AP Psychology

• Unit 1 Introduction and Social Psychology

AP Psychology

• Find your seat. Seating chart at table by front door.

• Please fill out your information half sheets at your desk while I take attendance.

Good Afternoon

What do you know about me?1. How old do you think I am?2. Am I married?3. Describe my husband?4. What kind of car do I drive?5. Where do I live?6. What are my favorite TV shows?7. What are my favorite movies?8. What do I do for fun?9. Do I play sports?10. Am I Mac or PC?11.Liberal/Conservative?12. Large university/small college?

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

EQ? What do I need to know to be successful this semester?

• Syllabus• Book• Procedures• Rules• Packets• Parent/Student Letter• Grades• Discipline yourself

Let’s take a test to see what you already know about psych.

Knowledge of Psychology Test (1.1)

Brainstorm at your table.What is Psychology?

How do you know that George Washington was the first president of the U.S.?

How do you know that you really have a stomach?

What bakes you so sure the sun will rise tomorrow?

How do you know what color I am wearing?How can you be sure there aren’t little

creatures inside computers that are responsible for the things computers do?

Are you sure that you don’t have a hole in the back of your pants or skirt?

How do we know what we know?

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

• Behavior includes all of our outward actions and reactions.

• Mental process refer to all the internal, covert activity of our minds such as thinking, feeling and remembering.

What defines psychology as a field of study?

• Description: What is happening?• Explanation: Why is it happening?• Prediction: When will hit happened

again?• Control: How can it be changed?

What are psychology's four primary goals?

• Psychiatrist are medical doctors who provide diagnosis and therapy for persons with mental disorders.

• Psychoanalysts are psychiatrist or psychologists with special training in the theory of psychoanalysis.

• Psychologist have academic degrees and can do counseling, teaching research and may specialize in any one of a large number of areas within psychology.

• Psychiatric social workers are social workers with special training in the influences of the environment on mental illness.

How does a psychiatrist differ from a psychologist?

1. Clinical – mild to sever psychological disorders2. Counseling – adjustment disorders & milder disorders3. Developmental – age-related changes across the life span4. Educational- educational learning and development 5. School – working with children in schools6. Experimental/Cognitive – thinking, memory, motivation,

learning, perception7. Social – study of group behavior and influence on individuals8. Personality – individual difference & development of personality9. Physiological – study of the biological bases of behavior

Do pg. 20 Practice Quiz in text

What are the areas of specialization?

Because the people involved use scientific methods to study and do research. Psychology uses it to determine facts and control the possibilities of error and bias when observing behavior.

Why is psychology considered a science?

Is psychology just common sense?

The five steps are:1. Perceiving the

question2. Forming a

hypothesis3. Testing the

hypothesis4. Drawing

conclusions5. Reporting results

What are the steps in using the scientific method?

• Compliance occurs when a person changes behavior as a result of another person asking or directing that person to change. • Foot-in-the-door technique asking for a small

commitment and after gaining compliance, asking for a bigger commitment.

• The door-in-the-face technique asking for a large commitment and being refused, then asking for a smaller commitment.

• The low-ball technique getting a commitment from a persona and then raising the cost of that commitment.

• The that’s-not-all technique the persuader makes and offer and then adds something extra to make the offer look better before the target person can make a decision

How is compliance defined, and what are four common ways to gain the compliance of another? 560

• Obedience changed one’s behavior at the direct order of an authority figure.

• Milgram did experiments in which he found that 65% of the people obeyed the authority figure.

• Research never found a trait or group of traits that were correlated with obedience

• Under current ethical guidelines Mailgram's’ study would not be allowed today.

What factors make obedience more likely? 561

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1zlCybdvdg




• When the performance of an individual on a relatively easy task is improved by the presence of others it is called social facilitation.

• When the performance of an individual on a relatively difficult task is negatively affected by the presence of others, it is called social impairment.

• When a person who is lazy is able to work in a group of people, that person often performs less well than if the person were working alone is a phenomenon called social loafing.

Predict the impact of the presence of others on individual behavior?

