Term
| What is social psychology? - Text explanation |
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Definition
| “The way we think about others (social cognition) and the way we act towards them individually and in groups (social behaviour)” |
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Term
| What is social psychology? - Further explanation |
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Definition
- Our motives of interaction between people: what are we trying to do in our interactions with other people
- Where most of our feelings/emotions are coming from
- Which means social psychologist have something to say about almost everything to do with people |
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Term
| Social Cognition Definition |
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Definition
| How people perceive their social worlds and how they attend to, store, remember and use information about other people and the social world |
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Term
| Social Cognition Further explanation |
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Definition
- We attend to information, store it and remember it, and use it in the future
- We are all in a collective setting where we have primary attentions, but there are other thigs that we are attending to in the background
- Our social lives are with us all the time, and we are constantly attending to this information
- Two major influences on social cognitions are both our own and others’ emotions and behaviours |
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Term
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Definition
The process of developing initial views of others.
- In the process of forming impressions of others, we take in large amounts of information (verbal and non-verbal) quickly and, sometimes without conscious awareness, mould our impressions into judgements. |
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Term
| How well and how quickly can we create impression formation? |
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Definition
- The text argues “thin slices are enough”. In theory if person has met you for half an hour this should be enough to get to know who the person is.
- BUT it depends what you are trying to understand about a person and what they want you to think of them
- Therefore, this is not a very accurate way of thinking as peple can manage their behaviour. Particularly because people are constantly managing their impressions and presenting their best self. |
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Term
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Definition
When you get a piece of information that is a good thing, you start to attribute good characteristics to them that may not be true.
e.g. you find out that their musical taste is the same as you’re, you suddenly assume that they are also similar to you in other ways
- Can work the reverse, if you hear a bad thing about someone you may focus on the other bad things. You don’t hear everything else about them in an objective way, but instead via that first impression |
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Term
| What is the Primacy Effect? |
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Definition
The information you notice early on is more likely to bias your impression than is the information you pick up subsequently i.e. what somebody looks like or dresses like
- Fades away after a time, but is a certain anchor from which other pieces of information are absorbed and assessed
- If you know a person for a long time, the primacy effect disappears. But for something like a job interview, it does have a huge impact on the person’s impression. |
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Term
| What is Impression Management? |
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Definition
| A person’s efforts to control how others will view him or her. |
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Term
| Impression Management further explanation |
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Definition
- What you are consciously and unconsciously saying in your body
- Managing your impression as an intuitive thing to do as you want people to think well of you
- Usually want other people to think well of us which influences us to be a better person, which makes for a better world |
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Term
| What does it mean when said "Not all cognitions are conscious"? |
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Definition
What is going through our minds and these associations that we are making are not necessarily put together in a way that we understand
- Happens when we are not aware that we are creating the Halo or Primacy effect on the impression of someone else |
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Term
| 'Not all cognitions are conscious' example |
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Definition
| We’re not thinking about the impression you were making, but where still managing our impression; you may think a person with glasses is intelligent, but you don’t consciously look at a person and think ‘they are wearing glasses so they must be intelligent’, it is only a connection in your brain |
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Term
| What does it mean when said "Not all cognitions are 'rational'"? |
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Definition
| If we have a purpose we want to achieve we don’t plan it all out and follow the steps and do it, we include other factors which may overwhelm us with emotions and the behaviours that are going on around us. |
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Term
| Not all cognitions are “rational” example |
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Definition
A person is about to have sex with a new partner. Should they use a condom?
Obvious answer: YES – Prevent pregnancy and avoid STI’s
But instead the person’s cognition takes control: I’ve never got someone pregnant before; I’m too embarrassed to discuss it; He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to have an STI.
- What should and could be a very simple act, becomes a complex act because of the emotions, impression management, other people’s behavior etc. |
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Term
| What is the Self-perception theory? |
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Definition
The theory that people come to understand themselves by making inferences from their behaviour and the events surrounding their behaviours.
