CONTEMPORARY TOPICS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

28 830 672

Fall 2012

Kent Harber

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY AT NEWARK

Define These Fields

Developmental Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Physiological Psychology

Social Psychology

Cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal changes, over lifespan

Learning, memory, and reasoning

Molecular, neurological, hormonal, and cortical bases of psychology

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Wrigley Field W.C. Fields Strawberry Field Sally Field

Domains of Social Psychology

Theoretical Sub-Domains Applied

Phenomena and Interesting Problems

Cog. DissonanceAttributionSelf AffirmationTerror Management

ClassicThe SelfObedience Bystander BehaviorPrejudice

ContemporarySocial SupportOstracismEmbodimentAutonomyStereotype Threat

Social CognitionEmotionsSocial Develop.Social NeuroscienceGroup ProcessesIntergroup Relations

EducationHealthEnvironmentalOccupational

NOTES:

1.This is NOT an exhaustive list of all domains and all domain-related topics.

2.Areas intersect: Emotion & Health, Dissonance & the Self & Prejudice, e.g.

How are Humans Like Other Mammals?

Emotional Beings

* Have core set of emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust

* Emotions closely tied to behavior

Social Beings

* Depend on others, and others depend on us: No se vive sin amore

* Exploit and are exploited by others

What Are Core and Unique Human Qualities?Time Perspective

Self Consciousness

Theory of Mind

* Other people are self conscious

* Other people have selves

Social Psychology:

The internal experience and interpersonal behavior of self-aware social beings.

Whitey Herzog’s “Theory of Mind”

A slick way to out-figure someone is to get them to figure you’ve figured how they figured. Then when they’ve figured you’ve figured how they figured they’ve figured, you can figure a way to out figure how they figured you figured.

Class Agenda

Dynamic Bases of Social Psychology

Motives, Drives, Emotions

Unconscious processes

Drive Toward Meaning

Social Perception

The Self

Is there a self?

What is the self?

What does the self do?

Freud Lewin

Wllm. James G.H. Mead

Class Topics

PART 1: The Dynamics of Mental Lives

1. Gestalt Psychology & Kurt Lewin

2. Psychodynamic Theory

3. Social Development

4. Emotion, Vision, and Judgment

5. Emotion and Judgment

6. Emotion and Cognition

7. Emotion Management

8. Attribution Theory

Class Topics

PART 2: The Self

9. The Self—Classic and Philosophical Approaches

10. The Self and the Collective

11. Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Affirmation

12. Self Theory: Contemporary Issues

13. Culture and the Self

14. Existential Social Psychology

Class StructureSeminar Format

My Role: Introduce topics, overview Discussants: Prepare set of discussion topics, lead discussion All are expected to join in discussion

Grading

Discussion Summaries and Questions: 30%Quizzes 30%Attendance/Participation 05%

Take-home Final 35%

Class Assignments & Materials

Materials

Reader: Master available at front office. Charge = printing costs.

Powerpoint Slides: Available on my Web pagehttp://psychology.rutgers.edu/~kharber

Assignments

Discussion Questions: 6 ques. per reading (3-4 for short reads), plus brief (1 page) outline. Bring copies for all participants.

Quizzes: Mainly multiple choice, about 15 questions each.

Attendance/Participation: Be prepared to answer presenters’ questions.

Final Exam: Essay questions, take home.

What Do You See? What Would Wundt See?

Wilhelm Wundt(1832-1920)

What Do You See? What Would Wundt See?

Historical Roots of Positivism

Devine Right of Kings

Sectarian violence, 30 Years War

Religious oppression, Inquisition

Stifling of intellectual freedom, e.g., Galileo

Galileo Galilei1564-1642

Gestalt Psychology1. Revolt from then-dominant empirical psychology: Behaviorism, Associationism, Structuralism

2. Alternative to Psychoanalytic Theory

3. Early psychology suffers theoretical psoriasis: too dry or too flakey.

Lewin: “What could be observed reliably is socially meaningless, and what is socially meaningful could not be observed reliably.”

4. Gestalt insight on apparent motion makes mental lives empirically accessible.

Telephone lines from train

Phi Phenomenon

The Phi Phenomena: An Insight Leading to Gestalt Leading to Insight

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/balls.htm

Gestalt's "Cheerful" Revolution

Mental events are legitimate objects of study

Whole range of human experience open for scientific investigation

Example: Insight

1. Behaviorists say all learning is trial and error

2. Gestaltists say it can be instantaneous--reorganizing of field

3. Sultan the ape, a stick, and a bananna

4. Learning is hypothesis driven

What Dominates Perception:

Prior Learning or Novel Structure?

Hering Illusion: Context Affects Perception

Gestalt Demonstrations on Vision Influence Social Psychology Theory

What’s The Story?

Point: Perception driven by context, i.e., the entire field.

Similarity

Proximity

OO OO OO

O O O O O O

O O O O O O

Objective Set

X

XX

XX

X

Similarity

Social Perception Governed By Same Laws As Physical Perception

(Once a pattern is detected, it persists.)

How do these visual phenomena relate to social judgment?

Vision (and Problem-Solving) Is Constructive: Organize the Field, and All the Pieces Make Sense

1. Once you “see the dog” you can even see the missing piece.

2. Insight and learning: Learning ≠ locating a missing piece Learning = “reorganizing the field”

3. Once you “see the dog” it is very hard to NOT see the dog. Why? What does that say about human consciousness?

1. Sudden transition from helplessness to mastery2. Quick, smooth performance once insight grasped3. Retention of insight-gained knowledge4. Transfer of insight to new situations

Lesson for teachers: Present the whole field, not just a stream of facts.

Insight and Problem Solving

=

≠

The Drive Toward Meaning

Heider & Simmel, 1944

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grCPqoFwp5k&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp8ebj_yRI4

Kuleshov Effect (Lev Kuleshov, 1899-1970)

To see or not to see, that is the question…

Charlie Chaplin, City Lights, 1931

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRmcvJzVMw4&feature=related

Gestalt Psychology Discussion Questions1. Gestaltists say that rat in maze looks random, but it's b/c rat can't see entire maze.

The Gestaltists therefore saw problem from rat's point of view. How might this relate to social judgment? That is, how we judge the “odd” behaviors of others?

2. Our ability to organize things into meaningful wholes is clearly helpful. Is it ever unhelpful? How?

3. People see animals and faces in cloud formations, and religious figures in tortillas. Do Gestalt principles help explain this?

4. How might the Kuleshov effect relate to psychological problems, like paranoia?

5. Is the “self” a gestalt? Can’t people define themselves in terms of their “parts” (i.e., interests, family, skills, etc.)?

6. Does the Gestalt notion that people see things purposefully rather than randomly relate to problems of social perception, like stereotypes or prejudice?

7. Gestalt provides appealing metaphors for social psychology—but are these really anything more than metaphors? What scientific use do that have, if any?