DOCSLIB.ORG

Elements of Social Psychology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Elements of Social Psychology Chapter 4: Elements of Social Psychology 10 CE Hours By: Wade T. Lijewski, Ph.D. Learning objectives This workshop is designed to help you: Critique theories of education, religion, and political sociology. Describe the history and foundations of social psychology and Construct hypotheses and studies regarding group dynamics. sociology. Compare urban and rural sociological factors. Discuss social psychology and sociological theories. Describe the elements of racial and ethnic inequality. Apply the concepts of socialization. Assess and apply concepts of social change. Overview Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, social structure to a much greater extent. Nevertheless, sociological feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or approaches to social psychology remain an important counterpart to implied presence of others. By this definition,scientific refers to the psychological research in this area. empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and In addition to the split between psychology and sociology, a somewhat behaviors include all psychological variables that are measurable in a less pronounced difference in emphasis between American social human being. The statement that others’ presence may be imagined or psychologists and European social psychologists has emerged. As a implied suggests that people are prone to social influence even when broad generalization, American researchers traditionally have focused no one else is present, such as when watching television, or following more on the individual, whereas Europeans have paid more attention internalized cultural norms. to group level phenomena. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of Social cognition is a growing area of social psychology that studies the interaction of mental states and immediate social situations. In how people perceive, think about, and remember information about general, social psychologists have a preference for laboratory-based, others. Much research rests on the assertion that people think about empirical findings. Social psychology theories tend to be specific and other people differently from non-social targets. This assertion is focused, rather than global and general. The primary methods of data supported by the social cognitive deficits exhibited by people with collection are sample surveys, field observations, vignette studies, field Williams syndrome and autism. Person perception is the study of how experiments, and controlled experiments. people form impressions of others. The study of how people form Social psychologists are interested in the impact that the social beliefs about each other while interacting is known as interpersonal environment and group interactions have on attitudes and behaviors. perception. It is important to distinguish between social psychology and sociology. A major research topic in social cognition is attribution. Attributions While there are many similarities between the two, sociology tends to are the explanations people make for behavior, either their own examine social behavior and influences at a very broad-based level. behavior or the behavior of others. People can ascribe the locus Sociologists are interested in the institutions and cultures that influence of a behavior to either internal or external factors. An internal, or how people behave. Psychologists instead focus on situational dispositional, attribution assigns behavior to causes related to inner variables that affect social behavior. While psychology and sociology traits such as personality, disposition, character, or ability. An external, both study similar topics, they look at these topics from different or situational, attribution involves situational elements, such as the perspectives. weather. A second element ascribes the cause of behavior to either *Please Note* For the purpose of this workshop, the terms social stable or unstable factors. Finally, professionals also attribute causes of psychology, sociology, sociologists, and social psychologists are used behavior to either controllable or uncontrollable factors. interchangeably, as the two branches of the discipline interact with and Numerous biases in the attribution process have been discovered. For build upon one another throughout history and across theories and areas instance, the fundamental attribution error is the tendency to make of focus. One cannot discuss or truly understand one without the other. dispositional attributions for behavior, overestimating the influence of Social psychologists deal with the factors that lead people to behave in personality and underestimating the influence of situations. The actor- a given way in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under observer difference is a refinement of this bias, the tendency to make which certain behavior/actions and feelings occur. Social psychology dispositional attributions for other people’s behavior and situational is concerned with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, attributions for personal behavior. and goals are constructed and how such psychological factors, in turn, The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute dispositional causes influence interactions with others. for successes, and situational causes for failure, particularly when Social psychology is an interdisciplinary domain that bridges the gap self-esteem is threatened. This leads to assuming one’s successes are between psychology and sociology. During the years immediately from innate traits, and one’s failures are due to situations, including following World War II, frequent collaboration took place between other people. Other ways people protect their self-esteem include psychologists and sociologists. However, the two disciplines have by believing in a just world, blaming victims for their suffering, and become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in making defensive attributions, which explain personal behavior in recent years, with sociologists focusing on “macro variables” such as ways that defend people from feelings of vulnerability and mortality. Page 43 Psychology.EliteCME.com Researchers have found that mildly depressed individuals often lack probe beyond common-sense explanations such as “human nature” or this bias and actually have more realistic perceptions of reality (as “because it has always been done like that.” measured by the opinions of others). The following are some examples of questions that sociologists explore: Heuristics are cognitive short