Psychology 1 2001: Introduction to Social Psychology

1
Psychology 1 2001 Introduction to Social
Psychology

• A series of four lectures
• presented by Dr Jenni Rice
• Room 3N03, Tel [phone]

2
What is Social Psychology?

• the study of the nature and causes of social
  behaviour, particularly social interaction,
  through systematic research
• the study of mutual influences between people
• actual presence of others
• implied presence of others
• imagined presence of others
• a sub-discipline of general psychology
• a sub-discipline of sociology and anthropology
• social psychology may therefore be viewed as a
  sub-discipline of both psychology and sociology

3
How do social psychologists study social
behaviour?

• systematic observation
• Kendon(1966) micro-observation
• participant observation
• Rosenhan(1965) on being sane in insane places
• surveys
• questionnaires
• experiments
• IVs, DVs randomisation
• field laboratory

4
Classic studies in Social Influence

• Conformity
• The Asch Conformity Studies
• Mechanisms of conformity
• perceptual distortion
• judgemental distortion
• public compliance
• Factors influencing conformity
• social environmental factors
• person factors
• situational factors

5
Outwardly conformist behaviour may stem from
either or both of the mechanisms

• Public compliance - which refers to doing or
  saying what others around us say or do
• Private acceptance - which refers to believing or
  thinking or feeling as others do.
• We can understand both these processes as
  involving the temporary or more enduring
  internalisation of external forces of peer
  pressure.

6
Two types of social influence process(Deutsch
and Gerard, 1955)

• Normative social influence
• is influence based on the individuals desire to
  be liked.
• the groups behaviour is adopted in order to gain
  the approval of others by conforming with their
  expectations.
• Informational social influence
• is influence based on the individuals desire to
  be right.
• the groups behaviour is adopted because of a
  belief that they know better than us what to do
  in certain situations, or what to think, or maybe
  even what to wear!