Social Psychology

1. We live in a social world, we are social beings. The effect of others around us can be an influence on our behavior. What does mere presence refer to? What factors are taken into account when determining the effect of mere presence and how do the factors work? Explain the difference between social facilitation and social inhibition. Explain the fundamental attribution error and give an example. What are the physical and behavioral effects of being in a crowd? 2. Primary to understanding our social relationships is an understanding of ourselves as individuals. Social psychology has helped us understand several important aspects of the self. Explain self-concept and self-esteem. Discuss perceived self-control and the related concepts of self-efficacy and locus of control. What is self-serving bias and how
Everyday self efficacy helps individuals make goals and work towards them. Stajkovic & Luthans (1998) stated that “studies show that self efficacy predicts workers productivity.” Many individuals are confused between self efficacy and self esteem. Self efficacy is believing you can do something, and doing it. People who don’t believe in themselves have low self efficacy. According to Pintrich (2003b ,pg 107 defines self efficacy as “students beliefs about their ability to do a task.” Locus control is the extent to which people perceive outcome as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces.(Myers,2007,pg. 41) A self serving bias is the tendency to perceive oneself as favorable. I think it affects our perceptions of the world because individuals want to give credit to themselves when things are going good on their end, but the moment they go bad they want to blame others. People who judge themselves positively usually judge others negatively. That affects our perception of the world negatively because when things don’t go as planned we have an excuse to why or we point the finger to