CH 1: Introducing Social Psychology Flashcards
What is Social Psychology?
- It studies how people think about, influence, & relate to eachother & how situations influence us
- Social thinking, influence, & relations
Is Social Psychology a young science?
- Yes bc textbooks didn’t come about until the 1900s
- And experiments occurred a bit more than a century ago
- It didn’t assume its current form until the 1930s
What are the 3 main ideas in Social Thinking?
- We construct our social reality
- Our social intuitions are powerful/ perilous (dangerous)
- Attitudes shape & are shaped by behavior
What are the 2 main ideas in Social Influences?
- They shape behavior
- Dispositions/frame of mind shape behavior
What are the 2 main ideas in Social Relations?
- Social behavior is also biological behavior
- Feelings & actions towards others are negative or positive
What is routinely powerful & perilous?
-Our intuitions & unconscious information
What influences behavior?
-Attitudes & personality
How do we get to understand social behavior?
-We must consider biological & social influences (under the skin & between skin)
What kind of creatures are we?
We are bio-social-psychological creatures
What else is Social Psychology?
-A set of strategies for answering questions
What are the 2 general ways that values enter Psychological research?
-Obvious & subtle
What are the 4 obvious ways that values enter psychological research?
- When researchers choose their topic= reflects what’s going on during the time (racism, gender, are more frequent during this time)
- Cultural influence
- types of people who are attracted to various disciplines
- Plays the part as the object of social psychological analysis
What are the 4 subtle ways that values enter psychological research?
- influencing our idea of how best to live
- when professionals are giving advice
- when forming research-based concepts
- the specific label we use (cautious vs observer)
What are Social Representations?
-The stock of beliefs, values, ideas, metaphors, & practices that are shared among members of the community
What is argued about Progressive Social Psychologists?
-They sometimes subtly discriminate against conservative views= denying group differences & assuming stereotypes of group difference are not rooted in reality
Why do people construct their social world & try to explain behavior?
-To make it seem orderly, controllable & predictable
What is Social Neuroscience?
-It is an integration of biology & social perspectives that explore the neural psychological basis of social behavior
What are values?
-They are personal convictions about what is right & how people should behave
What is culture composed of?
-Traditions, ideas & attitudes
What are the 2 contradictory criticisms of Social Psychology?
- It is trivial bc the documents are
- It is dangerous bc its findings can be used to manipulate people
What is the problem with Common Sense?
-We invoke it after we know the facts
What is Hindsight Bias?
- AKA “I knew it all along phenomenon”
- It is the pervasive tendency that we have to overestimate our ability to predict an outcome that could not have possibly been predicted
What 2 things combine to create the Hindsight Bias?
-Errors w/ judging the predictability of the future & remembering our past
What are the consequences of the Hindsight Bias?
- It is conductive to arrogance
- We are also more likely to blame decision-makers & ourselves for making “obviously” bad choices vs praising them for good ones
What is Common Sense really?
-Common sense is usually right after the events we experience=we become wiser
What is a Theory?
- They are a scientific shorthand of an integrated set of principles that are used to explain & predict events
- They are also ideas that summarize & explain facts & imply hypothesis
What is Culture Transmission?
-Ideas, behaviors, & traditions shared by a community that are passed down from one generation to another
What are the 3 major purposes of a Hypothesis?
- Test a theory by suggesting how we might falsify it
- give direction to research
- Predictive features of good theories make them practical
What are Facts?
-They are agreed-upon statements that we observe
What does a good Theory consist of?
- It effectively summarizes many observations
- It also makes clear predictions= used to confirm/modify theory, generate new research
- Suggest practical applications
What kind of group would a Social Psychologist have to form if they wanted to study the whole population?
-They would have to take a random sample= maintaining a representative group
What is the purpose of Random Sampling?
-It is a way to form a group to ensure that every person in the population studied has an equal chance of being included
What do voting polls do?
-They describe the public opinion at the moment they are taken NOT predict voting
What are the 4 potentially biasing influences when evaluating research surveys?
- Unrepresentative samples
- Question order
- Response options
- Question wording=making sure it’s clear & easily understandable
What is the purpose of Framing?
-It is to nudge people towards beneficial decisions
What 2 types of research can Social Psychology be?
- Field research= everyday situations
- Laboratory research= controlled situation
What are the 2 methods of research in Social Psychology?
- Correlational
- Experimental
What is Correlational research?
- It is used to determine whether 2 or more factors are naturally associated= roughly predict one variable from another
- It can also indicate a relationship BUT isn’t always cause & effect bc there may be a 3rd factor involved
What is Experimental research?
-It is the manipulating one factor to see its effect on the other in a simulated reality
What is the major advantage of Correlational research?
-It examines important variables in natural settings= race, gender, social status
What is the major disadvantage of Correlational research?
-It can be seen as an ambiguous interpretation of cause & effect
How are the results of Correlational research interpreted?
- If both factors go up together= positive correlation
- If one factor goes up & the other goes down= negative correlation
What is Time-Lagged correlational research?
-They reveal the sequence of events
What kind of Correlational Research is able to predict cause-effect relationships?
-The most advanced techniques= Time-Lagged correlational research
How can researchers remove a 3rd variable in Correlational Research?
-Can do so via statistics that extract the 3rd variables influence= adding a controlled variable
What are the 2 major advantages of Experimental Research?
- Random assignment
- Control
What is the purpose of Random Assignment in Experimental Research?
-eliminates all extraneous factors & everyone has an equal chance of being in a group= individual qualities would be average in both groups
What is the purpose of Control in Experimental Research?
-It allows the researcher to vary a variable= independent variable to help pinpoint their influence= discovering new principles
What is the difference between Independent & Dependent variables?
- Independent variables are manipulated to pinpoint their influence
- Dependent variables are the outcome being measured in the result of manipulating variable in the experiment
Why is the Replication of studies important?
-Important bc it allows other researchers to verify and confirm the results of the experiments & ensure there isn’t any fraud in data
What type of realism DOES NOT need to be present in experiments?
-Mundane Realism
What is Mundane Realism?
- Type of external validity
- It is the degree that an experiment is superficially similar to everyday life
What type of realism SHOULD an experiment have?
-Experimental realism
What is Experimental Realism?
-It is making sure that the subject’s psychological processes are engaged fully & not play-acting/ bored
How do we make sure Experimental Realism is present?
- By deceiving the subjects into believing what they are told (making subjects believe that the other person is gonna get shocked when they really aren’t)
- Making sure that they don’t know the researcher predictions
How do researchers minimize Demand Characteristics?
-Experimenters will standardize their instructions/ use a computer to present them
What are Demand Characteristics?
-Cues that “demand” certain types of behavior= experimenters words, tone of voice, gestures
What are the 5 Ethical Principles that must be followed?
- Participants must give informed consent
- Be truthful, use deception only if necessary & justified
- Protect participants/ bystanders from significant discomfort
- Treat info of participants w/ confidentiality
- Debrief participants= fully explain experiment afterward including any deception used unless feedback may be negative towards the experimenter
What is a Hypothesis?
-A testable proposition
What is the different between Correlational & Experimental?
- Correlational looks for natural associations
- Experimental looks for causal relationships
What do Correlational Coefficients range from?
from -1 to 0 then = negative correlation bc as one factor goes up the other goes down
then 0 to +1= positive correlation
