourselves Ex: I am smart
• A schema that operates like all other schemas we had to develop in order to function in a complex society General & role specific self concepts - how you behave in certain situations Working self concept - how we are right now- motivation Possible selves- future (have multiple options) Self Efficacy
• evaluation of ability to perform competently - actions Self Esteem
• evaluations of the self. (subdividing)
• Confidence, Security, Dignity, Self Worth, Perception Attitudes
• Confirmation bias
• Beliefs and feelings related to a person or an event (often rooted in one’s beliefs and exhibited in one’s feeling and intended behavior. EX: if we feel like someone is threatening then we may dislike them.
• attitudes do influence our actions when 3 conditions are met

1. External influences on our actions are minimal

2. Attitude is specific to behavior
3. Conscious of our attitudes Genetic? Origins

• Nature accounts for 30 - 50%
• Nurture accounts for 50 - 70% (social comparison) Dual Attitude System
• Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes to- ward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with prac- tice that forms new habits.
• Our implicit (automatic) and explicit attitudes The anatomy of an attitude
• Emotional and intensity

1. Important
2. Knowledgeable
3. Accessible Situational Factors: When do they affect behavior? Persuasion Central route to persuasion

• occurs when people think carefully about the message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling. Peripheral route to persuasion
• Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness, emotional music or images. Ingredients to persuasion

1. Communicator
2. Message
3. How message is communicated
4. audience Confirmation Bias

• We are eager to verify our beliefs but less inclined to seek evidence that might disprove them. Stereotypes: The negative evaluations that mark prejudice often are supported by negative beliefs.
• Schemas, which are mental categories we put people in. These stereotypes are often implicit because we have been socialized to have these ideas/implicit biases. Prejudice: a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members. It is an attitude, a combination of feelings, inclinations to act, and beliefs. (negative attitude)
• Evaluation of the schemas, these are evaluation of the stereotype, and we can either choose to accept or reject these stereotypes through crieffecttical thinking. Discrimination: is the behavior based on the attitude based on the schema. (negative behavior) Racism

• Graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension-reduction; strategy designed to decrease international tensions