cuts. Instead of weighing all the evidence ● Are men and women born to play different roles in society? when making a decision, people rely on heuristics to save time and ● How much influence does society have on expectations of what it energy. The availability heuristic occurs when people estimate the is to be a man or a woman? probability of an outcome based on how easy that outcome is to ● How does one account for war and conflict in society? imagine. As such, vivid or highly memorable possibilities will be ● Why is there inequality among people? perceived as more likely than those that are harder to picture or are ● How important is language in shaping one’s cultural identity? difficult to understand, resulting in a corresponding cognitive bias. Sociology not only asks questions about society. It also provides The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut people use to categorize training in how to answer such questions, through a combination of something based on how closely it matches a prototype they know of. thinking theoretically and undertaking applied research. Sociological Numerous other biases have been found by social cognition research takes many forms, but generally it involves field work that researchers. The hindsight bias is a false memory of having predicted takes the researcher out into the group or community being studied. events, or an exaggeration of actual predictions, after becoming aware Over the years, the discipline has developed a sophisticated set of of the outcome. The confirmation bias is a type of bias leading to the principles and practices to guide different sorts of research projects tendency to search for, or interpret information in a way that confirms and answer different sorts of research questions. Methods range from one’s preconceptions. major surveys of large numbers of people and statistical analysis, Another key concept in social cognition is the assumption that reality to in-depth interviews with individuals in order to understand their is too complex to easily discern. As a result, people tend to see the experiences and perceptions, to “participant observation”, where the world according to simplified schemas or images of reality. Schemas researcher spends time with the group being studied, participating in are generalized mental representations that organize knowledge and and observing the group’s daily activities. guide information processing. Schemas often operate automatically People have always asked critical questions about the way their society and unintentionally, and can lead to biases in perception and memory. functions. Historically, sociology emerged as an academic discipline in Expectations from schemas may lead people to see something that Europe, in the late 19th century, in response to the immense changes is not there. One experiment found that people are more likely to in social life as a result of economic developments (the industrial misperceive
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Social Norms and Social Influence Mcdonald and Crandall 149
    Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Social norms and social influence Rachel I McDonald and Christian S Crandall Psychology has a long history of demonstrating the power and and their imitation is not enough to implicate social reach of social norms; they can hardly be overestimated. To norms. Imitation is common enough in many forms of demonstrate their enduring influence on a broad range of social life — what creates the foundation for culture and society phenomena, we describe two fields where research continues is not the imitation, but the expectation of others for when to highlight the power of social norms: prejudice and energy imitation is appropriate, and when it is not. use. The prejudices that people report map almost perfectly onto what is socially appropriate, likewise, people adjust their A social norm is an expectation about appropriate behav- energy use to be more in line with their neighbors. We review ior that occurs in a group context. Sherif and Sherif [8] say new approaches examining the effects of norms stemming that social norms are ‘formed in group situations and from multiple groups, and utilizing normative referents to shift subsequently serve as standards for the individual’s per- behaviors in social networks. Though the focus of less research ception and judgment when he [sic] is not in the group in recent years, our review highlights the fundamental influence situation. The individual’s major social attitudes are of social norms on social behavior. formed in relation to group norms (pp. 202–203).’ Social norms, or group norms, are ‘regularities in attitudes and Address behavior that characterize a social group and differentiate Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, it from other social groups’ [9 ] (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on Social Norms and Human Rights
    The Psychology of Social Norms and the Promotion of Human Rights Deborah A. Prentice Princeton University Chapter to appear in R. Goodman, D. Jinks, & A. K. Woods (Eds.), Understanding social action, promoting human rights. New York: Oxford University Press. This chapter was written while I was Visiting Faculty in the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. I would like to thank Jeremy Adelman, JoAnne Gowa, Bob Keohane, Eric Maskin, Dale Miller, Catherine Ross, Teemu Ruskola, Rick Shweder, and Eric Weitz for helpful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of the chapter. Please direct correspondence to: Deborah Prentice Department of Psychology Princeton University Green Hall Princeton, NJ 08540 [email protected] 1 Promoting human rights means changing behavior: Changing the behavior of governments that mistreat suspected criminals, opponents of their policies, supporters of their political rivals, and members of particular gender, ethnic, or religious groups; changing the behavior of corporations that mistreat their workers, damage the environment, and produce unsafe products; and changing the behavior of citizens who mistreat their spouses, children, and neighbors. In this chapter, I consider what an understanding of how social norms function psychologically has to contribute to this very worthy project. Social norms have proven to be an effective mechanism for changing health-related and environmental behaviors, so there is good reason to think that they might be helpful in the human-rights domain as well. In the social sciences, social norms are defined as socially shared and enforced attitudes specifying what to do and what not to do in a given situation (see Elster, 1990; Sunstein, 1997).
