INSTRUCTOR’S RESOURCE MANUAL
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
7TH CANADIAN EDITION
CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Learning Objectives
• Chapter Outline
• Key Terms
• Integrating “Try It!” Active Learning Exercises
• In-Class Exercises
• Student Projects and Research Assignments
• Critical Thinking Topics and Discussion Questions
• Suggested Videos
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.1 Define social psychology and distinguish it from other disciplines.
1.2 Summarize why it matters how people explain and interpret events, as well as their own and
others’ behaviour.
1.3 Explain what happens when people’s need to feel good about themselves conflicts with their
need to be accurate.
1.4 Explain why the study of social psychology is important.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. What Is Social Psychology?
,Learning Objective: 1.1 Define social psychology and distinguish it from other disciplines.
• Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.
• Social influence shapes our thoughts and feelings as well as our overt acts, and it is at the
heart of social psychology. Social influence can be direct, with intimidation, peer pressure,
and other deliberate attempts at persuasion, or indirect, through the mere (and sometimes,
imagined) presence of others and the transmission of cultural values.
A. The Power of Social Interpretation
• Social psychology is distinct from other social sciences because of its emphasis
on the nature and influence of people’s construals, or subjective, personal
interpretations, of their social environments.
• The textbook gives an example of construal involving the initial conviction of
supposed murderer, Mark Grant, in 2011. He was convicted based on
circumstantial evidence: a sample of Grant’s DNA at the crime scene. In 2017,
the Supreme Court determined that Grant’s conviction should be overturned.
One main reason was that the original jury’s decision was based on an
inference, or a construal, of the circumstantial evidence rather than the facts.
• Social psychology is distinct from folk wisdom because it is experimentally
based.
B. Social Psychology, Science, and Common Sense
• Psychologists have looked to philosophers for insights into the nature of
consciousness and how people form beliefs about the social world, and social
psychologists often make use of scientific methods to address many of the same
questions philosophers do.
• Social psychologists approach the understanding of social influence differently
than do philosophers, journalists or laypeople. While philosophers use logic and
opinion, social psychologists use experiments in which the variables being
studied are carefully controlled.
• The problem with common sense, or folk wisdom, is that it’s often
oversimplified and/or contradictory (“birds of a feather flock together” and
“opposites attract”). Folk wisdom also tends to underestimate the power of the
particular situation. Social psychologists would say there are some conditions
under which one is true, and other conditions under which the other is true. The
social psychologist does the research that specifies those conditions.
• Social psychologists have devised an array of scientific methods to test their
assumptions, guesses, and ideas about human social behaviour empirically and
systematically rather than by relying on folk wisdom, common sense, or the
opinions and insights of philosophers, novelists, and political pundits.
• Doing experiments in social psychology presents many challenges, primarily
because we are attempting to predict the behaviour of highly sophisticated
organisms in complex situations.
C. Social Psychology Compared with other Disciplines
• Social psychology is related to other disciplines in the physical and social
sciences, including biology, neuroscience, sociology, economics, and political
science. Each examines the determinants of human behaviour, but social
psychology’s level of analysis emphasizes how people interpret the social
, world (see Table 1.1 on p. 10).
a. Social Psychology Compared with Sociology
• Sociology is more concerned with broad societal factors that
influence events in a society.
• Although social psychology shares areas of interest with
sociology—groups, institutions and society—it focuses on a
more micro level of analysis than sociology: the individual
within the group, institution, or society.
• Social Psychology also differs from Sociology in its goal—
to identify universal properties of human nature that make
almost everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless
of social class or culture (e.g. proposing and testing the
universality of the frustration-aggression hypothesis)
• One issue with Social Psychology is that due to its relative
infancy and its roots in North America, many of these
supposed “universal” properties of human nature have been
insufficiently tested cross-culturally.
• Cross-cultural research is required to sharpen theories,
either by demonstrating their universality or by leading us
to discover additional variables.
b. Social Psychology Compared with Personality Psychology
• Personality psychologists explain people’s behaviour in
terms of their traits, focusing on individual differences—
that is, the aspects of people’s personalities and habitual
patterns of behaviour that differentiate them from others.
• Social psychologists believe that this ignores the powerful
role of social influence.
II. The Power of the Situation
Learning Objective: 1.2 Summarize why it matters how people explain and interpret events, as
well as their own and others’ behaviour.
• While personality traits are important, we know that social and environmental situations
are so powerful that they have dramatic effects on almost everyone.
• In a demonstration of the fundamental attribution error, Ross and Samuels (1993) found
that university students’ personalities, as rated by the resident assistants in their
dormitories, did not determine how cooperative or competitive they were in a laboratory
game. The name of the game--whether it was called the Wall Street Game or the
Community Game--did, however, make a tremendous difference.
• The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other
people’s behaviour stems from personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational
factors.
