Chapter 1—Research Methods & The Self Flashcards
Define Social Psychology
Social Psychology is the scientific study of social thinking, social influence, and social relations.
Social thinking
- Attitudes
- Schemas
- Judgements
- Beliefs
Social influence
The influences in our social world
- Conformity
- Persuasion
- Groups of people
- Culture
Social Relations
- Helping
- Aggression
- Attraction and intimacy
- Prejudice
- Groups
Naturalistic fallacy
People mistakenly assume that what is “natural” is inherently good or right. (Eg. aggression is justified)
What is implied in an experiment
Random assignment
Random sampling
IV (controlled) and DV (affected)
Causation
What is implied in observational research
Correlation—naturally occurring relationships among variables
No causation
People are observed in natural settings
Provides the opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour
How does theory facilitate social psychology?
A theory is a list of principles that explain and predict events.
- Principles generate research that modifies/furthers the theory, which in turn generates more research
- This research can suggest practical applications
How do personal/societal values affect social psychologists?
- Choice of research topics/field of study
- Hidden assumptions when forming concepts, labelling and giving advice
What is hindsight bias, and what is change blindness?
Hindsight bias: the i knew it all along phenomenon.
- Tendency for people to overestimate how well they think they knew something after they see how it turned out
Change blindness: people fail to notice large changes in their visual environment. To people who know it’ll happen, it’s impossible to not miss.
What is culture
A set of norms and values that guide cultural behaviours, ideas, attitudes, traditions, etc shared by a large group of people
These values are transmitted from one gen to the next
What are demand characteristics?
Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected
Experimental Realism Vs Mundane realism
Experimental Realism is the degree to which participants are involved/absorbed in the study; increases internal validity
Mundane Realism is the degree to which the experiment settings and task resemble real life situations; increases external validity
Why is culture so important in psychology?
Culture influences our schemas
Concepts of phenomena may not apply to all cultures, or are manifested differently
We have to take into account the focus on WEIRD cultures
What is a hypothesis and what’s it good for
- A hypothesis is a testable, operationalized assertion that describes relationships that may exist between events
- Based on theories and used to test them
What is social neuroscience
Integrating biological and social perspectives to explore the neural and psychological bases of social and emotional behaviours
What are social representations
Socially shared norms, values and beliefs that help us interpret the world and make sense of it
What is an archival study
An experimental method that involves analyzing info from past records of events
Internal vs External validity
Internal validity is the degree to which your study is unaffected by confounding variables; did the manipulation of variables actually happen?
External validity is the degree to which a study’s findings can be generalized to other populations
What do individualistic vs collectivistic cultures value?
Individualistic cultures value individuality, autonomy/agency, self-reliance
Collectivistic cultures value fitting in, cooperation and social harmony
