1. Intro to Self & Society

Question 1

Define Social Psychology as per Gordon Allport (1954)

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Define personality as per Pervin (1984)

Answer 2

The characteristics of an individual that cause consistent patterns in that individuals behaviours over time

Question 3

Outline the 9 investigative methods of social psychologists

Answer 3

Experiments, quasi, survey research, qualitative, archival, case studies, confederates, cover stories and priming

Question 4

What is the purpose of experiments and what is an advantage of this?

Answer 4

A way to investigate causal links

Best way to do so

Question 5

Why is it much harder to identify causality in terms of quasi?

Answer 5

Due to lack of control over individual differences

Question 6

What is a quasi good to back up?

Answer 6

Findings from a lab

Question 7

What does survey research investigate?

Answer 7

Associations between constructs?

Question 8

What is survey research useful for but what does it not show?

Answer 8

Useful to tap into larger samples

Unmanipulated so does not show a casual link

Question 9

Describe the features of qualitative research?

Answer 9

Examining naturally occurring behaviour in rich detail, commonly through interviews/focus groups

Question 10

Describe archival research

Answer 10

Research into data which already exists, is reanalysed to understand the questions

Question 11

Describe a case study and what it is useful for?

Answer 11

Single case which may employ a range of methods, useful for rare/unusual groups/phenomena

Question 12

What is a confederate and what are they useful for?

Answer 12

An accomplice of the researcher who is presumed to be another P
We can observe exactly how people are being influenced

Question 13

What is a cover story?

Answer 13

A false but plausible story for the purpose of the experiment that masks the true aims

Question 14

What is an advantage and disadvantage of use of cover stories?

Answer 14

+: 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

Question 15

What is priming and why is it useful?

Answer 15

Exposure to one stimulus increases accessibility of related stimuli and behaviours
Can help understand how social representations may influence our behaviour

Question 16

What are some reasons for the replication crisis within social psych?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What is Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What did Mischel (1968) conclude about personality?

Answer 18

That they are not good enough as predictive measures of how people behave in given situations due to inconsistent behaviours

Question 19

What is the personality coefficient?

Answer 19

r=0.2-0.3

Question 20

Describe Funder & Ozer’s (1983) work

Answer 20

They reviewed classic studies in social psych such as Festinger’s cognitive dissonance task and Milgram’s obedience studies

Question 21

What did Funder & Ozer (1983) conclude from their review?

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

What is an aggregate approach in terms of personality?

Answer 22

Looking at personality over a long period of time

Question 23

Describe Epstein’s (1979) research?

Answer 23

P’s completed various personality tests and kept records of their behaviours across 14 days

Question 24

What were Epstein’s (1979) findings?

Answer 24

Extraversion and social contact (r=.52) which is considerably higher than Mischel’s personality co-efficient

Question 25

What is ‘Rank order stability’?

Answer 25

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)

Question 26

What is situation evocation?

Answer 26

Unintentional alteration of situation by one’s own presence

Question 27

Personality will differ depending on situational strength, describe examples of this

Answer 27

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