Sociology 2233 Chapter 1: Social Psych Study Notes - Chap 1.docx
27 Apr 2014
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The need to feel good about ourselves (see later: social psychology interested in individuals, emphasis on what"s going on in their hearts and minds, level of analysis: the individual within a social situation, goal of sp: identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture, explanations of social influence through carefully controlled experiments, social interpretation: to understand social influence, we need to understand how people perceive and interpret the social world, not understand the world objectively. Individual differences contribute significantly to how people will react (social behavior) to certain situations: individual behaviour is powerfully influenced by the social environment, social psychologists look at; personality traits and social influence, fundamental attribution error: explaining bahaviour in terms of personality traits, but underestimating the power of social influence, when we underestimate the power of social influence, there is a feeling of false security; we want to alienate these people from ourselves.
