chapter 1 introduction & methods

Question 1

what is social psychology?

Answer 1

scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings & behaviour are influenced by the real and imagined presences of others

Question 2

what are the 2 forms of social influence?

Answer 2

• direct e.g. through persuasion
• indirect e.g. our actions are governed by the imaginary approval or disapproval of our parents

Question 3

what does it mean by the individual’s construal of the world?

Answer 3

the way perceive, interpret & comprehend the social world and how those construals are shaped by the social context

Question 4

what is self-centred subjective?

Answer 4

tend to think a lot about ourselves

Question 5

what is behaviourism?

Answer 5

in order to understand human behaviour, we only need to consider the reinforcing properties of the situation/environment. e.g. when a behaviour is followed by a reward, it is likely to continue. if a behaviour is followed by a punishment, it is likely to stop or become extinguished

Question 6

what is naive realism?

Answer 6

conviction that we perceive things just as they are, underestimating how much we are interpreting our spinning what we see. it also refers to the disbelief in subjective construal & multiple perspectives as the fundamental nature of experiencing

Question 7

where do construals come from?

Answer 7

1. self-esteem motive (the need to feel good about ourselves)
2. social cognition motive (the need to be accurate)

Question 8

what are the 3 steps of a research method?

Answer 8

1. question
2. operationalise
3. collect data

Question 9

what are the 3 methods to collect data?

Answer 9

1. observational
2. correlational
3. experimental

Question 10

what are artifacts?

Answer 10

any variable other than the manipulation that influences the difference between observations
(experimenter/participant artifact & design confounds)

Question 11

name an experimenter artifact and how to combat it

Answer 11

expectency effects (when someone expects a given result, the expectation unconsciously affects the outcome or report of the actual results)

combat this by preregistering the study. by preregistering the study, we publicy document the research plan, including hypothesis and methodologies, before conducting the study. this reduces chances of selectively reporting results that align with our expectations
or
conceal the hypothesis from the experimenter

Question 12

describe 2 participant artifacts

Answer 12

1. evaluation apprehension (participants may be self-conscious)

combat this by measuring data in a way that makes participants as comfortable as possible

2. demand characteristics (participant might do/say something that they feel they are expected to say/do in the investigation)

Question 13

how do we conduct an ethical research?

Answer 13

1. institutional review board (IRB)
2. cost & benefit ratio
3. informed consent
4. debriefing

Question 14

how to avoid participant artifacts?

Answer 14

• avoid revealing hypothesis
• avoid obvious manipulations (covert observation — putting video cameras installed in a room without participants knowing & asking for permission after)
• avoid obvious measures (implicit measures — measuring reaction time, psychophysiology & FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging))
• test diverse populations