Social Psychology Exam 1

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symbolic interactionalism

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traditionally been the one most concerned with the meanings that people give to actions and events and with understanding how these meanings are constructed and negotiated.

best explained connection between individual perception and social organization.

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The Nature of Reality

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Rationalists (the ability to reason) vs. pragmatics (sensible and realistically dealing with things. practical vs theoretical)

human beings cannot meaningfully discuss a naked or uninterpreted objective reality.

it's not that things in themselves are unattainable to our knowledge, but rather that they can have a variety of possible meanings.

a specific meaning is problematic.

meaning gets shaped and reshaped in the course of its interaction with other things, particularly with human 'knowers'.

consider a beer can. if its full of beer it can be seen as fun, refreshing, and intoxicating but if it is left on the floor of your apartment you can see it as a sign of irresponsibility from your lazy roommate.

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3 overall arches of social psychology

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Interaction
Contextual
Consistency

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Schemas and self-schemas

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Part 1: organized system of beliefs about some object, event, person or thing
Part 2: are built up from experience
Part 3 (most important): selectively guide the processing of new information

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The main unit of analysis in social psychology is:

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The social outcome as a
Consequence of:
Social
Behavioral
Emotional
Cognitive, etc

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Goals of social psychology

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Practice your analytical powers (observation)
Field independent and field dependant people
Context dependant and context independent (don’t pay attention)

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John Dewey (nature or reality) a pragmatist

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Reality has multiple natures and possibilities, and it is open to many interpretations.

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The Nature of the Human Knower
Pierce and Dewey

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that the worlds of mind and matter are not distinct; instead, they are vitally linked through human action.

knowing is thus a process of 'doing and making' that we engage in when we need to transform objets into objects of knowledge.

"we establish the 'meaning' of objects through our practical skills, symbolic abilities, and manipulative powers. put simply, we give meanings to things based on how we respond to them.

if you respond to the beer can by opening the top of it and drinking its fluid, you are defining it as something that holds a beverage that is to be consumed. of if you shake the can and hand it to a friend, you may be defining it as a 'surprise' for a similar action. thus stressing the notion that doing is meaning.

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symbolic symbols (mead)

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unlike animals who communicate through body movement and grunts, humans communicate through the exchange of symbols.

when people use worlds or gestures that call forth the same meaning for others as they do for themselves, they use _____________.

Mead finds this important because most interactions among human beings are based on the exchange of significant symbols.

as a result, these interactions require people to engage in a complex process of interpretation. when two individuals engage in conversation, they have to make sense of each other's words and behaviors, reflecting on questions such as: what's the meaning of this situation? what does this other person want from me? what do i want from him or her? how is this person likely to act towards me? what will happen if our desires or actions clash? will we get into a serious conflict?

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the importance of significant symbols (mead)

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1. they allow us to exchange shared meanings with others and communicate effectively with them.

2. they enable us to anticipate how others are likely to act in a situation and to coordinate our actions with theirs.

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The 1st implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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human beings are unique creatures because of their ability to use symbols.
-people have languages

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The 2nd implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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2. people become distinctively human through interaction.
-think of a ferrel child

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The 3rd implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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people are conscious, self-reflexive beings who shape their own behavior.
-'mind and self' get formed through process of communication and role taking.

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The 4th implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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people are purposive creatures who act in and toward situations.
-people react different ways in different situations.

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The 5th implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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Society consists of people engaging in symbolic interaction.
-society is not fluid, but structured and built upon people interacting with each other.

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The 6th implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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emotions are central to meaning, behavior, and the self.
-emotions shape peoples actions, interactions, and self-concepts. emotions are profoundly social in their origins and expression.

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The 7th implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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the 'social act' should be the fundamental unit of social psychological analysis.
-social act or joint action, is the central concern or social psychology. A social act refers to behavior that in some way takes account of others and is guided by what they do; it is formulated so that it fits together with the behavior of another person, group, or social organization. it also depends on and emerges through communication and interpretation.

routine and repetitive

linked to a larger and complex network of actions

connected to previous contexts and forms of conduct

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The 8th implicit assumptions of symbolic interactionism

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Sociological methods should enable researchers to grasp people's meanings.
-interactionists believe it is essential to see symbolic creatures meanings from their point of view.

