PSYC260: Midterm #1 Flashcards
Difference between anthropology/sociology and social psychology
Anthro/socio=how people are influenced by their social enviro
Social psych=how people are influenced by their interpretation (aka construal) of their social enviro
Naïve realism
Special kind of construal
We all believe that we see things “as they really are” and that other reasonable people see things the same way we do
Lee Ross
Social psychology
The scientific study of the way that people’s thoughts/feelings/behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
Social psych vs sociology
Both: influence of social and societal factors on human behaviour
Diffs:
- level of analysis: individual in the context of a social situations vs society at large
- what they are trying to explain: goal of social psych is to identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence (regardless of class/culture)
Social psych vs personality psych
Focus of attention of individual differences instead of recognizing the power of social influence involved
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviour stems from internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational forces
Hindsight bias
Tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted something after knowing it occurred
Three methods used to answer questions in social psych
1- observational method
2- correlational method
3- experimental method
Theory vs hypothesis
Theory: organized set of principles that can be used to explain observed phenomena
Hypothesis: testable statement or idea about the relationship between two or more variables
Diffusion of responsibility
Bystanders less likely to do something if there are others around to shift responsibility to
Operational definition
Precise specification of how variables are measured or manipulated
Observational method
Technique where researcher observes people and systematically records measurements of their behaviour
Ethnography
Method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside without imposing any preconceived notions they might have
Interjudge reliability
The level of agreement between 2+ people who independently observe and code a set of data; by showing that two or more judges independently come up with the same observations, researchers ensure that the observations are not the subjective impressions of one individual
Archival analysis
Form of the observational method where the researcher examines accumulated docs or archives of a culture like diaries, novels, magazines, etc
-looking back can teach a lot about how people viewed themselves
Correlational method
Technique where researchers systematically measure two or more variables and assess the relation between them (aka how much one can be predicted by the other)
Correlation coefficient
Statistic that assesses how well you can predict one variable based on another (aka how well you can predict people’s weight from their height)
Expressed as numbers ranging from -1.00 to +1.00 (two variables perfectly correlated in a positive direction vs a negative direction)
Surveys
Research in which a representative sample of people are asked questions about their attitudes of behaviour
- advantages: convenient, looks at variables that are hard to observe, sample representative segments of the population
- potential problem: accuracy
Random selection
Way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population, by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample
Hindsight bias
Tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted the outcome after knowing that it occurred
Three methods used to study social psych
1- observational method
2- correlational method
3- experimental method
Theory vs hypothesis
Theory= organized set of principles that can be used to explain observed phenomena
Hypothesis= a testable statement or idea about the relationship between two or more variables
Diffusion of responsibility
When more people around, responsibility is spread out and people don’t feel as much need to do something
Operational definition
Precise specification of how variables are measured or manipulated
Ex: defining bullying as power imbalance