• The effective emotional component – the way a person feels toward the object, person, or situation

• The behavioral component – is the action that a person takes in regard to the person, object or situation.

• The cognitive component – is the way a person thinks about the person, object or situation

• Attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior unless the attitude is very specific, as is the behavior or is very strong.

What are the three components of an attitude? 566

• Direct contact with the person, situation, object or idea can help form attitudes

• Attitudes can be formed through direct instruction from parents or others

• Interacting with people who hold certain attitude can help an individual form that attitude

• Attitudes can also be formed through watch the actions and reactions of others to ideas, people, objects and situations (observational learning)

How are attitudes formed? 566

• Persuasion is the process by which one person tries to changed the belief, opinion, position or course of action of another person through argument, pleading, or explanation

How can attitudes change? 566

• The key elements in persuasion are:• The source of the message –communicators who are

perceived as trustworthy, attractive, and similar to the recipient are more effective

• The message itself – two-sided messages work better with well-informed audience; moderated amounts of fear may be effective if solutions are provided

• The target audience – young adults (late teens to early 20s) are more susceptible to persuasion


• The elaboration likelihood model is assumed that people either elaborate on what they hear or don’t elaborate, preferring to pay attention to the surface characteristics of the message.• Central route processing involves attending the

content of the message itself• Peripheral-route processing involves attending to

factors not involved in the message such as the appearance of the source of the message the length of the message, and other non-content factors


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruh2MnYCNAw silly long 9 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruh2MnYCNAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruh2MnYCNAw

• Cognitive dissonance is an emotional disturbance that occurs when a persons actions do not match the person’s attitudes.

• It can be reduced by :• Changed the conflicting behavior• Changing the conflicting attitude• Forming a new attitude to justify the behavior

How do people react when attitudes and behavior are not the same ? 570

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=korGK0yGIDo



Number your paper and answer the following questions.1. World hunger is a serious problem that needs

attention.2. Our country needs to address the growing number

of homeless.3. The right to vote is one of the most valuable rights

of American citizens.4. Our government should spend less money on

nuclear weapons and more on helping citizens better their lives.

Flip your paper over and answer the following questions with Yes or No.1. Do you personally do anything to lesson world

hunger?2. Do you personally do anything to help the

homeless?3. Did you vote in the last election for which you

were eligible?4. Do you personal convey your feelings to the

government?

• Social categorization is a process of Social cognition in which a person, upon meeting someone new, assigns that person to some kind of category or group on the basis of characteristics the person has in common with other people or groups with whom the perceiver has prior experience.

What are social categorization and implicit personality theories? 572

• One form of social characterization is a stereotype, in which the characters used to assign a person to a category are superficial and believed to be true of all members of the category.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCgx8zM3woQ



• Implicit personality theory is a form of social cognition in which a person has sets of assumptions about different types of people, personality traits, and actions that are assumed to be related to each other.• Schemas are mental patterns that

represent what a person believes about certain types of people. Schemas can be come stereotypes• Implicit personality theories may

differ by culture.


• Attribution is the process of explaining the behavior of others as well as one’s own behavior

• A situational cause is an explanation of behavior based on factors in the surrounding environment tor situation

• A dispositional cause is an explanation of behavior based on the internal personality characters of the person being observed.

• Fundamental attribution errors is the tendency to overestimate the influence of internal factors on behavior while underestimating the influence of the situation

• Ways to reduce the fundamental attribution error include noticing how many other people do the same thing and considering what one might do in the same situation.

How do people try to explain the actions of others? 574

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



• Prejudice is a negative attitude that a person holds about the members of a particular social group

• Discrimination occurs when members of a social group are treated differently because of prejudice toward that group.

• Types• Forms of prejudice: ageism, sexism, racism

and weight• In-groups are the people with whom a

persons identifies, while out-groups are everyone else at who the prejudice tends to be directed

• Conflict between groups increases prejudice and discrimination according to realistic conflict theory.

How are prejudice and discrimination different? 576

• Social cognitive theory views prejudice as an attitude acquired through direct instruction, modeling and other social influences.

