Summary: Social Psychology

Read the summary and the most important questions on Social Psychology

• Lecture 1: Impressions of Individuals

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• What experiment demonstrates that a good physical appearance forms a better 1st impression?

  Exp: Walster et al, 1966
  Participants went on a date with someone - date was rated higher if person was more attractive (more info top of p.58, social psychology textbook)
  
  Exp: Dion et al, 1972 - "what is beautiful is good"
  
  Exp: Attractiveness can shape voting particularly to people with little political knowledge (Hart, Ottati, & Krumdick, 2011 - on college students) (exp backed up with Mattes, Spezio, Kim, Todorov, Adolphs, & Alvarez, 2010)
  
  Attractive people are considered more interesting, warm, outgoing, intelligent and social than less attractive people (exp: Eagly & Makhijani, 1991; Feingold, 1992)

• What can be said about first impressions and physical appearance across cultures? 

  The "attractive is good" belief transcends specific cultures (Dion, 2002)

• What experiment shows the effect of familiarity on 1st impressions?

  Zajonc, 1968 = the mere exposure effect
  Exp supported by Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950
  
  Moreland & Beach, 1992 - 4 women attended varying numbers of sessions of a lecture course = students thought the women they had seen more was more interesting, attractive, warm and intelligent (more info p.61 social psychology textbook)

• What kind of cues capture our attention?

  Salient cues 
  (salience refers to a cue's ability to capture attention)
  
  The salient aspects of physical appearance, non-verbal communication, environments and behaviour capture our attention and provide the basis for 1st impressions

• Are there cultural differences regarding associations?

  Yes - different cultures have different dissociations = different interpretations for the same behaviour (Markus and others, 1996) p.64 social psychology

• What is Correspondent Inference and who was it proposed by?

  Jones & Davis, 1965
  
  Deciding that a person has a personality trait that corresponds to their behaviour 
  
  (purpose of this theory is to explain why people make certain 1st impressions about others and the role of behaviour in making these impressions)

• What experiment shows that a correspondent inference can occur spontaneously?

  Carlston & Skowronski, 1994
  
  Exp: participants examined photos of people together with their written descriptions of their behaviours which implied a trait. 
  
  Results: participants associated the traits with people (even if they were told to only familiarize themselves with the descriptions rather than form a 1st impression. (p. 70 social psychology textbook)

• At what 3 times is correspondent inference justified? What is the problem with this theory?

  1. Freely chosen behaviour
  2. Effect of behaviour is not common 
  3. Behaviour is unexpected 
  
  Limitations with theory - people don't tend to be that logical - correspondent bias
  
  (more explanation on slide 16 + p.70 social psychology textbook)

• What is meant by correspondent bias?

  The dual tendency of observers to underestimate the impact of situational factors and to overestimate the influence of personal traits of a person's behavior (i.e. judge people on their behaviour)

• What is a limit of correspondent bias?

  It does not affect our impressions of others (p. 70-71 social psychology textbook. Exp: Douglas Krull (1993)