Chapter 1/2 - Lecture 1 Flashcards
What is Social Psychology?
The scientific study of how people think, feel,
and behave in social contexts. These social contexts can be real or imagined.
What is the scientific study aspect in social psychology?
The scientific method of systematic observation, description, and measurement to the study of the human condition
Who is said to be the father of empirical social
psychology?
Kurt Lewin - One of the fundamental principles of social psychology that Lewin helped establish was that behaviour is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment. This position, which later became known as the interactionist perspective.
What do Social Psychologists care about?
Social psychologists care about many things that might interest you..
- How can we combat stereotypes and prejudice?
- How do we stop ourselves from being negatively influenced by others?
- How can I have good relationships?
- How can we help people achieve their goals?
- What causes people to reject science?
When did the systematic and scientific study of social psychology start?
Late 1800s
Who is considered the “founder of social psychology” ?
American psychologist Norman Triplett, who is credited with having published the first research article in social psychology at the end of the nineteenth century (1897–1898)
What did Norman Triplett observe, and why was it noteworthy?
Triplett observed that bicyclists tended to race faster when racing in the presence of others than when simply racing against a clock, he designed an experiment to study this phenomenon in a controlled, precise way. This scientific approach to studying the effects of the social context on individuals’ behaviour can be seen as marking the birth of social psychology.
IMPORTANT DATE (1898)
Who is Max Ringelmann? And what was his focus?
Max Ringelmann was a french agricultural engineer. Ringelmann noted that individuals often performed worse on simple tasks such as pulling rope when they performed the tasks with other people.
IMPORTANT DATE (1913)
Who wrote the first three textbooks in social psychology?
- English psychologist William McDougall (1908)
- Edward Ross (1908)
- Floyd Allport (1924)
What did Floyd Allport focus his textbook on?
Allport focused on stressed interactions between individuals and social context and focused on experiments
How did Adolf Hitler impact social psychology?
Hitler’s rise to power and the horrendous consequences that followed caused people around the world to become desperate for answers to social psychological questions about what causes violence, prejudice, genocide, conformity and obedience, and a host of other social problems and behaviours
Who was Muzafer Sherif? And what was his research?
In 1936, Muzafer Sherif published groundbreaking experimental research on social influence. As a youth in Turkey, Sherif had witnessed groups of Greek soldiers brutally killing his friends. After immigrating to the United States, Sherif drew on this experience and began to conduct research on the powerful influences that groups can exert on their individual members. Sherif’s research was crucial for the development of social psychology because it demonstrated that it is possible to study complex and important social issues in a rigorous, scientific manner.
Who was Solomon Asch?
Solomon Asch’s (1951) demonstration of how willing people are to conorm to an obviously wrong majority amazes students even today.
What did Kurt Lewin Research during WWII
Lewin researched a number of practical issues, such as how to persuade Americans at home during the war to conserve materials to help the war effort, how to promote more economical and nutritious eating habits, and what kinds of leaders elicit the best work from group members.
*Built on Lewin’s legacy, applied social psychology flourishes today in areas such as advertising, business, education, environmental protection, health, law, politics, public policy, religion, and sports.
Who is Leon Festinger? And what did he observe
Leon Festinger (1954, 1957) introduced two important theories — one concerning how people try to learn about themselves by comparing themselves to other people and one about how people’s attitudes can be changed by their own behaviour.
What did Gordon Allport contribute to social psychology during the 1950s
Gordon Allport (1954) published ‘The Nature of Prejudice,’ a groundbreaking book that continues to inspire research on stereotyping and prejudice more than six decades later.
Who was Stanley Milgram? And what did he observe?
In the 1600s, Stanley Milgram’s research was inspired by the destructive obedience demonstrated by Nazi officers and ordinary citizens in World War II, but it also looked ahead to the civil disobedience that was beginning to challenge institutions in many parts of the world. Milgram’s experiments, which demonstrated individuals’ vulnerability to the destructive commands of authority, became the most famous research in the history of social psychology.
What happened to social psychology during the
Mid-1970s–2000s?
More rigorous ethical standards for research were instituted, more stringent procedures to guard against bias were adopted, and more attention was paid to possible cross-cultural differences in behavior. Laboratory experiments continued to dominate, but often with more precise methods.
What is social cognition?
The study of how people perceive, remember, and interpret information about themselves and others.
What is the Research Process?
- Idea
- Hypothesis to test idea
- Test hypothesis
- Repeat 1-3
- Over time, create theory
What Are Signs of a Good Theory?
1) Posits cause-and-effect relationships (explains
observations)
2) Is coherent (organizes observations)
3) Aims for parsimony (offers a simple explanation)
4) Is testable & can be falsified!
5) Generates new information & questions
6) Solves problems (has practical value)
What is Basic Research?
Focuses on understanding human behaviour and often designed to test a hypothesis from a theory
What is Applied Research?
Focuses on applications to the world and solving social problems
What is Operational Definition?
The specific procedures for manipulating or
measuring a conceptual variable..