• Social identity theory sees a persons’ formation of social sees of self within a particular group as being due to there things:1. Social categorization (may involve the use of reference

groups)2. Social identity the persons sense of belonging to a

particular social group3. Social comparison in which people compare themselves

to other to improve their own self-esteem.

Why are people prejudice? 579

• Stereotype venerability refers to the effect that a person’s knowledge of the stereotypes that exist against that person’s social group can have on that person’s behavior.• People who are aware of stereotypes may

unintentionally come to behave in a way to make the stereotypes real in a self-fulfilling prophecy

• Stereotype threat – members of a stereotyped group are made anxious and wary of any situation in which their behavior may confirm stereotype

Why are people prejudice? 579

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGEUVM6QuMg



You are writing a diary entry that reflects a time you felt ostracized, a time you were outside of the mainstream. Reflect on how you felt in that situation. FCAs1. Two well formed paragraphs 2o points.2. At least four numbered descriptions of emotion within the

paragraphs. 40 points.

Dear Diary Activity

• Intergroup contact is more effective in reducing prejudice if the status of the groups is equal

• Prejudice and discrimination can also be reduced with a superordinate goal that is large enough to override all other goals needs to be achieved by all groups

• Prejudice and discrimination are reduced when people must work together to solve a problem that has a mutual interdependence.

Can we overcome prejudice? 579

• Liking or having the desire for a relationship with another person

• People tend to form relationship with people who are psychically in the same area or proximity to them

• People are attracted to others who are similar to them in some way

• People may also be attracted to people who are different from themselves, with the differences acting as a complementary support for areas in which each may be lack

• People tend to like other people who like them in return…called reciprocity of liking

What factors govern attraction and love? 579

• Love is a strong affection for another person due to either kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests

• Sternberg states the three components of love are intimacy, passion, and commitment

What factors govern attraction and love? 579

• Genetics – identical twins are more similar in level of aggressive tendencies than fraternal twins

• The amygdala and limbic system – trigger aggressive response when stimulated

• Testosterone – high levels are associated with aggression

• Serotonin levels – low levels are associated with aggression

• Alcohol use – associates with decrease in serotonin

How is aggressive behavior determined by biology and learning? 585

• The Power of Social Roles• Social roles are powerful influences on the

expression of aggression• Social – pattern of behavior that is expected of that

person in a particular social situation• Zimbardo’s classic prison experiment illustrated the

powerful influence of social roles in ordinary college students. Students who were the ”guards” often became cruel

How is aggressive behavior determined by biology and learning? 585

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir9G8RF1NXYDocumentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir9G8RF1NXY



• Prosocial behavior is behavior that is socially desirable and benefits others.

• Altruism is prosocial behvior in which a person helps someone else without expectation of reward or recognition, often without fear for one’s own safety

• The Bystander Effect• Means people are more likely to get help from

others if there are one or only a few people nearby rather than a large number. The more people the less likely help will be offered.

• When others are present in a situation where help could be offered there is a diffusion of responsibility among all the bystanders…so that not any one person feels responsible for helping..

What is altruism, and how is deciding to help someone related to the presence of others? 588

• Latane and Darley found people who were alone more likely to help in an emergency.

• Five Steps1. Noticing- realizing that there is a situation that

might be an emergency2. Defining and emergency – interpreting cues as a

signal of emergency3. Taking responsibility – personally assuming the

responsibility to act4. Planning a course of action – deciding how to help

and what skills may be needed5. Taking action – actually helping

The Helping Decision 588

Who Joins?• People who join cults tend to be under stress,

unhappy, unassertive, gullible, dependent, want to belong, and are idealistic

• You people are more likely to join cults than older people.

Why do people join cults? 592

Techniques used by cults• Love bombing – shower recruit with affection and

attention• Isolation – keep recruit from family and friends• Rituals – mediations', rules, procedures• Activities to keep the new recruits from questions

and critical thinking- teach cult members how to stop the recruits questions

• The foot-in-the-door technique – commitments to the cult are small at first.

Why do people join cults? 592

AP Psychology

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