PSYB10H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Leon Festinger, Psych, Self Esteem (Song)
Document Summary
Construal: the way people perceive, comprehend and interpret the social world. Commentary made by journalists, social critics, and novelists. More often than not, they disagree with one another, and there is no easy way of determining which of them is correct. One of the tasks of the social psychologist is to make educated guesses about the specific situations under which one outcome or the other would occur. Another task: design experiments sophisticated enough to demonstrate the specific situations under which one or the other applies. Goal is to identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture. Sociology looks at society as a whole. Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to explain people"s behaviour in terms of personality traits, thereby underestimating the power of social influence. By failing to appreciate the full power of the situation, people tend to oversimplify complex situations.