    [Show full text]
  • PERSONAL and SOCIAL IDENTITY: SELF and SOCIAL CONTEXT John C. Turner, Penelope J. Oakes, S. Alexander Haslam and Craig Mcgarty D
    PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITY: SELF AND SOCIAL CONTEXT John C. Turner, Penelope J. Oakes, S. Alexander Haslam and Craig McGarty Department of Psychology Australian National University Paper presented to the Conference on "The Self and the Collective" Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 7-10 May 1992 A revised version of this paper will appear in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Special Issue on The Self and the Collective Professor J. C. Turner Department of Psychology GPO Box 4, ANU Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia Tel: 06 249 3094 Fax: 06 249 0499 Email: [email protected] 30 April 1992 2 Abstract Social identity and self-categorization theories provide a distinctive perspective on the relationship between the self and the collective. They assume that individuals can and do act as both individual persons and social groups and that, since both individuals and social groups exist objectively, both personal and social categorical self-categorizations provide valid representations of self in differing social contexts. As social psychological theories of collective behaviour, they take for granted that they cannot provide a complete explanation of the concrete social realities of collective life. They define their task as providing an analysis of the psychological processes that interact with and make possible the distinctive "group facts" of social life. From the early 1970s, beginning with Tajfel's research on social categorization and intergroup discrimination, social identity theory has explored the links between the self- evaluative aspects of social'identity and intergroup conflict. Self-categorization theory, emerging from social identity research in the late 1970s, made a basic distinction between personal and social identity as differing levels of inclusiveness in self-categorization and sought to show how the emergent, higher-order properties of group processes could be explained in terms of a functional shift in self-perception from personal to social identity.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 6: Societies to Social Networks
    Chapter 6: Societies to Social Networks Chapter Summary Groups are the essence of life in society. We become who we are because of our membership in human groups. The essential feature of a group is that its members have something in common and that they believe that what they have in common is significant. The largest and most complex group that sociologists study is society (people who share a culture and a territory). Because of what appears to be a “natural” need for human kind to share culture, territory, and to seek significant others, societies developed. Anthropologists and sociologists have identified five types of societies that have developed in the course of human history. These five types of societies include hunting and gathering, pastoral and horticultural, agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial societies. Each is characterized by distinct forms of social division, social labor, and social inequality. The hunting and gathering society has the fewest social divisions and is the most egalitarian. In this society, the men hunt large animals and the women usually gather edible plants, fruits, and other food found growing in the wild. The first social revolution was based on the domestication of plants and animals. This resulted in the development of the pastoral society, which concentrated on the herding of animals, and the horticultural society, which specialized in planting and harvesting crops. The horticultural society made it possible for permanent settlements to be established since it was no longer necessary for people to follow the food supply. In the third social revolution, the invention of the plow made it possible for large areas of land to be cultivated and harvested.
    [Show full text]
  • On Group Popularity Prediction in Event-Based Social Networks
    Proceedings of the Twelfth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2018) On Group Popularity Prediction in Event-Based Social Networks Guangyu Li,1 Yong Liu,1 Bruno Ribeiro,2 Hao Ding1 1The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY 2The Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN guangyu.li, yongliu, [email protected], [email protected] Abstract user-level features related to user’s attention: how active is a user in individual groups, and how does the user distribute Although previous work has shown that member and struc- her activity/attention among multiple groups. Based on these tural features are important to the future popularity of groups features, the first key idea of our approach is the use of role in EBSN, it is not yet clear how different member roles and the interplay between them contribute to group popularity. discovery to determine the importance of users in a group In this paper, we study a real-world dataset from Meetup and the roles they play. Specifically, armed with each group — a popular EBSN platform — and propose a deep neu- member’s role, and event co-participation graphs generated ral network based method to predict the popularity of new from those members’ activities, we combine the members’ Meetup groups. Our method uses group-level features spe- roles with these activity networks to predict a group’s suc- cific to event-based social networks, such as time and loca- cess, extending the fingerprints techniques developed to cor- tion of events in a group, as well as the structural features relate the characteristics of atoms along with the neighbor- internal to a group, such as the inferred member roles in a ing bonds to other atoms to determine a molecule’s function.
