Intro to Social Psychology / Research Methods Flashcards
How is social psychology defined?
The study of interpersonal behavior
How does social psychology relate to sociology and psychology?
Area of overlap between the two
Social psychology focuses on individuals within groups
- Sociology = groups
- Psychology = individuals
What level of analysis does social psych employ?
Analyzes individuals in groups
What’s often wrong with common sense predictions? Example?
They are contradictory
Example :
- Sometimes couples are similar (“birds of a feather flock together”)
- But sometimes they are different (“opposites attract”)
How do social psychologists tell which predictions are correct?
Develop theories and test them
What are the three major kinds of research methods?
- Naturalistic observation : observing behavior as it is occurring naturally
- Interviews/Questionnaires : asking people questions (orally or written)
- Experiments : manipulating the independent variable to observe how it effects the dependent variable
Do researchers agree that one method is best? Explain.
No they don’t
- Depending on the research field, some methods might work better for that type of research
- Each method has its strengths and weaknesses
How does naturalistic observation differ from everyday experience?
It is systematic; researchers already know what they are looking for when they are doing the observation
What’s a major problem with experiments? What’s a way of trying to deal with this?
The controls needed to infer causality can lead to artificial situations
- Ways to deal with this is to conduct a field or quasi experiment
What are major problems that are common to all kinds of research? (Re.Rea.G.V)
- Reliability - Would you get the same result if you did the measurement again?
- Reactivity - Do participants react to the study in ways that influence the results?
- Generalizability - Do the results generalize to other people and situations?
- Validity - Are you measuring what you think you are measuring?
Identify the artifacts or biases that we discussed in class.
- Interview Bias : participant’s answers are influenced by the interviewer
- Experimenter Bias : experimenter influences the results of an experiment
- Demand Characteristics : characteristics can at times “demand” a specific reply
- Social Desirability : wanting to be perceived in a positive way can influence one’s behavior
- Evaluation apprehension : how the participant feels about being perceived in a negative way
- Volunteer effects : the impact that those who want to be a part of a study vs those who do not
Why do researchers often try to take a random sample?
You want to generalize the results
In order to make experiment groups as similar as possible before the start of the experiment
- Allows researchers to control pre-existing differences within the groups
What did Rosenthal’s study of rats demonstrate?
Demonstrated that experimenter bias can influence the results of an experiment
- He influenced the experiment by influencing his student experimenters’ expectations regarding how to handle their rat
What are several ways to try to avoid artifacts?.
- Use multiple measures; take the average or compare them to improve and test reliability
- Check the face validity and criterion validity of measures
- Replicate studies using different kinds of samples, materials and procedures; conduct literature reviews to check generalizability
What are three principles that need to be considered in dealing with ethical issues? (M.I.P)
- Minimal risk : the benefits must out weigh physical or psychological harm
- Informed consent : there must be enough information to decide whether or not to participate
- Privacy : keeping identity and data anonymous (if possible) or confidential
