Introduction & Key Issues Flashcards
What is social psychology, according to Allport, 1954?
“The scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others”.
What do social psychologists explore?
How people are affected by other people using scientific methods.
Why do social psychologists explore how people are affected by other people?
To study behaviour, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and goals.
On which three basic human capacities do social psychologists rely?
Affect (feelings), behaviour (interactions), and cognition (thought).
What are used to devise and test theories about phenomena such as dissonance, social identity, and conformity?
Scientific methods
What are based on the collection and systematic analysis of observable data?
Scientific methods
What are the two types of experimental research?
Laboratory experimentation (unnatural) and field experimentation (natural).
What are the three different research methods?
Experimental, correlational, and observational.
What is the focus of the experimental research method?
Causality
What is the focus of the correlational research method?
Prediction
What is the focus of the observational research method?
Description
Which question can be answered by the experimental research method?
“Is variable X a cause of variable Y”?
Which question can be answered by the observational research method?
“What is the nature of the phenomenon”?
Which question can be answered by the correlational research method?
“From knowing X, can we predict Y”?
What are used to answer questions of causality?
Laboratory experiments (artificial setting)
What is the benefit of laboratory experiments?
They allow for a high level of control.
What are two disadvantages of laboratory experiments?
They are artificial and are subject to demand characteristics.
What is the difference between field experiments and laboratory experiments?
Field experiments use some of the control of laboratory experiments, but they do so in a natural, real-world setting.
What is the benefit of field experiments?
They are ecologically valid.
What is the disadvantage of field experiments?
They do not allow for such a high level of control as laboratory experiments (they are internally valid).
What kind of research is often based on surveys?
Correlational research
What are two benefits of correlational experiments?
They allow for the gathering of large amounts of data, and are highly generalisable.
What are four disadvantages of correlational experiments?
They are subject to experimenter bias, evaluation apprehension, subject bias, and do not provide any evidence of causation.
What is observational research sometimes called?
Qualitative research
What does observational research entail?
The investigation of naturally occurring behaviour in great detail via either observation or interviews.
What are two benefits of observational research?
It allows for the gathering of detailed data about a specific phenomenon, and it involves inductive reasoning.
What are four disadvantages of observational research?
It involves experimenter bias, lacks generalisability, is subject to subject bias, and does not provide any evidence of causation.
What influence our social behaviour?
Our individual characteristics.
What potentially influences our social behaviour more so than our individual characteristics?
The social situation- the people with whom we interact.
What create influence?
Social situations
Of what is social psychology largely the study?
The social situation.
What is social influence?
The process through which other people potentially change our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and vice versa.
To what does the fundamental attribution error refer?
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.
To what can the fundamental attribution error lead?
Misunderstandings and oversimplifications in perceiving others.
What is our most basic tendency?
Self-concern
With what are humans primarily concerned?
With the survival of themselves and their kin or in group (those similar and important to us).
What is a potential evolutionary explanation for self-concern?
That self-concern is essential for the survival of one’s own genes.
