01:830:321 Lecture Notes - Fundamental Attribution Error, Construals, Stanley Milgram

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:321
• Professor: Professor Stephen Killianski

Document Summary

Scientific study of feelings (affect), thoughts (cognition), and behaviors related to social situations. Non conscious mental processes included in cognition. Social situations can be real or imagined. How do people explain the behaviors of others? (we need to know what other people are thinking, their intentions, and their motives are. Social psychology - focuses on how social situations can influence the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of an individual (how most individuals will behave in most social contexts; somewhat uniformly affects individuals in that context) Personality psychology - focuses on how differences between individuals influence thoughts, feelings and behaviors (within the individual mind rather than social context; pays attention to individual differences) Sociology focuses on behavior of communities and groups, not individuals. Situations can often exert greater influence on behavior than personality or past experience (can cause people to react out of character) Experimental set-up experiment described as a study of learning and punishment .