• This error primarily takes the form of ascribing internal explanations for others’ negative
behaviours and/or outcomes (e.g. assuming that someone was late because they are lazy
and/or disorganized), and external, situation-based explanations for good things that
happen to others (e.g. assuming that someone scored first in the class because she was the
, teacher’s favourite). As a similar means of maintaining our self-esteem, we tend to do the
opposite regarding ourselves, ascribing external explanations for when things do not go
our way (e.g. blaming the traffic on our arriving late), and internal explanations for positive
behaviours and/or outcomes (e.g. crediting our smarts and conscientiousness for our
grades).
• Underestimating the power of situation can lead people to have a false sense of security,
that is, the belief that problematic and/or disturbing events could not possibly happen to
us, and so we fail to guard against their occurring.
• The textbook elaborates upon the fundamental attribution error by referencing studies
demonstrating victim-blaming directed at battered and sexually assaulted women (Harrison
& Abrishami, 2004; Morry & Winkler, 2001; Summers & Feldman, 1984), who are often
seen as having somehow “caused” the attack (p. 11).
A. The Power of Social Interpretation
• Behaviourism is a school of psychology. It maintains that to understand human
behaviour, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the
environment: When behaviour is followed by a reward, it is likely to continue;
when it is followed by a punishment, it is likely to stop.
• Since early behaviourists did not concern themselves with cognition, thinking,
and feeling, this approach has proven inadequate for a complete understanding
of the social world. They especially overlooked the importance of how people
interpret their environments.
• Social psychologists have since learned that it is important to look at the
situation from the viewpoint of the people in it, to see how they construe the
world around them.
• The emphasis on construal has its roots in Gestalt psychology. First proposed
as a theory of how people perceive the physical world, Gestalt psychology holds
that we should study the subjective way an object appears in people’s minds
(the Gestalt, or whole) rather than the way the objective, physical attributes of
the object.
• Kurt Lewin, generally considered the founder of modern experimental social
psychology, was the first to apply Gestalt principles beyond the perception of
objects (see Figure 1.2) to how we perceive the social world. He said that it is
often more important to understand how people perceive, comprehend, and
interpret each other’s behaviour than it is to understand the behaviour’s
objective properties.
• A special kind of construal is what Lee Ross calls naïve realism, the conviction
that we perceive things “as they really are,” and that reasonable others see
things just as we do, while anyone with an alternative perspective must be
biased. When we think this way, we are underestimating how much we are
interpreting or “spinning” what we see.
III. Where Construals Come From: Basic Human Motives
Learning Objective: 1.3 Explain what happens when people’s need to feel good about themselves
conflicts with their need to be accurate.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
7TH CANADIAN EDITION
CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Learning Objectives
• Chapter Outline
• Key Terms
• Integrating “Try It!” Active Learning Exercises
• In-Class Exercises
• Student Projects and Research Assignments
• Critical Thinking Topics and Discussion Questions
• Suggested Videos
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.1 Define social psychology and distinguish it from other disciplines.
1.2 Summarize why it matters how people explain and interpret events, as well as their own and
others’ behaviour.
1.3 Explain what happens when people’s need to feel good about themselves conflicts with their
need to be accurate.
1.4 Explain why the study of social psychology is important.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. What Is Social Psychology?
,Learning Objective: 1.1 Define social psychology and distinguish it from other disciplines.
• Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.
• Social influence shapes our thoughts and feelings as well as our overt acts, and it is at the
heart of social psychology. Social influence can be direct, with intimidation, peer pressure,
and other deliberate attempts at persuasion, or indirect, through the mere (and sometimes,
imagined) presence of others and the transmission of cultural values.
A. The Power of Social Interpretation
• Social psychology is distinct from other social sciences because of its emphasis
on the nature and influence of people’s construals, or subjective, personal
interpretations, of their social environments.
• The textbook gives an example of construal involving the initial conviction of
supposed murderer, Mark Grant, in 2011. He was convicted based on
circumstantial evidence: a sample of Grant’s DNA at the crime scene. In 2017,
the Supreme Court determined that Grant’s conviction should be overturned.
One main reason was that the original jury’s decision was based on an
inference, or a construal, of the circumstantial evidence rather than the facts.
• Social psychology is distinct from folk wisdom because it is experimentally
based.
B. Social Psychology, Science, and Common Sense
• Psychologists have looked to philosophers for insights into the nature of
consciousness and how people form beliefs about the social world, and social
psychologists often make use of scientific methods to address many of the same
questions philosophers do.
• Social psychologists approach the understanding of social influence differently
than do philosophers, journalists or laypeople. While philosophers use logic and
opinion, social psychologists use experiments in which the variables being
studied are carefully controlled.
• The problem with common sense, or folk wisdom, is that it’s often
oversimplified and/or contradictory (“birds of a feather flock together” and
“opposites attract”). Folk wisdom also tends to underestimate the power of the
particular situation. Social psychologists would say there are some conditions
under which one is true, and other conditions under which the other is true. The
social psychologist does the research that specifies those conditions.
