Chapter 1 - intro to social psych Flashcards
Social Psychology
is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention to how we view and affect one another. More precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another
Social thinking
- How we perceive
ourselves and others - What we believe
- Judgments we make
- Our attitudes
Social influence
- Culture and biology
- Pressures to conform
- Persuasion
- Groups of people
Social relations
Helping
Aggression
Attraction and intimacy
Prejudice
Major themes of social psyhcology
- Social thinking
- Social influence
- Social relations
Dispositions shape behaviour
- Our personality affects what we do
- Our attitudes influence our actions
- The big five - OCEAN - everyone has it to different degrees
Social behavior is also biological behavior
- We are the results of nature and nurture
- Social neuroscience - instead of looking at neuro correlates, we are looking at social correlates
- How do we label things/our biological functions
Relating to others is a basic need
- We derive a lot from our relationships - self-worth, esteem, identity
- We derive positivity or negativity
- Depends on how long we know them, how we know them
Social psychology principles apply to everyday life
- For example, on your resume, we see it in the courts, in healthcare
- Study about malpractice - people are less likely to report their doctor’s malpractice if they have a good relationship with them
Explicit ways that values effect social psych
Values influence research topics
Values vary by time and culture
Values influence the analysis of data
Implicit ways that values effect social psych
- Forming concepts - you might feel positive about something, but someone else may feel negative about it
- Labeling - could positively label a study, but the data could include negative, eg. label study about international students belonging in Canada, however, the exclusion is experienced as well
- Naturalistic fallacy - what we see, what is typical is normal, what is normal is
good - eg. only see couples on TV, which are heterosexual, white couples on TV
Intrinsic motivation
personal incentive
Problem with saying something is common sense within social psych - trivial because documentation is obvious
- A problem with common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts
- Hindsight bias - the tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foresee it
- “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon
Social neuroscience
An integration of biological and social perspectives that explores the neural and psychological bases of social and
emotional behaviours.
Culture
The enduring behaviours, ideas, attitudes, traditions, products,
and institutions shared by a large
group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
Social representations
Socially shared beliefs; widely held ideas and values, including our assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.
Naturalistic fallacy
The error of
defining what is good in terms of
what is observable: For example,
what’s typical is normal; what’s normal is good
To test a hypothesis…
social psychologists may do research that predicts behaviour using correlational studies, often conducted in natural settings. Or they may seek to explain behaviour by conducting experiments that manipulate one or more factors under controlled conditions. Once they have conducted a research study, they explore ways to
apply their findings to people’s everyday lives.
Theory
An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events
Hypotheses
Testable propositions that describe relationships that may exist between events.
Purposes of hypotheses
- They allow us to test the theories on which they are based
- Predictions give direction to research
- The predictive features of good theories can also make them practical
operationalization
we must always translate
variables that are described at the theoretical level into the specific variables that we are
going to observe.
eg. Say we observe that people who loot, taunt, or attack others (i.e., exhibit extreme violence) often do so in crowds. We might, therefore, theorize that the presence of others in a crowd leads to extreme violence.
To be a good operationalization, we would need to believe that it is a valid measure of violence; we would also need to believe that by using this measure, differences in violence could emerge and we would get basically the same results if we did the study over again. - it would be reliable
What’s needed in developing theories
Good social psychology requires both following the principles of science and developing tests of theories that creatively capture the essence of the theory being tested.
Reliable measure
We would get basically the same results if we did the study over again
A good theory accomplishes:
- It effectively summarizes many observations.
- It makes clear predictions that we can use to do the following:
- Confirm or modify the theory.
- Generate new exploration.
- Suggest practical applications.
contolled situation
in a labratory
control your own variables within a test
field research
- everyday situations
Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.
the method for research is either these two things
correlational research
experimental research
correlational research
The study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables.
experimental research
Studies that seek clues to cause–effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant).
correlation vs causation
correlation - allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes
in another
longitudinal research
When correlational research is extended over time, it is called longitudinal research.
- it can begin to sort out cause and effect because we know that some
things happen before others. Causes always happen before effects, so if we know that children almost always have a healthy positive self-image before they start to show more
achievement than their peers, then we can rule out that it is achievement that causes a healthy positive self-image.
Survey research
- obtain a representative group by taking a random sample - one in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.
any subgroup of people—red-haired people, for example—will tend to be represented in the survey to the extent that they are represented in the total population.
Random sample
Survey procedure in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion.
unrepresentative samples
How closely the sample represents the population under study matters greatly.
If a study does not represent the whole group, it may not be accurate
Order and timing of questions
Given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as the order in which we ask questions.
Response bias and social desirability
Sometimes people don’t want to admit their true actions and beliefs either to the experimenter or sometimes even to themselves.
This tendency for people to say what they want others to hear or what they want to believe about themselves is called social desirability.
implicit measures
Social psychologists have developed new methods of measuring people’s beliefs without their knowing that their beliefs are being measured. These implicit measures are often used when concerns about social
desirability arise.
