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Q1)
Based on readings from Social Psychology: If we succeeded in changing attitudes toward a specific behavior in a group of subjects, would this attitudinal change also produce behavioral change? Please explain why or why not in detail, and what (if anything) we can do to increase the chances of behavioral change.
Q2)
A tenet of social psychology is how we can use our knowledge to address social issues and concerns. After all, what is the good of knowledge if we do not apply it to the world around us? Homelessness has been in the media recently, more specifically rates of homelessness and it’s etiology. Please explain, using our text and from a social psychology standpoint, possible root causes of homelessness.
Q3)
Describe what an observational research study is, and what its strengths and
Social Psychology
Chapter 2: Learning and Cognition
Introduction
We need to be able to accurately learn about and categorize the people that we interact with every day.
Social cognition
Mental activity that relates to social activities and helps us meet the goal of understanding and predicting the behavior of ourselves and others.
Learning: A relatively permanent change in knowledge that is acquired through experience.
How we make decisions, inform our behaviors (in a useful and accurate way), mistakes and biases in judgment.
Social Knowledge
Gained through learning
Watson and Skinner
Conditioning
Operant learning vs classical learning
OL tends to be the most important form of human learning
Even criminality!
Associational Learning
Behaviors associated with pleasant experiences are reinforced
Examples:
Advertising
Attraction
Team sponsors
Behaviors associated with negative experiences are weakened
Examples:
Smoking warnings
Cell phones while driving
Observational Learning
Allows us to learn without having to actually engage in what might be a risky behavior.
But can have negative outcomes as well:
Schemas as Social Knowledge
Learning = knowledge
Knowledge stored as schemas
Stored in the prefrontal cortex
PFC: Helps us remember characteristics and actions of other people, plan complex social behaviors, and coordinate our behaviors with those of others
“Social” part of the brain
Damage: Changes in social behavior (memory, personality, planning, morality)
Newest part of the brain, evolutionarily speaking
How Schemas Develop
Schemas serve as expectations about future events
They represent our past experiences (Ex: Italians and expectations)
No schemas: Have to start over with each experience
They allow us to “fill in the blanks” by making guesses about what others are like or are going to do
Especially when presented with ambiguous information
Everyone’s schemas and attitudes are different
They influence our subsequent learning
New people/situations are interpreted within the schema of existing knowledge
Assimilation
Accommodation: Changing our beliefs based on new information
Part of the learning process
In most cases, once a schema is developed, it will be difficult to change it
Our expectation makes us process information in ways that support/strengthen our schemas
Confirmation bias: Our tendency to favor information that confirms our expectations, regardless of whether or not it’s true.
Assimilation
Our existing knowledge makes us direct our attention toward information that matches our expectations.
Difficult to attend to or acknowledge conflicting information.
Schemas also influence what we remember
We remember what fits our schemas rather than what disconfirms our expectations.
Ex: “Saudis are bad drivers” We tend not to remember the good drivers
“ Hannah” study (p.15)
Information that is very extreme or very conflicting, we attend to and remember it.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Our expectations of others lead us to behave towards them in ways that make them come true. Their reactions to our behavior reinforce our expectations.
| Cognitive Process | Description | Example |
| Cognitive accessibility | Some schemas and attitudes are more accessible than others. | Self-relevant & goal related information more readily accessible. |
| Salience | Stimuli that are unusual, colorful, or moving, tend to grab our attention. | Basing judgments on a single unusual event and ignore hundreds of others that are more usual. |
| Representativeness heuristic | We make judgments based on how well the event matches our expectations. | Juror members and the appearance of the defendant (Ted Bundy) |
| Availability heuristic | Things that come to mind easily tend to be seen as more common. | What is more likely to kill you: A dog or a couch? |
| Cognitive Process | Description | Example |
| Anchoring and adjustment | Our decisions are overly based on the things most readily available in memory, although we may adjust our judgments away from them. | Multiplication exercise (p.35) Buying in bulk |
| Counterfactual thinking | We may “replay” events such that they turn out differently (Esp: Minor changes) | “If only I had swerved sooner, I could have avoided the accident”. 3rd place |
| False consensus bias | We tend to see other people as similar to us. | We are surprised when others have different political opinions or values. |
| Overconfidence (mother of all biases) | We tend to have more confidence in our skills, abilities, and judgments than is warranted. | 93 percent of American drivers claim to be better than the median (which is statistically impossible). |
Automatic Cognition
Occurs out of our awareness, quickly, without much effort.
Things that we do most frequently.
Ride a bike, use a TV remove, drive.
Socially, it influences our judgments and behaviors.
Snap judgments of others.
Controlled Cognition
When we deliberately size up and think about something, such as another person.
Thinking takes effort and time, so we rely on automatic cognition more often than controlled cognition.
So What, For What?
weaknesses are.
Q4)
Describe the relationship between social status, self-esteem, and self-presentation and how these interact. Be sure to describe how we achieve/manipulate these concepts within ourselves and how they affect one