Section 1: Social Psychology and Research Flashcards
What is social psychology
thought, feelings, behavior, of individuals are influenced by the actual/imagined/implied presence of others
how does social psych differ from sociology?
Sociology: broad level on institutions, structures on a whole
Social: person/individual - not common sense
4 main theoretical perspectives:
- Sociocultural
- Evolutionary
- Social Learning
- Social Cognitive
Sociocultural perspective:
behavior= influenced culture when beliefs, customs, habits, are shared by people living in a particular time or place
Evolutionary perspective:
behavior= influenced by physical and psychological predispositions - help humans survive
a. natural selection
b. adoption
Social Learning perspective:
experiences with reward and punishment influence social behavior
Social cognitive perspective:
influenced by mental processes- involved in paying attention to interpreting and remembering social experiences
3 core themes:
- Goal oriented: our interactions have goals fulfill
- Person x situation interaction:
- Much human thinking happens w/o our awareness
Define Hypothesis:
proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence
What questions does a hypothesis answer?
- When (under what condition)?
2. Why is this answer likely to be true?
Descriptive research:
measures or records behaviors, thoughts, or feelings in their natural states
Example of descriptive research:
case studies: intensive exam of individual or group
Strengths and Weakness of Descriptive research:
Strengths: allow to study rare behaviors
Weaknesses: subjective, pay more attention to some traits than others (over-look), not actually knowing if traits correlate correctly, not generalized to a population
Define Correlation Studies:
extend to which two or more variables are associated with each other
Types of correlation studies:
- Postive: if one goes up, then the other goes up (same both down)
- Negative: if one goes up, other goes down (same for one down, and one up)
Two big problems with correlation studies:
- 3rd variable
2. Directional problem: which one comes first?
Experimental research definition:
systematically manipulate one variable while holding the other variable constant - “systematic manipulation”
experimental research tests…..
cause and effect
Strengths of Experimental research:
- Internal Validity: be sure that IV caused changes in DV
- Allow to control: confounding/ extraneous variables
- systematically changes with IV
- causes difference in results
Weaknesses of Experimental research:
- External Validity: results will generalize outside given experiment
- Demand Characteristics: cues in experiment that influence participant’s behavior
- Constant Validity: concept of interest, whatever your measuring
Field experiment definition:
manipulate IVs using knowing participants in natural settings
Anderson and Dill:
IV: Tyoes of game 2x a week (violent vs. non)
DV: Aggression –> violence made DV go up
Dutton and Aron’s Rickety Bridge Study:
?: Do we really know the cause of our emotion
IV: Environments: bridges- safe or rickety
DV: Romantic interest –> anxiety or romantic attraction
Rickety bridge, likely to call = correct
Strengths of field experiment:
investigate things that would be impossible in lab, natural settings
Weaknesses of field experiment:
cannot randomly assign participants, pre-existing
