M2: Experiments in Social Psychology Flashcards
_________ is one of the largest subdisciplines within scientific psychology.
Social psychology
Social psychologists employ experimental methods in attempting to understand many issues that are of interest to most individuals, such as _______, _______, and _______ and ________.
- aggression
- attraction
- altruism and helping
However, because most people are interested in social psychology and have probably given some thought to the topics it includes, they sometimes tend to regard its phenomena and theories as mere _________.
common sense
Worse yet, some people even believe this area is one that should not be approached in a scientific way with the logic of ___________.
experimental method
TRUE or FALSE
Social psychological research is in many ways more difficult to perform than other types of research because the situations examined are often quite complex, with many variables affecting behavior.
TRUE
Introducing __________ into the situation so that sound inferences can be made about the effects of different experimental treatments on the dependent variable often requires great effort.
experimental control
_________ combats the problem of experimental error, or any variation in the dependent variable that is not caused by the independent variable.
Experimental control
TRUE or FALSE
Such extraneous factors should be controlled as much as possible by equating them across conditions. If control is not possible, then these factors should be randomly distributed over conditions.
TRUE
The ________ of both the experimenter and the participants can create problems in social psychological (and other) research.
expectations
TRUE or FALSE
The experimenter may subtly bias results in several ways—for example, by treating people slightly differently in the different conditions.
TRUE
A solution to bias results is for the experimenter to be ______ with respect to the condition at the time of testing—but this is not often feasible, since the experimenter must provide the experimental manipulation in some way.
blind
____________ are likely to be discovered in the normal course of scientific research.
Experimenter-bias effects
TRUE or FALSE
Milgram’s Obedience Experiment
Would you risk seriously harming a man in an experiment if someone told you to? Milgram’s findings suggest that you would.
TRUE - From THE OBEDIENCE distributed by The Pennsylvania State University Media Sales.
The learner (or victim) in _________ original study on obedience to authority.
Milgram’s
TRUE or FALSE
Why was the Milgram experiment so controversial?
The Milgram experiment was controversial because it revealed people’s willingness to obey authority figures even when causing harm to others, raising ethical concerns about the psychological distress inflicted upon participants and the deception involved in the study.
TRUE
