《Lecture+16(耶鲁大学-心理学导论讲稿)》.pdf

1 Introduction to Psychology Yale University Lecture 16 This is going to begin a two-lecture sequence on social psychology on how we think about ourselves, how we think about other people, how we think about other groups of people. Weve talked a lot about the capacities of the human mind and some of these capacities involve adapting and dealing with the material world. So, we have to choose foods, we have to navigate around the world, we have to recognize objects, we have to be able to understand physical interactions. But probably the most interesting aspect of our evolved minds is our capacity to understand and deal with other people. We are intensely interested in how other people work. The story that was a dominant news story in 2005 was this. And some of you--this--for those of you who arent seeing the screen, is the separation of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. I remember where I was when I first heard about this. [laughter] And its an interesting sight. Just remember--stepping back. As psychologists we have to question the natural. We have to take things that are commonsense and explore them. And one thing which just happens is, were fascinated by this stuff. Were fascinated by the lives of celebrities. Were fascinated by the social lives of other people. And its an interesting question to ask why. And this is one of the questions which Im going to deal with in the next couple of lectures but before I get to the theory of social psychology I want to talk about an individual difference. So, we devoted a lecture early on--of a couple of weeks ago, to individual differences across people in intelligence and personality. I want to talk a little bit about an individual difference in our social natures and then I want people to do a test that will explore where you stand on a continuum. That test is the piece of paper you have in front of you