Midterm 1 Flashcards
define social psychology
the scientific study of how the presence of others, whether real or imagined, influences our thoughts, feelings and behaviours
social psych is not.. philosophy sociology abnormal / clinical / counselling psych personality psych why what are the differences
not philosophy as we have experimental studies
not sociology as we study the reactions of a single person in a gorup, sociology looks at the whole group
not abnormal / clinical / counselling psychwe study the average person
not personality psych as we focus on the situation whereas they study characteristics of the person (but most orgs etc group together)
ABCs of social psych
affect - feelings
behaviour
cognition - thoughts
what is subjective construal
the way in which people perceive, comprehend and interpret the social world
eg 2 people in the same situation = 2 totally different viewpoints
Scientific method accronym
HOMER
scientific method explain
H
hypothesize
-develop a research question
what is the hindsight bias and when must we watch for it
tendency to think we would have know about events that have happened in the past
must watch when hypothesizing
theory vs hypothesis
theory
- broad ideas or collection of facts that may explain a range of behaviours
-very broad
hypothesis
- specific, testable statements that explain a particular behaviour in a particular situation
-multiple hypotheses for the same theory
-must be falsifiable (otherwise not scientific)
eg theory = gravity, hypothesis = stuff falls
scientific method explain
O
Operationalize
- variable defintions
- psych = a unique field, so we must determine out terms carefully in two ways (conceptual vs operational definitions)
conceptual defintion
dictionary definition
broad, conceptual
kinda like theories (general)
Operational definition
researcher definition in their study
specific, concrete
how we can evaluate studies on their operational definitions
whether thei operational definition matches the conceptual definition
what is construct validity
does the conceptual definition match the operational definition
(are they measuring what they think they are)
scientific method explain
M
measure
3 measurement strategies
observational
correlational
experimental
what is the observational method
observe people and systematically record measurements or impressions of their behaviour
purpose = to describe behaviour
2 kinds
-naturalistic (as naturally as it happens, no intervention)
-participants observation (you get involved so might change what is going on)
advantages and disadvantages of the observational method
adv
-easy to do
-real world behaviours
-in the lab or the field
dis
-limited (only so much you can see) and time consuming
-how do we observe behaviour without influencing the behaviour itself
-is what we observe accurate (subjective construal)
what is the correlational method
NOT CAUSATION
used to predict 1 variable from another
systematically measure and asses the relationship between variables
is a measure of the direction and strength between 2 variables
r scores in correlation (specify when weak, moderate, stong etc)
-1 <= r <= 1
sign = direction
-positive, negative and zero
number = strength (0.1 = weak, 0.3 = moderate, 0.5 = strong)
why correlation is not causation
A cause B
B cause a
C caused both A and B
what is the experimental method
how wer understand causation / test causal claims
gold standard
researchers must randomly assign participants to conditions and controls all other variables
differences between the conditions allow for causal claims
whats is experimental control
making sure that only the things that change in an experiment are the independent variables we manipulate
what is a confounded variable
variables that change along with the independent variable
extra variables that mess up ability to make causal claims
muller and oppenheimer study on laptops in classrooms study
what is better for learning - taking notes by hand or laptop
watch TED talks, filler tasks then test of factual knowledge and conceptual knowledge
results
laptop = verbatim word count - basically copied put word for word, stopped concentrating and didn’t engage in deep processing so both groups = factually but writing group did better at conceptual knowledge test
advantages and disadvantages of the experimental method
adv -only way to establish causality dis -we can't do everything -there are some things we cannot randomly assign
scientific method explain
E
evaluate
demand evidence and think critically
4 types of validity and briefly explained
construct - operational definition match concept definition
internal - change in IV does cause the change in the DV, the more confounds = less internal validity
external - ability to generalise (problem as WEIRD samples in social psych)
statistical conclusions validity - did you do the right types of stats and is it possoble these results happened by chance alone
scientific method explain
R
revision/ replication
if your predictions were confirmed, replicate them
if your predictions were disconfirmed, revise them
research ethics
important in all science but especially psych
sometimes answers are not clear cut (but other times they are!)
