Chapter One--the Science of Social Psychology

CHAPTER ONE--THE SCIENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. Define social psychology and explain why you think it is an important class for you to take.

Social psychology is the science of how people act in social situations – it helps people understand why people act the way they do

2. Name two things that make the study of social psychology scientific. A set of values and several methods

3.  Name and describe the five things which help us understand the causes of social behavior and thought. Actions, feelings, beliefs, memories, and inferences

4.  Name and describe the three scientific methods used to study social psychology. Observation- systematic observation that is recorded, survey- large number of people answer questions about attitudes or behaviors, and correlational method- systematically observes two or more variables to determine whether changes in one are accompanied by changes of others

5.  Define external validity. Extent to which the findings of experiments can be generalized to real-life situations.

6.  Why do researchers in social psychology sometimes use deception? In some cases if people know the purpose of the study their behavior may be changed

7.  Define informed consent and debriefing. Informed consent- giving participants as much info as is possible about the procedures to be followed before a decision is made. Debriefing – providing participants with a full description of the purpose of the case study after they have participated

CHAPTER TWO--HOW WE THINK ABOUT THE SOCIAL WORLD

1.  What is cognition? Awareness, thought

2.  What is social cognition? To think long and hard about people

3.  What are schemas, and what do they do for us? Mental frameworks that allow us to organize large amounts of information in an efficient manner

4.  Name the three cognitive processes involved in using schemas. Priming, unpriming, and perseverance effect

5.  Define heuristics and name three of them. Heuristics- simple rules of thumb used to make...