Introduction & Key Issues

Question 1

What is social psychology, according to Allport, 1954?

Answer 1

“The scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others”.

Question 2

What do social psychologists explore?

Answer 2

How people are affected by other people using scientific methods.

Question 3

Why do social psychologists explore how people are affected by other people?

Answer 3

To study behaviour, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and goals.

Question 4

On which three basic human capacities do social psychologists rely?

Answer 4

Affect (feelings), behaviour (interactions), and cognition (thought).

Question 5

What are used to devise and test theories about phenomena such as dissonance, social identity, and conformity?

Answer 5

Scientific methods

Question 6

What are based on the collection and systematic analysis of observable data?

Answer 6

Scientific methods

Question 7

What are the two types of experimental research?

Answer 7

Laboratory experimentation (unnatural) and field experimentation (natural).

Question 8

What are the three different research methods?

Answer 8

Experimental, correlational, and observational.

Question 9

What is the focus of the experimental research method?

Answer 9

Causality

Question 10

What is the focus of the correlational research method?

Answer 10

Prediction

Question 11

What is the focus of the observational research method?

Answer 11

Description

Question 12

Which question can be answered by the experimental research method?

Answer 12

“Is variable X a cause of variable Y”?

Question 13

Which question can be answered by the observational research method?

Answer 13

“What is the nature of the phenomenon”?

Question 13

Which question can be answered by the correlational research method?

Answer 13

“From knowing X, can we predict Y”?

Question 14

What are used to answer questions of causality?

Answer 14

Laboratory experiments (artificial setting)

Question 15

What is the benefit of laboratory experiments?

Answer 15

They allow for a high level of control.

Question 16

What are two disadvantages of laboratory experiments?

Answer 16

They are artificial and are subject to demand characteristics.

Question 17

What is the difference between field experiments and laboratory experiments?

Answer 17

Field experiments use some of the control of laboratory experiments, but they do so in a natural, real-world setting.

Question 18

What is the benefit of field experiments?

Answer 18

They are ecologically valid.

Question 19

What is the disadvantage of field experiments?

Answer 19

They do not allow for such a high level of control as laboratory experiments (they are internally valid).

Question 20

What kind of research is often based on surveys?

Answer 20

Correlational research

Question 21

What are two benefits of correlational experiments?

Answer 21

They allow for the gathering of large amounts of data, and are highly generalisable.

Question 22

What are four disadvantages of correlational experiments?

Answer 22

They are subject to experimenter bias, evaluation apprehension, subject bias, and do not provide any evidence of causation.

Question 23

What is observational research sometimes called?

Answer 23

Qualitative research

Question 24

What does observational research entail?

Answer 24

The investigation of naturally occurring behaviour in great detail via either observation or interviews.

Question 25

What are two benefits of observational research?

Answer 25

It allows for the gathering of detailed data about a specific phenomenon, and it involves inductive reasoning.

Question 26

What are four disadvantages of observational research?

Answer 26

It involves experimenter bias, lacks generalisability, is subject to subject bias, and does not provide any evidence of causation.

Question 27

What influence our social behaviour?

Answer 27

Our individual characteristics.

Question 28

What potentially influences our social behaviour more so than our individual characteristics?

Answer 28

The social situation- the people with whom we interact.

Question 29

What create influence?

Answer 29

Social situations

Question 30

Of what is social psychology largely the study?

Answer 30

The social situation.

Question 31

What is social influence?

Answer 31

The process through which other people potentially change our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and vice versa.

Question 32

To what does the fundamental attribution error refer?

Answer 32

To our tendency to explain other people’s behaviour entirely in terms of personality traits, and our own in terms of situational or environmental factors.

Question 33

To what can the fundamental attribution error lead?

Answer 33

Misunderstandings and oversimplifications in perceiving others.

Question 34

What is our most basic tendency?

Answer 34

Self-concern

Question 35

With what are humans primarily concerned?

Answer 35

With the survival of themselves and their kin or in group (those similar and important to us).

Question 36

What is a potential evolutionary explanation for self-concern?

Answer 36

That self-concern is essential for the survival of one’s own genes.