Module 1 Homework Assignment
PSY 308: Social Psychology

Q1: From the information that I have gathered and if I am comprehending the totality right there are just a few things that social psychology has in common with both folk wisdom and philosophy. Compared to folk wisdom, social psychology has the same views as “out of sight is out of mind” or that “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” that “haste makes waste” or that “he who hesitates is lost”? When dealing with philosophy, social psychologists often address many of the same questions. When it comes down to some of the differences in between each it is stated that The major reason we have conflicting philosophical positions (just as we have conflicting folk aphorisms) is that the world is a complicated place. Small differences in the situation might not be easily discernible, yet these small differences might produce very different effects. (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010)
Q2:
One of the main ways to compare the two is that both the approaches deal with how the person themselves view everything. The self-esteem approach states that there is a need to maintain a positive view of ourselves and the social cognition approach states that the person themselves need to view the world accurately. Another significant motive is the need for control. When people experience a loss of control, people believe that they have no judgement on what happens to them good or bad. If I am understanding this, this is basically stating that how the person views themselves will impact how that said person views the world around them.
Q3:
In our text (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010), it is stated that if you were to walk into a classroom and tell a teacher that certain children were going to advance more than others, it would likely become true during the next evaluation. The findings the book states is based on the human nature of the teacher in question. Research has shown that it is in our human nature to show the people labeled as so called “bloomers” more attention and to expect more from them than other children in the class. There for the teacher them self would pay more attention to those select kids over the other students.
Q4:
A social psychologist would approach this phenomenon with different studies. They would more than likely go back in time to other research and show the link to environmental situations are contributing to the fact that the person is feeling this aggression. On the flipside a personality psychologist would look at the situation as it is the person not their surroundings causing the aggression. The personality psychologist would be more in depth on studying the individual and find out why they are the way they are whereas the social psychologist would look at the social aspect of things and make a determination on the matter.
Q5:
To my understanding of the issue, I believe that the personality aspect would try and explain the actions by stating that the person just has some type of impatient behavior as a way of dealing with the stress on the individual. The social aspect on the other hand would look at the different situations such as what the person has going on as far as customer wise, how the customer was acting, etc. The social aspect would broaden the view on a different standpoint of the scene as to why the person is acting this way whereas the personality aspect would just look at the individual to see what is making them tick per say.
Q6:
With this case, the positive correlation would mean the link between the grades and the child’s self-esteem. To give a better view of what I am trying to say I give this example. The child in question has good grades, hence the positive self-esteem, the good grades therefore make the child feel good about themselves which would rise their self-esteem. Now on the other hand if the same case was negative, if I am understanding this correctly, the child would not have very good grades and would be down