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Naturalistic Inquiry

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"naturalistic" because it focuses on people's behavior in natural social settings and advocates the use of informal and unobtrusive techniques to acquire a first-hand understanding of this behavior.
-has two key phases (exploration and inspection)
-exploration
*immersed in a specific world focusing on how members of that world experience it and negotiate relationships in it.
*researcher tries to be sensitive to the perspectives and understandings of those studied.
*relies on ethnography (study life history, personal document analysis, interviews)
*join persons in their personal routine activities.
-inspection
*look over the substantive data
*evaluate whatever concept or elements are used for analysis (class, status, or social mobility)

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Grounded Theory

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A researcher gathers, inspects, and analyzes data at the same time.
They also code and analyze as soon as it is collected.
They work back and forth between these two processes to develop theoretical explanations.
Takes part in several key analytical steps
-open and focused coding
-memo writing
-theoretical sampling
-creating and linking theoretical categories
It is written in a form of ethnographic text

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Autoethnography

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considered 'radical and emotionally attuned'

the study of oneself or one's own experiences.

for example, Ellis wrote detailed notes on the illness and eventual death of her romantic partner in an effort to examine how individuals experience and address grief, loss, and serious illness. this introspective form of ethnography has triggered controversy among interactionists because it makes study of the self primary and relies on no 'objective' external measures.

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Dramaturgical Theory

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a social psychological pespective that studies human behavior and social interaction in terms of the anoloy of the theater. this perspective is closely related to symbolic interactionism. drawing on the ground breaking ideas of ervin goffman, this theory focuses on how people manipulate various aspects of themselves and their settings to influence how others define and respond to them.

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Social Cognition

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sorting and organizing data by naming or applying social categories to them, thereby giving them meaning.

happens whenever we come into contact with others. we gather vital information about others.

this allows us to move forward in relationships and conversations.

think of when you cannot remember somebody's name.

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Stereotypes

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a mental image that attributes a common set of characteristics to members of a particular group.

a mental image that attributes a common set of characteristics to members of a particular group or social category.

(a fixed way of thinking about people that puts them into categories and doesn't allow for individual variation.)

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central organizing trait

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a trait that has the greatest impact on the overall impression we form of him or her.

a persons perceived level of warmth.

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Social Identity

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is a mental category we use to locate a person in relation to others, highlighting how he or she is similar to and different from these others. it can consist of a single characteristic.

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Halo Effect

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"what is beautiful is good"

or the tendency to believe attractive people have more socially desirable qualities than their less attractive counterparts do.

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Schema

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a set of beliefs or preconceptions that organizes the information we gather about a specific object, person, or concept. schemas allow us to simplify reality by interpreting specific instances in light of general categories.

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Looking Glass Self

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the notion that the self reflects the responses of others. more specifically, the self develops through a three-step process:
1. imagining one's appearance in the eyes of others
2. imagining their judgement of that appearance
3. internalizing their perspectives and developing a corresponding self-image and self-feeling. this term was originally coined by Charles Horton Cooley

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Role Taking

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the process of assuming the perspective of others, or putting ourselves in their position.

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Game Stage

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the phase of socialization in which we learn to take the role of a network of others, or the 'generalized other'. in so doing, we learn to look at ourselves and our behavior from the standpoint of a number of other perspectives or roles we thereby acquire a sense of society and its moral standards.

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Play Stage

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the phase of socialization in which we learn to take the role of specific others, such as parents, teachers, or superheroes, by playing these roles.

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Preparatory Stage

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the phase of socialization in which we lack a developed sense of self and have difficulty distinguishing our roles from the roles of others.

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Rites of Passage

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Rituals and ceremonies that accompany and help us to handle the changes in status we experience over the course of our lives.

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Interactionism

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The study and recognition that individuals, groups of people, and the environment take part in:
1. mutual influence.
2. a natural transaction of participation and consequence
3. bidirectional control and counter-control
4. non-obvious joint influences that result in potentially profound effects

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Contextualism

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the study and recognition that individuals and groups of people are embedded in an active surrounding, including culture, society, family, and environment

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consistency

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the working theoretical assumption that people and individuals prefer a consistent, predictable, familiar world; that this world includes their phsical and mental worlds.

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inductive goals

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describe an event or phenomenon, discover relationships

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deductive goals

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prediction, control

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modes of analytical thinking:

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elemental analysis
surface analysis
structural analysis
functional analysis (generic parts)
contextual analysis (spatial and temporal dimensions)
dynamic analysis (who's perception)

the main unit of analysis in social psychology is the 'social outcome' as a consequence of social, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, etc.

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study of self (william james)

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3 parts of me
-spiritual
-social
-material

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cognitive miser

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similar to the idea of saturated self (not having enough time to get close to anyone) it is described as a person that holds his energy close to himself

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attributional process

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an information process used by people to make inference about the causes of behavior and events

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why do we seek to make attributions?

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to gain control, develop new categories, reduce uncertainty, gain understanding

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corresponding inference theoryq

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definition and process, only looks at one event, situation, or instance

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kellys covariation model

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looks at multiple evens situations instances

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implicit personality theory

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tendency to select information consistent with first impressions

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evalutative consistency

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a tendency to view people in a way that is internally inconsistant

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fundamental attribution error

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tendency to make internal attributions over external attributions in explaining the behaviors of others (how a person percieves others)