    [Show full text]
  • SOCIAL GROUP WORK & Historical Development of Social Group Work
    Social Group Work & Historical Development of Group Work SWRK 4010 BY- Dr. Aprajita Upadhyay Assistant Professor Dept. Of Social Work MGCUB, MOTIHARI SOCIAL GROUP WORK SWRK 4010 • UNIT - I: Understanding Concepts of Social Group Work • Classification of Groups; Primary & Secondary Group; Formal & Informal • Social Group Work • Characteristics of Social Group Work • Historical Development of Social Group Work • Social group work is a method of social work which develops the ability of individuals through group activities. It is a different way of helping individuals through group based activities and enhancing - knowledge, understanding and skill. • Social group work is concerned with the social development of individuals. Practice of group work requires a deep knowledge about how humans interact in groups. • Definition • “Social group work is a psycho-social process which is concerned no less than with developing leadership ability and cooperation than with building on the interests of the group for a social purpose.” (Hamilton – 1949). • “Social group work is a method through which individuals in groups in social agency settings are helped by worker who guides their interaction in programme activities so that they may relate themselves to others and experience growth opportunities in accordance with their needs and capacities.” (Trecker – 1955). • “Social group work is a method of social work, which helps individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences and to cope more effectively with their personal, group and community problems.” (Konopka-1963) • Social Group Work is used for the purpose of reducing or eliminating roadblocks to social interaction and accomplishing desirable social goals (Skidmore – 1988) Characteristics of Group Work: • Group work makes use of multiple relationships and a multi-person process (worker to member, worker to group, member to member and member to group) • The group is an instrument for meeting basic needs and strengthening human capacities.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Reality in the Light of Values
    International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues ISSN: 2146-4138 available at http: www.econjournals.com International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2016, 6(S1) 280-283. Special Issue for “Theory and Practice of Organizational and Economic Problems of Territorial Development and the Effectiveness of Social and Economic Systems” Social Reality in the Light of Values Tatiana Topekha1*, Natalia Bolshakova2, Vera Fedotova3 1Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Perm, Russian Federation, 2Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Perm, Russian Federation, 3Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Perm, Russian Federation. *Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT In the given work the authors try to give an objective scientific analysis of social reality which is in the focus of many investigators today. The article demonstrates possibility of using the system of values to analyze social systems and social reality. It is in the value system, on the one hand, where internalized values of social objects and phenomena are accumulated, and on the other hand it is the source of social creativity reflecting the process of externalization of accumulated values of social objects and phenomena. Sociological research “Family and Personality” conducted in 2012 is considered. A group of people of different age, gender and educational level took part in it. Secondary analysis of its materials points to opportunity of investigating social systems of macro and micro levels, as well as modeling the social reality of a particular society through the system of values existing in it. Keywords: Social Reality, System, Values, Value System, Shadow Value JEL Classifications: C62, O18, P13 1. INTRODUCTION the integrity of the social system and taking into account its emergent properties.
    [Show full text]
  • Charitable Giving and Social Group Size: Does It Take a Lot of Friends to Be a Successful Fundraiser?
    Charitable giving and social group size: Does it take a lot of friends to be a successful fundraiser? Kimberley Scharf (University of Warwick) Sarah Smith (University of Bristol) 1 October 2013 Abstract Much charitable giving takes place in the context of existing social groups (workplaces, churches, friends and family). We exploit a real-world setting (online fundraising) to provide the first evidence on how the size of the social group affects donations. We show that the number of Facebook friends of individual charity fundraisers has a negative effect on average donation size. This is consistent with free-riding behaviour only if donors care about the total amount raised by the fundraiser. We discuss other possible explanations. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Justgiving for providing us with the data – in particular, Mike Bugembe and Elizabeth Kessick. Edmund Wright provided excellent research assistance in preparing the data. 1 Corresponding author: [email protected] Department of Economics, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TN 1 1. Introduction Donations by individuals are an important source of income for charities. $229 billion was donated in the US in 2012 and £10 billion in the UK. In practice, many of these donations are collected in social settings unrelated to charitable activity – in the UK, for example, 18% of donors report having sponsored family and friends for charity, 16% gave in church, 13% gave in the workplace and 7% gave to pub collections. 2 In this paper we provide robust and novel evidence on the relationship between social group size and donations.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Group Guidelines
