Critical Social Psychology

Question 1

What is social psychology

Answer 1

Emerged in 1930s
The study of interactions of individuals in groups and society.
The scientific investigation of how thoughts feelings and behaviours are influenced by the actual, implied or imagined influence of others (Hogg and Vaughan, 2005)
The study of the individual in the social context (wetherell, 2001)

Question 2

What is the divide in social psychology

Answer 2

A battle over ideology.
Traditionally social psychology was studied through scientific approaches, the positivist approach.
Academics argued this was wrong way to study a social world, were influenced by sociological approaches. Developed a new branch called critical social psychology

Question 3

What is experimental social psychology

Answer 3

Employs the scientific method to study behaviour. Regards critical approach as dogma.
Uses hypothetico-detective method,
Claims scientific method is ideologically neutral
Views social world separate from people acting in it.

Question 4

What is critical social psychology

Answer 4

Heavily influenced by sociology. Claims experimental social psychology not the only way to study social behaviour
Emerged in 1970s and became own branch

Question 5

Ontology

Answer 5

Branch of philosophy that addresses what things are and their place in the world.
The assumptions made about the nature of the social world

Question 6

Epistemology

Answer 6

The branch of philosophy that considers the nature of knowledge and how it should be gained

Question 7

Epistemology and ontology in Experimental approach in social psychology

Answer 7

Mainly uses epistemological approach of Positivism

Suggests there is a straightforward 1-1 relationship between events and people in the social world.

Question 8

Hypothetico-decuctivism

Answer 8

(Popper 1959)

The science of making deductions from the testing of hypothesis

Question 9

Induction

Answer 9

Drawing inferences from observations to make generalisations
Facts are recorded and observed
Facts are analysed
Generalisations are inferred about relationships between facts
Generalisations are tested by further observation of facts

Question 10

Deduction

Answer 10

Based on falsification

A rule or theory is put to test in ways to allow them to be disproved

Question 11

What methods does social psychology use

Answer 11

Either inductive or deductive
Based on ontology suggesting world is separate from human action
Epistemology is hyopthetico-deductive
Uses inductive and deductive approach to create and falsify hypothesis

Question 12

Social constructionism

Answer 12

Social reality is created through
Externalisation
Objectification
Internalisation

Question 13

Externalisation

Answer 13

The way societies make sense of their own world

Society included groups, ethnicities, etc

Question 14

Objectification

Answer 14

How constructs and social institutions are perceived as real
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Question 15

Internalisation

Answer 15

Where the objectified world becomes known, understood and adopted to the individual through socialisation

Question 16

Critical social psychology approach

Answer 16

Social reality is seen as a socially constructed world
Epistemology works from observing people acting in world and making sense of it
Uses retroduction to identify regularities in social action or social phenomena in order to make sense of them

Question 17

Retroduction

Answer 17

Harre and secord (1972)
Empirical studies is first stage, identify an observed regulatory

Theoretical studies is second stage
Generate explications of the semiotic mechanisms and structure that creates the regularity

Question 18

Abduction

Answer 18

Working on hunches to construct a new theory

Relies on homing in on irregularities or creating conditions where researchers can be surprised

Question 19

Critical social psychology epistemology and ontology

Answer 19

Views social actions and phenomena as produced by social structures e.g. Inequality and mechanisms e.g. Patriarchy
Uses retroduction to identify regularities in order to gain insight into the structures that cause them
Considers there is a multiplicity of dynamic and changing social realities

Question 20

What were two principal worries about social psychology

Answer 20

It was overly reductionist
(By explaining social behaviour on individual level it failed to address social nature of human behaviour)
It was overly positivistic
(Adhered to science model which was distorting, inappropriate and misleading)

Question 21

What is critical social psychology

Answer 21

Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical psychology challenges mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychological understandings in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating psychopathology.

Question 22

Critical social psychology criticisms of mainstream social psychology

Answer 22

One of critical psychology’s main criticisms of conventional psychology is that it fails to consider or deliberately ignores the way power differences between social classes and groups can affect the mental and physical well-being of individuals or groups of people. It does this, in part, because it tends to explain behavior at the level of the individual.