SOC 2109 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Fundamental Attribution Error, Emergence, Social Forces

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2109
• Professor: Aline Couhtino

Document Summary

Let"s start with this definition: (cid:498)social psychology is the scientific attempt to explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings. Perhaps we should unpack it: scientific method, thoughts (beliefs, expectation, worldviews), feeling (emotions, moods), and behaviours (actions) Individuals (the head of an individual person vs. the emergent properties of social phenomena. *focus on how people are influenced by others. How do we explain behaviour: the fundamental attribution error: overemphasizes the actor (internal subjectivity) as the main or sole cause of behaviour, we tend to underemphasize the social context. Sociology: focuses on feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of individuals: studies individuals in group settings, but these groups are located in wider social and historical context (accounts for larger structural forces, meso- and macro- level of analysis. Psychology: focuses on feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of individuals, studies individuals in group settings (from an immediate social context perspective, micro-level analysis.