    Distr. GENERAL HCR/GIP/02/02 7 May 2002 Original: ENGLISH GUIDELINES ON INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION: “Membership of a particular social group” within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees UNHCR issues these Guidelines pursuant to its mandate, as contained in the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Article 35 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and/or its 1967 Protocol. These Guidelines complement the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Reedited, Geneva, January 1992). They further supersede IOM/132/1989 – FOM/110/1989 Membership of a Particular Social Group (UNHCR, Geneva, 12 December 1989), and result from the Second Track of the Global Consultations on International Protection process which examined this subject at its expert meeting in San Remo in September 2001. These Guidelines are intended to provide legal interpretative guidance for governments, legal practitioners, decision-makers and the judiciary, as well as UNHCR staff carrying out refugee status determinations in the field. “Membership of a particular social group” within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees I. INTRODUCTION 1. “Membership of a particular social group” is one of the five grounds enumerated in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“1951 Convention”). It is the ground with the least clarity and it is not defined by the 1951 Convention itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Networking Sites Students Should Try Out
    50 Social Networking Sites Students Should Try Out Beyond Facebook, there’s an entire world of social media outlets worth exploring. Experiment with sites like Ning or Google Groups that let you create your own social group, or try out travel networks that help you plan your next vacation and meet up with friends around the world. There are also sites for job networking, sharing music, and learning about current events. Here’s a list from onlineuniversities.com of 50 social sites which students should try out. General These sites can be used however you’d like: for networking, study groups, sharing photos, posting your portfolio, and more. 1. Ning: Create your own social network for parties, special clubs, study groups and more with Ning. 2. Tribe: Find hyper-local and niche groups to join on Tribe. 3. Google Groups: Set up online study groups and more with Google Groups. 4. Twitter: Use Twitter to build your brand, keep up with friends, connect with teachers and family, and network. 5. Tumblr: Blog through Tumblr’s platform to express yourself, post your portfolio, meet friends and more. Multitasking This group of social sites works for users who are on the go and interested in playing with multiple features from one site. 6. Plaxo: Find content around the web from sites like Flickr, Amazon and Digg through Plaxo. 7. Meebo: Manage your various chat and instant messaging accounts from Meebo. 8. Mobicue: This social networking site is for mobile users on the go. 9. TeamSugar: This network of fashion, politics, beauty, environment, and entertainment networks has a strong community for sharing videos, photos, blogs, opinions, product reviews and more.
    [Show full text]
  • Group Perception and Social Norms
    Running header: GROUP PERCEPTION AND SOCIAL NORMS GROUP PERCEPTION AND SOCIAL NORMS Sarah Gavac University of Wisconsin-Madison Sohad Murrar University of Wisconsin-Madison Markus Brauer University of Wisconsin-Madison 11 July 2014 Word count: 14,061 Corresponding author: Sarah Gavac, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 W. Johnson St., Madison, Wisconsin, 53706. E-mail: [email protected] GROUP PERCEPTION AND SOCIAL NORMS 2 SUMMARY Groups create the very basis of our society. We are, as humans, social animals. We are born into groups, learn in groups, live in groups, and work in groups. Groups can range anywhere from three people to a nation. Think of the groups you belong to. How similar are you to other members of your groups? In most cases, we tend to be similar to other members of our groups because there are standards within the group that define behavioral expectations. These standards are called social norms. Throughout this chapter, we hope to provide basic answers to some of the fundamental questions about social norms and group dynamics: What are social norms? How do social norms influence our behavior? How have social norms been studied? What are the classic experiments on social norms? What is conformity and how does it relate to social norms? When do individuals conform and why do they conform? What makes a group? How do social norms and group dynamics overlap? WHAT ARE SOCIAL NORMS? Imagine you get on an elevator. There’s no one on it, so you stand in the middle and listen to the soft music while the doors close.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnography As an Inquiry Process in Social Science
    ETHNOGRAPHY AS AN INQUIRY PROCESS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH Ganga Ram Gautam ABSTRACT This article is an attempt to present the concept of ethnography as a qualitative inquiry process in social science research. The paper begins with the introduction to ethnography followed by the discussion of ethnography both as an approach and a research method. It then illustrates how ethnographic research is carried out using various ethnographic methods that include participant observation, interviewing and collection of the documents and artifacts. Highlighting the different ways of organizing, analyzing and writing ethnographic data, the article suggests ways of writing the ethnographic research. THE INQUIRY PROCESS Inquiry process begins consciously and/or subconsciously along with the beginning of human life. The complex nature of our life, problems and challenges that we encounter both in personal and professional lives and the several unanswered questions around us make us think and engage in the inquiry process. Depending upon the nature of the work that one does and the circumstances around them, people choose the inquiry process that fits into their inquiry framework that is built upon the context they are engaged in. This inquiry process in education is termed as research and research in education has several dimensions. The inquiry process in education is also context dependent and it is driven by the nature of the inquiry questions that one wants to answer. UNDERSTANDING ETHNOGRAPHY Ethnography, as a form of qualitative research, has now emerged as one of the powerful means to study human life and social behavior across the globe. Over the past fifteen years there has been an upsurge of ethnographic work in British educational research, making ethnography the most commonly practiced qualitative research method.
    [Show full text]