PSY 1001 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Social Facilitation, Melanin, Authoritarian Personality
Document Summary
What is social psychology: social psychology. Study of how people influence others" behavior, beliefs, and attitudes: humans as a social species. Dunbar"s number: 150: describes the approximate size of social groups. The size of our cortex is relative to the rest of our bran places with limits on how many people with whom we can closely associate. The need to belong: why we form groups. Need-to-belong theory: humans have a biologically based need for interpersonal connections, mark leary. The threat of social isolation can lead us to behave in self-destructive ways and even impair our mental functioning. Upon experiencing the sting of social rejection, participants displayed pronounced activation in the cingulate cortex, a brain region that becomes active during physical pain. Social comparison theory: theory that we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others, leon festinger, upward social comparison.