researchers must be held accuntable for their actions towards humans and non-human animals
boards in ethics
human studies = Institutional review board
animals = IAUC
human rights in research
informed consent
voluntary participation
confidentiality (do know who you are but no one else does) / anonymity (researcher doesn’t even know who you are)
what is the black swan concept in social psych
can never prove a theory to be true (ie prove there are no black swans) without seeing one to disprove
don’t confirm what you believe -> find a way to break the rule
-we seek info that confirms our own beliefs (but this is not the most useful info)
here is the three ascending numbers video
superficiality vs depth of processing
amount of thinking varies (ie sometimes we think alot and sometimes we don’t)
accessibility
accessible information has implications
-info accessible to you can have a profound effect on your thoughts, feelings and behaviours
conservatism
beliefs are slow to change
2 aspects of social cognition
automatic processing
controlled processing
what is automatic processing
thinking that is non conscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless
what are schemas
mental structures that people use to organise their knowledge about the social world
-influences info people notice, think about and remember
eg stereotypes
result of us having schemas
can be influenced by culture
useful for social survival
functions of schemas
organize and categorize the social world
help us deal with ambiguous situations
guide how we process information
helps is respond to our social environment quickly
problems with schemas
can distract what we attend to, what we remember and our judegements
can be over-relied on (used too much)
can persist even after we discredit them
talk through the race and weapons study
white men played a video game where they saw a yound man in various settings
the men were white and gun, black and gun, white and wallet, black and wallet
task was to shoot if man had a gun and don’t shoot if wallet (all as quickly as possible)
DV = number of errors
made fewer mistakes with whites and more with blacksd
quicker and more willing to shoot black target
= shooter bias
is automatic thinking always correct
no
its the first thing that comes to mind, you may not have time to correct it
self-fullfilling prophecy
the tendency for people to act in ways that bring about the very thing they expect to happen
- in this instance schema avoids disconfirming evidence by reaching out and making reality conform to it
IQ test on kids labelling them bloomers study
fake IQ test to elementary school kids
randomly assigned some as bloomers (told teachers who, not kids)
bloomers did better on a follow up IQ test = feedback loop proposed
proposed feedback loop from bloomers study
teachers expect good performances
teacher challenges / encourages student
students performance increases
teachers expectations are confirmed
siblings at school study
used school records
siblings did the same as each other with the same teachers (not with different ones)
boys and girls school performances facts and discussion
fact 1 - in middle school, girls out perform boys on reading, math, social studies, writing
fact 2 - by high school, boys out perform girls in most areas
why?
expectations and anxieties of teachers (math anxiety)
self-fullfilling prophecy
these facts are dissappearing
what is the confirmation bias
tendency to interpret, seek and create infor in ways which verify our existing beliefs
-how we seek out and attend to info
belief perserverance effect
tendency for schemas and other thoughts to persist even after they have been discredited
belief perserverance effect study (suicide notes)
written by people who had committed suicide and by researchers
given false feedback on whether their guesses were right
tried again
then told original feedback was wrong
asked how good they believed they were
people believed they were as good as they were first told (even though they knew this was incorrect)
what is confirmatory hypothesis testing
we seek out info to confirm our initial thoughts
pay attention to info that confirms
ignore info that disconfimrs
confirmatory hypothesis testing study (extraversion / introvert study)
half told partner was introverted
half told extroverted
DV - list of interview questions to chose from
those given the introverted schema believed person to be more introverted and vice versa ie chose to ask them questions that matched the personality they were told they were
lesson = biased questions lead to biased answers
expectations altered the questions the participant selected
what is accessibility
the extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of peoples minds and are therefore likely to be used when making judegements about the social world
ie if you ask people to not think about a white bear they will do! also dont look down etc
what is priming
the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait or concept
priming study
2 separate studies (not really!)
1 stroop test with positive and negative word lists
2 person perception story about donald who likes all these things… is he adventurous or reckless? do you like donald
primed with positive words = adventurous and negative = reckless
suggestive evidence that schemas lead to interpretation of ambiguous info
priming intelligence study
primed to think about life in the day as a proffessor or football hooligan
better performance on trivial pursuit if thought about proffessor
replication issues with priming studies
some studies assessing priming have failed to replicate or just show much weaker effects
but there is still a reliable effect
elderly walking study
primed elderly words eg grey, florida, bingo
timed how quickly walked out
walked more slowly when primed words were about the elderly
failed to replicate
just the specific behaviour hasn’t replicated, does not mean priming is not an effect
eg the words there are very representative of the old today?
what are heuristics
mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quikcly and efficiently
2 common heuristics
availability
representative
what is the availability heuristic
based on the ease with which something comes to mind eg r more common as a third letter of a word or first
death by shark or selfie etc
what is the representative heuristic
based on how similar something is to the prototype
eg linda the bankteller example, go for the less likley option just because of descriptives fit the prototype
same as julie’s pet
what is controlled thinking
thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary and effortful
must have motivation (personal relevance) and ability to think then can be controlled thinking (so not tired or under time pressure)
what is counterfactual thinking
mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been
eg missing a flight by 3 mins or 3 hours
what is thought supression
the attempt to avoid thinking about something we would prefer to forget eg the white bear in class
what is the ironic process model
automatic process - searches for the unwanted thought
controlled process - creates a thought to distract from the unwanted thought
when the controlled process breaks down, the thought becomes even more accessible
