PSYC 3325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Influence, Dependent And Independent Variables, Superficiality
Document Summary
Unifying themes of social psychology: primarily from smith & mackie, two fundamental axioms. Every person"s view of reality is a construction. Other people influence virtually all of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior whether those others are physically present or not: three motivational principles. People seek to understand and predict events in the social world in order to obtain rewards. Seek support, liking, and acceptance from the people and groups we care about and value. Individuals and groups views of the world are slow to change and prone to perpetuate themselves. We look for information or confirmation that supports our beliefs. The information that is most readily available generally had the most impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. People ordinarily put little effort into dealing with information but at times are motivated to consider information in more depth. Five core human motives as unifying framework for social psychology: cognitive misers.
