PSY220H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Hindsight Bias, Social Animal, Disposition
Document Summary
Aristotle was the first serious thinker to call our species the social animal . Social psychological situations all contain a common factor: social influence. Social psychology: the scientific study of the influence of the real, imagined, or implied presence of others upon our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and behavior - and how we influence others. Hindsight bias: our tendency to overestimate our powers of prediction once we know the outcome of a given event. Ex: i always knew he"d win, even if the polls didn"t say so . Social psychologists conduct research because many of the things we think we know to be true turn out to be false, or more nuanced than we originally thought, when subjected to investigation. Ex: it seems reasonable that people who are threatened with punishment for doing something illegal, and the more severe the punishment, the more likely they will be to comply.