- E.g., social distancing in 6 feet or a buffalo’s length
- E.g., intergroup attitudes in self-report attitudes to
other groups or number of diverse friends
What are examples of conceptual variables?
Examples of conceptual variables include prejudice, conformity, attraction, love, group pressure, and social anxiety. And In order to test specific hypotheses, we must then transform these conceptual variables into variables that can be manipulated or measured in a study.
What is Construct Validity?
The extent to which the measures used in a study measure the variables they were designed to measure and the manipulations in an experiment manipulate the variables they were designed to manipulate….
** Variables and manipulations should have construct
validity
Provide 3 examples of which we can Measure Variables?
- Self-reports: Participants disclose their thoughts,
feelings, or actions
* Extremely common
* How we ask questions matters - Observations: Watch people’s actions
* Less common
* The advantage of observational methods is that they avoid our sometimes faulty recollections and distorted interpretations of our own behavior. Actions can speak louder than words - Technology: Using technology to measure
* Increasingly common
* Various kinds of technology are used to measure cognitive and physiological responses such as reaction time or heart rate, levels of particular hormones, and sexual arousal. Eye-tracking technology is used to measure exactly where and for how long participants look at particular parts of a stimulus, such as a face or a video of an interaction
What is the goal of descriptive research?
To describe people and their thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours..
What does descriptive research focus on?
*Observational Studies
* Archival Studies
* Surveys
* Extremely common
* Hard to develop good items
* Population, sample, random sampling
Test questions such as..
1. What percentage of people who encounter a person lying on the sidewalk would offer to help that person?
2. What do men and women say are the things most likely to make them jealous of their partner?
3. Do most people support capital punishment?
What is the goal of Correlational Research?
Understand the relationship between variables
What are Observational Studies?
Researchers have gotten an unfiltered look at the frequency and severity of bullying among adolescents by spending time in playgrounds and school yards carefully watching and taking notes on the children’s interactions, sometimes using hidden cameras and microphones
What are Archival Studies?
Involves examining existing records of past events and behaviours, such as newspaper articles, medical records, tweets or retweets on Twitter, sports statistics, profiles on dating apps, crime statistics, or hits on a website
What are surveys?
Conducting surveys involves asking people questions about their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours.
What is Random Sampling?
A method of selection in which everyone in a population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
What is the difference between correlational research and descriptive research?
Correlational approaches measure the relationship between different variables, and descriptive focuses to describe people and their thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours..
What is Correlation coefficient?
Statistical measure of strength and direction of relationship between two variables
* Ranges from -1.0 to +1.0
* Sign indicates direction, number indicate magnitude
For Example: When researchers examine the relationship between variables that vary in quantity (such as height or degree of self-esteem), they can measure the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables and calculate a statistic called a correlation coefficient.
Remember Correlation is not causation…
A correlation does not prove a causal relationship!!
What happens in a positive correlation?
Variables go in same direction
What happens during a negative correlation
Variables go in opposite directions
What is the goal of casual research?
To establish what causes something else..
**Casual research is considered “gold standard” in social psychology
What are Experiments?
Studies in which researcher (1) controls
events and (2) randomly assigns participants to
conditions
- Uniform experience except manipulation
- Participants have equal chance of being in any
experimental condition; on average, randomly
assigned participants do not differ across conditions
Recall back to the example of what an experiment is?
Randomly assign participants to learn about
interpersonal racism toward Indigenous people or
systemic racism toward Indigenous people (Efimoff &
Starzyk, 2023)
- Only difference between conditions is learning about
interpersonal or systemic racism - How do the conditions differ?
- Learning about systemic racism was slightly more
effective than learning about interpersonal racism at
reducing expressions of racism, both cross-sectionally
and longitudinally
What are Independent variables (IV)?
The factor researchers manipulate to see the impact on the dependent variable
What are Dependent variables (DV)?
The factor that researchers measure to see if it is impacted by the independent variable
What is Control Condition?
A condition identical to the experimental conditions, but in which participants do not experience the IV
- Not necessary for an experiment, but increases internal
validity
What is Subject variable?
A variable that characterizes preexisting differences
among the participants in a study. (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, etc.)
What is Internal Validity?
How sure we are that the IVs in an experiment caused the effects on the DVs
What is External Validity?
How sure we are that the results of a particular study would be the same for different participants in different situations
What are Confederates?
Accomplices of researcher who act as
if they are a participant in an experiment
What is Confound?
A factor other than the independent variable that
varies between the conditions of an experiment, thereby calling into question what caused any effects on the dependent variable.
.***A confound is a serious threat to internal validity and, therefore, makes the issue of cause and effect in the experiment uncertain.
What is Experimenter Expectancy Effects?
The effects produced when an experimenter’s expectations about the results of an experiment affect his or her behaviour toward a participant and thereby influence the participant’s responses.
What is Meta-Analysis?
A statistical techniques to combine the
results of many studies and establish the overall
reliability and strength of effects
* Super valuable