• Social psychologists have devised an array of scientific methods to test their
assumptions, guesses, and ideas about human social behaviour empirically and
systematically rather than by relying on folk wisdom, common sense, or the
opinions and insights of philosophers, novelists, and political pundits.
• Doing experiments in social psychology presents many challenges, primarily
because we are attempting to predict the behaviour of highly sophisticated
organisms in complex situations.
C. Social Psychology Compared with other Disciplines
• Social psychology is related to other disciplines in the physical and social
sciences, including biology, neuroscience, sociology, economics, and political
science. Each examines the determinants of human behaviour, but social
psychology’s level of analysis emphasizes how people interpret the social
, world (see Table 1.1 on p. 10).
a. Social Psychology Compared with Sociology
• Sociology is more concerned with broad societal factors that
influence events in a society.
• Although social psychology shares areas of interest with
sociology—groups, institutions and society—it focuses on a
more micro level of analysis than sociology: the individual
within the group, institution, or society.
• Social Psychology also differs from Sociology in its goal—
to identify universal properties of human nature that make
almost everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless
of social class or culture (e.g. proposing and testing the
universality of the frustration-aggression hypothesis)
• One issue with Social Psychology is that due to its relative
infancy and its roots in North America, many of these
supposed “universal” properties of human nature have been
insufficiently tested cross-culturally.
• Cross-cultural research is required to sharpen theories,
either by demonstrating their universality or by leading us
to discover additional variables.
b. Social Psychology Compared with Personality Psychology
• Personality psychologists explain people’s behaviour in
terms of their traits, focusing on individual differences—
that is, the aspects of people’s personalities and habitual
patterns of behaviour that differentiate them from others.
• Social psychologists believe that this ignores the powerful
role of social influence.
II. The Power of the Situation
Learning Objective: 1.2 Summarize why it matters how people explain and interpret events, as
well as their own and others’ behaviour.
• While personality traits are important, we know that social and environmental situations
are so powerful that they have dramatic effects on almost everyone.
• In a demonstration of the fundamental attribution error, Ross and Samuels (1993) found
that university students’ personalities, as rated by the resident assistants in their
dormitories, did not determine how cooperative or competitive they were in a laboratory
game. The name of the game--whether it was called the Wall Street Game or the
Community Game--did, however, make a tremendous difference.
• The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other
people’s behaviour stems from personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational
factors.
• This error primarily takes the form of ascribing internal explanations for others’ negative
behaviours and/or outcomes (e.g. assuming that someone was late because they are lazy
and/or disorganized), and external, situation-based explanations for good things that
happen to others (e.g. assuming that someone scored first in the class because she was the
, teacher’s favourite). As a similar means of maintaining our self-esteem, we tend to do the
opposite regarding ourselves, ascribing external explanations for when things do not go
our way (e.g. blaming the traffic on our arriving late), and internal explanations for positive
behaviours and/or outcomes (e.g. crediting our smarts and conscientiousness for our
grades).
• Underestimating the power of situation can lead people to have a false sense of security,
that is, the belief that problematic and/or disturbing events could not possibly happen to
us, and so we fail to guard against their occurring.
• The textbook elaborates upon the fundamental attribution error by referencing studies
demonstrating victim-blaming directed at battered and sexually assaulted women (Harrison
& Abrishami, 2004; Morry & Winkler, 2001; Summers & Feldman, 1984), who are often
seen as having somehow “caused” the attack (p. 11).
A. The Power of Social Interpretation
• Behaviourism is a school of psychology. It maintains that to understand human
behaviour, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the
environment: When behaviour is followed by a reward, it is likely to continue;
when it is followed by a punishment, it is likely to stop.
• Since early behaviourists did not concern themselves with cognition, thinking,
and feeling, this approach has proven inadequate for a complete understanding
of the social world. They especially overlooked the importance of how people
interpret their environments.
• Social psychologists have since learned that it is important to look at the
situation from the viewpoint of the people in it, to see how they construe the
world around them.
• The emphasis on construal has its roots in Gestalt psychology. First proposed
as a theory of how people perceive the physical world, Gestalt psychology holds
that we should study the subjective way an object appears in people’s minds
(the Gestalt, or whole) rather than the way the objective, physical attributes of
the object.
• Kurt Lewin, generally considered the founder of modern experimental social
psychology, was the first to apply Gestalt principles beyond the perception of
objects (see Figure 1.2) to how we perceive the social world. He said that it is
often more important to understand how people perceive, comprehend, and
interpret each other’s behaviour than it is to understand the behaviour’s
objective properties.
• A special kind of construal is what Lee Ross calls naïve realism, the conviction
that we perceive things “as they really are,” and that reasonable others see
things just as we do, while anyone with an alternative perspective must be
biased. When we think this way, we are underestimating how much we are
interpreting or “spinning” what we see.
III. Where Construals Come From: Basic Human Motives
Learning Objective: 1.3 Explain what happens when people’s need to feel good about themselves
conflicts with their need to be accurate.
