PSYC 2103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Cognition, Fundamental Attribution Error, Personality Psychology

• School: Acadia University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2103
• Professor: Diane Holmberg

Document Summary

O(cid:272)ial ps(cid:455)(cid:272)holog(cid:455) is the stud(cid:455) of ho(cid:449) people"s thoughts, feeli(cid:374)gs, a(cid:374)d (cid:271)eha(cid:448)iou(cid:396)s a(cid:396)e influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people. In this class we are mostly going to be looking at behaviour and how we are affected by other people trying to influence us. People do(cid:374)"t e(cid:448)e(cid:374) ha(cid:448)e to (cid:271)e ph(cid:455)si(cid:272)all(cid:455) p(cid:396)ese(cid:374)t to i(cid:374)flue(cid:374)(cid:272)e us. Social psychologists emphasize the importance of the situation. Fae: the fundamental attribution error is when we tend to put too much emphasis on people"s pe(cid:396)so(cid:374)alities. Our focus is on how most people are affected (the average) Construals are important (construal: how people understand or interpret a situation) Important aspect of construals: people like to interpret situations in a way that maintains their self-esteem. Personality psychology and social psychology do have some overlap. Personality psychology is more interested in individual differences in personality. There is also some overlap with sociology and these two disciplines often tackle the same issues.