Wording of the questions
the wording of a question can also lead to certain biases
Experiments: Manipulating variables
Social psychologists experiment by constructing social situations that simulate important features of our daily lives. By varying just one or two factors at a time—called independent variables—the experimenter pinpoints how changes in the one or two things affect us. The experiment enables the social psychologist to discover principles of social thinking, social influence, and social relations. Social psychologists experiment to understand and predict human behaviour.
Independant variables
Experimental factors that a researcher manipulates.
Research Methods: Correlational
Advantage: Often uses real-world settings
Disadvantage: Causation often ambiguous
Research Methods: Experimental
Advantage: Can explore cause and effect by controlling variables and by random assignment
Disadvantage: Some important variables cannot be studied within experiments
dependant variable
The variable being measured, so called because it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.
random assignment
The process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition.
random assignment eliminates all such extraneous factors. With random assignment, each person has an equal chance of viewing the violence or the non-violence. Thus, the people in both groups would, in every conceivable way—family status,
intelligence, education, initial aggressiveness—average about the same.
random assignment causes equivalent groups
Every social–psychological experiment has two essential ingredients
- control - We manipulate one or two independent variables while trying to hold everything else constant.
- random assignment - randomly assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition
difference between random assignment in experiments and random sampling in surveys
- Random assignment helps us infer cause and effect.
- Random sampling helps us generalize to a population.
observational research methods
Where individuals are observed in natural settings, often without awareness, in order to provide the opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour
- when true experimental manipulation is not possible and random assignment cannot be done
Ethics - mundane realism
Degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations.
not too important
experimental realism
Degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants.
much more important
realism—it should absorb
involve the participants. Experimenters do not want their people consciously play-acting; they want to engage real psychological processes. Forcing people to choose whether to give intense or mild electric shock to someone else can, for example, be a realistic measure of aggression. It functionally simulates real aggression.
sometimes requires deceiving people with a plausible cover story. If the person in the next room actually is not receiving the shocks, the experimenter does not want the participants to know this.
demand characteristics
Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected.
Experiments require that the participants do not know their predictions, so that the participants don’t try to be “good participants”
Canada’s Tri-Council, which funds natural science, social science, humanities, and health research) urge investigators to follow these practices:
- Tell potential participants enough about the experiment to enable their
informed consent. - Be truthful. Use deception only if essential and justified by a significant
purpose and if there is no alternative.
Protect people from harm and significant discomfort. - Treat information about the individual participants confidentially.
- Debrief participants. Fully explain the experiment afterward, including any deception. The only exception to this rule is when the feedback would be distressing, such as by making participants realize they have been stupid or cruel.
informed consent
An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.
What are the major themes of social psychology
- We construct our social reality
- Our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes perilous.
- Social influences shape our behaviour.
- Personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behaviour.
- Social behaviour is biologically rooted.
- Relating to others is a basic need.
- Social psychology’s principles are applicable in everyday life.
How do values effect social psychology
- Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work in obvious ways, such as
their choice of research topics and the types of people who are attracted to various fields of study. - They also do this in subtler ways, such as their hidden assumptions when forming concepts, choosing labels, and giving advice.
- This penetration of values into science is not a reason to fault social psychology or any other science. That human thinking is seldom dispassionate is precisely why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we are to check our cherished ideas against reality.
Is social psychology merely common sense
- Social psychology is criticized for being trivial because it documents things that seem obvious.
- Experiments, however, reveal that outcomes are more “obvious” after the facts are known.
- This hindsight bias (the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) often makes
people overconfident about the validity of their judgments and
predictions.
- Social psychologists organize their ideas and findings into theories. A good theory will distill an array of facts into a much shorter list of predictive principles. We can use those predictions to confirm or modify the theory, to generate new research, and to suggest practical application.
- Most social–psychological research is either correlational or experimental.
Correlational studies, sometimes conducted with systematic survey methods, discern the relationship between variables, such as between amount of education and amount of income. Knowing that two things are naturally related is valuable information, but it is not a reliable indicator of what is causing
what—or whether a third variable is involved. - When possible, social psychologists prefer to conduct experiments that
explore cause and effect. By constructing a miniature reality that is under their control, experimenters can vary one thing and then another and discover how those things, separately or in combination, affect behaviour. We randomly assign (Figure 1−6) participants to an experimental condition, which
receives the experimental treatment, or to a control condition, which does not. We can then attribute any resulting difference between the two conditions to the independent variable. - In creating experiments, social psychologists sometimes stage situations that engage people’s emotions. In doing so, they are obliged to follow professional
ethical guidelines, such as obtaining people’s informed consent, protecting them from harm, and, afterward, fully disclosing any temporary deceptions. Laboratory experiments enable social psychologists to test ideas gleaned from life experience and then apply the principles and findings to the real world.
