PSYCH253 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Fundamental Attribution Error, Kurt Lewin, John Bargh
5 May 2016
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Document Summary
Social psychologists go beyond folk wisdom and try to establish a scientific basis for understanding human behavior. Social psychology can be defined as the scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations. Philip zimbardo and his colleagues paid 24 stanford university undergraduate men, chosen for their good character and mental health, to be participants in a study of a simulated prison. In the end, right away, the guards turned to verbal abuse and physical humiliation. Social psychologists study situations in which people exert influence over one another, as well as the ways people respond to influence attempts of various kinds. Research by social psychologists regularly influences government policy government assistance policies; and also affects decisions by the courts shaping. Kurt lewin: the founder of modern social psychology; he believed that the behavior of people, like the behavior of objects, is always a function of the field of forces in which they find themselves.
