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
Observational method
The technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements of their behaviour
Focus: description
Question: what is the nature of the phenomenon?
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
Level of agreement between two or more people who have taken data on the same thing; if they have higher agreement, it shows that there is less bias or subjectivity
Archival analysis
A type of observational method
Researcher examines accumulated document or archives of a culture like diaries, novels, magazines, newspapers etc
Correlational method
Technique whereby researcher systematically measure two or more variable and assess the relation between them (how much one can be predicted from the other)
Focus: description
Question: what is the relation between variable C and variable Y?
Correlation coefficient
Statistic that assesses how week you can predict one variable based on another (like how you can predict people’s weight by their height)
Represented from +1.00 to -1.00
Negative vs positive correlation
Positive: both variables go up and down together (ex: height and weight)
Negative: variable moves up, other variable moves down and vice versa (ex: hours of tv watching with GPA)
Surveys
Used often in correlational method
Representative sample of people asked questions about their attitudes or behaviour
Random selection
A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone an equal chance of being selected for the sample
What’s the main limit of the correlational method?
Correlation does not equal causation
Experimental method
Method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensured that these conditions are exactly the same expect for the independent variable (the one thought to have a causal effect of people’s responses)
Focus: causality
Question: does variable Y cause variable X?
Independent vs dependant variable
Independent variable: variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable
Dependant variable: measured to see if it is influenced by independent variable; researcher hypothesizes that it will be influenced by the level of the independent variable
Internal validity
Keeping everything about the situation the same except for the independent variable in an experiment
Done by controlled all variables and randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions
Probability level (p-value)
A number, calculated with statistical techniques, that tells researchers how likely it is that the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not because of the independent variables
The convention in science including social psych is that results=significant if the probability level is less than 5 in 100 that the results might be attributable to change factors and not the independent variable studied
External validity
The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people
2 kinds: generalizability across people and across situations
Mundane realism
To do with external validity
The extent to which an experiment is similar to real life situations
Psychological realism
Has to do with external validity
Extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in every day life; this can be high in an experiment even if mundane realism is low
Cover story
A description of the purpose of the study is given to participants that is diff than the real purpose; used to maintain psychological realism (external validity)
Replication
Repeating a study, usually with diff subject populations, in diff settings or by using diff methods
Meta analysis
A statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable
Similar to p-levels but finds an average from results of many different studies
Basic dilemma of social psychologists
The trade off between internal and external validity aka
1- having enough control over situation to ensure that no outside variables are influencing the results and to randomly assign people to conditions
2- ensuring that results = generalizable to everyday life