- It is important to realize that not all cognitions are conscious, and not all cognitions are rational. Two major influences on social cognitions are both our own and others emotions and behaviors. |
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Term
| Self-perception theory further explanation |
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Definition
- As we grow through childhood we form a perception of ourselves called ‘Sub-concept’
- Theory that we learn about ourselves, just as we learn about other people, by observing ourselves in action
- We don’t know why we do somethings, and the idea that we can look back and think: why did I do that? What kind of person am I? etc. is a useful way of how people build up their self-concept
- NOTE: “self-perception theory” is not the only theory of self-perception! |
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Term
| OBJECTIVES - Study” Harré, 2003 Discrepancy between actual and estimated speeds of drivers in the presence of child pedestrians |
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Definition
| First, to measure the speeds of vehicles with and without children on the footpath, and second to compare these with drivers’ estimates of how fast they would go in these conditions. |
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Term
| DESIGN - Study” Harré, 2003 Discrepancy between actual and estimated speeds of drivers in the presence of child pedestrians |
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Definition
| The speeds of vehicles in three conditions: control (no children present), children playing with a ball on the footpath, and children waiting to cross the road, were measured using speed tubes during two 55 minute sessions. Drivers’ estimates of their speeds were measured with a questionnaire. |
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Term
| SUBJECTS - Study” Harré, 2003 Discrepancy between actual and estimated speeds of drivers in the presence of child pedestrians |
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Definition
| A total of 1446 speed measurements were taken and 93 drivers’ questionnaire responses were analysed. |
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Term
| NUMBER RESULTS (median) - Study” Harré, 2003 |
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Definition
In normal traffic conditions
Estimate= 55kpm
Actual = 55.5kpm
When there are children playing with a ball on the footpath:
Estimate = 40kpm
Actual = 54.9 kpm
When there are children waiting to cross the road:
Estimate = 40kpm
Actual = 53.4kpm |
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Term
| RESULTS DISCUSSION - Study” Harré, 2003 |
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Definition
- Major discrepancy between what they said they drove and how fast they actually drove. There is a slight slowdown, but these speeds are still far in excess of what it would take to kill a child.
- There was indeed no difference between estimated and actual speeds in the control condition, but there were differences between these in the children playing with a ball (The median speed they estimated traveling past children was 13.4–14.9 kph slower than the measured median speeds)
- New Zealand drivers make inadequate speed adjustments in the presence of children, despite probably believing they do so.
- Establishing specific rules about appropriate speeds around children and highlighting to drivers the discrepancy between their attitudes and behaviour are two intervention strategies suggested. |
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Term
| POSSIBLE REASONS FOR FINDINGS - Study” Harré, 2003 |
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Definition
- Behavior and self-perception are not perfectly aligned (i.e. reflecting on our behavior)
- Looks like we are operating through different channels: Doing our behavior on one hand, and have a self-perception on the other hand, of which they are different (imperfection in self-perception theory)
1. Drivers may simply not be aware of their driving habits.
- When asked directly they believe they treat children as worthy of a response, but in actuality they are so used to children behaving responsibly in traffic that they barely even notice them in a complex road environment
- Although children generally do behave responsibly in traffic and may be good at compensating for their limitations at judging the speed and distance of approaching vehicles by making cautions decisions, they are potentially impulsive and may be more readily distracted from adequate monitoring of the traffic environment than adults.
- “Dart outs” are probably extremely unusual, so drivers have effectively learned, or rather over-learned, that children can be relied upon to keep out of their path.
2. Participants may have been responding to the questions in a socially desirable manner. They know they should slow down for children, although they may also know they rarely do this.
3. The questionnaire respondents may have constructed a different mental image of the scenarios being referred to than was actually the case. It is possible they imagined younger or more children. |
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Term
| What is Learned Riskiness (Ray Fuller)? |
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Definition
We learn whether something is risky or not from our experience.
e.g. When you first start driving, you are extremely aware of the risks around you. But because there is most people have not experienced a child running across the road, we learn that children tend to stay off the road.
- So without consciously changing our idea, we develop an idea that children are not a risk. |
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Term
| Facts about car accidents in link with speed |
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Definition
- Internationally, most children’s injuries are classified as ‘mid-block dart-outs’
- Same impact on a child or a grown man would have a much greater impact on the child
- For adults: an impact at 40 kph, 25% of crashes are likely to be fatal; an impact at 50 kph, this rises to 85%. |
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