1. Intro to Self & Society Flashcards
Define Social Psychology as per Gordon Allport (1954)
The attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings
Define personality as per Pervin (1984)
The characteristics of an individual that cause consistent patterns in that individuals behaviours over time
Outline the 9 investigative methods of social psychologists
Experiments, quasi, survey research, qualitative, archival, case studies, confederates, cover stories and priming
What is the purpose of experiments and what is an advantage of this?
A way to investigate causal links
Best way to do so
Why is it much harder to identify causality in terms of quasi?
Due to lack of control over individual differences
What is a quasi good to back up?
Findings from a lab
What does survey research investigate?
Associations between constructs?
What is survey research useful for but what does it not show?
Useful to tap into larger samples
Unmanipulated so does not show a casual link
Describe the features of qualitative research?
Examining naturally occurring behaviour in rich detail, commonly through interviews/focus groups
Describe archival research
Research into data which already exists, is reanalysed to understand the questions
Describe a case study and what it is useful for?
Single case which may employ a range of methods, useful for rare/unusual groups/phenomena
What is a confederate and what are they useful for?
An accomplice of the researcher who is presumed to be another P
We can observe exactly how people are being influenced
What is a cover story?
A false but plausible story for the purpose of the experiment that masks the true aims
What is an advantage and disadvantage of use of cover stories?
+: Useful so that P’s behave authentically and organically and don’t ‘play up’ for what they think they should be doing
-: Raises ethical issues
What is priming and why is it useful?
Exposure to one stimulus increases accessibility of related stimuli and behaviours
Can help understand how social representations may influence our behaviour
What are some reasons for the replication crisis within social psych?
Small samples
Human error
Psychologists can manipulate their sample to create significant results so that they can publish
It is unlikely that our findings are universal due to individual differences
People inquire about historical issues and therefore studies become irrelevant in the present day
What is Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)?
A bias in reasoning that makes people emphasise internal characteristics (e.g. the person) rather than external factors (e.g. the situation) as explaining behaviour
What did Mischel (1968) conclude about personality?
That they are not good enough as predictive measures of how people behave in given situations due to inconsistent behaviours
What is the personality coefficient?
r=0.2-0.3
Describe Funder & Ozer’s (1983) work
They reviewed classic studies in social psych such as Festinger’s cognitive dissonance task and Milgram’s obedience studies
What did Funder & Ozer (1983) conclude from their review?
- Characteristics should be relatively stable
- It is important how people perceive the situation (which is subjective)
- Personality may not be a powerful determinant of single behaviours but could determine tendencies
- Studies are too narrow as they measure behaviour in a very narrow moment so we should not make assumptions based on these
- We should take an aggregate approach
What is an aggregate approach in terms of personality?
Looking at personality over a long period of time
Describe Epstein’s (1979) research?
P’s completed various personality tests and kept records of their behaviours across 14 days
What were Epstein’s (1979) findings?
Extraversion and social contact (r=.52) which is considerably higher than Mischel’s personality co-efficient
What is ‘Rank order stability’?
The order should stay the same across different situations (e.g. number 1 of extraversion should be number 1 across all situations despite levels of extraversion differing)
What is situation evocation?
Unintentional alteration of situation by one’s own presence
Personality will differ depending on situational strength, describe examples of this
In a strong situation which demands specific behaviours or norms - personality is less likely to predict behaviour
In a weak situation where people are free to decide what to do - personality is more likely to predict behaviour
