PSYCH 2C03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Fundamental Attribution Error, Universal Property, Construals
12 Sep 2013
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Social influence: we are all influenced by other people. Social influence extends beyond behaviour: includes our thoughts, feelings, and overt acts. Social influence takes on many forms other than deliberate attempts at persuasion; we are often influenced by the presence of other people even when we are not in their physical presence. Social psychologists are interested in studying how and why our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are shaped by the entire social environment. Scientific study of the way in which people"s thoughts, feeling and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people. Social psychology is not concerned with social situations in any objective sense, but rather how people are influenced by their interpretation, or construal, of their social environment. It is more important to understand how they perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world than it is to understand the objective properties of the social world itself. Social psychology is an experimentally based science.
