Social Area Flashcards
Key concepts
Social interaction/social psychology, aims to understand people in the context of their interactions with others.
Social influence- the social area has a special duty to consider ethics because psychologists investigating social influence attempt to influence participants behaviour without the participants knowing however such influences are common in every day life e.g. teaches and help professionals so social influence research isn’t always unethical
Every day applications of the social area
Prevention of mindless obedience, for example, in the emergency survives and the prison service
Encouraging resistance to tyranny, for example, soldiers should resist blindly following orders.
Encouraging altruistic behaviour for example, encouraging people to consider the cost and benefits of helping.
Similarities of the social area
Social psychology is similar to developmental psychology as they share methods and approaches to the study of people. E.g. both build models of social behaviour and both focus on the whole person that cognition in motion and behaviour..
Differences of the social area
Social psychology is different from biological psychology and cognitive psychology because social behaviour is affected by culture, whereas our biological cognitive behaviour is more universal
Social behaviour varies across cultures. It is ethnocentric e.g. milligrams study was conducted in America and individualist culture, but his findings about obedience may not apply to the collective cultures.
Evaluation
+Control of variables is often high e.g. Biar Airtel controlled the behaviour and script of the experimental which meant valid conclusions could be drawn about responses to authority.
+Provides insights into behaviour and helps us understand how we are influenced by others. E.g. Milgram study shows how people are surprisingly obedient. .
-Uncontrolled extraneous variables can affect findings, e.g. Piliavin et al’s study, took place on the New York subway where many factors may influence helping behaviours, such as how much attention the passengers paid to the confederates
-Research can take place in unrealistic settings for example, bocchiaro et als study was conducted in a university laboratory where participants knew their behaviour was being studied creating demand characteristics.
Behaviourist perspective
Social behaviour such as obedience may be learned through reinforcement. For example, individuals may learn that obedience is rewarded by observing behaviour of others who act as role models.
Psychodynamic perspective
Authoritarian personality explains obedience in terms of a punitive parent who creates hostility in the child. This hostility is displaced and weaker people and creates an exaggerate respect for authority..
Nature/nurture
Lavina tell study, suggests that helping behaviour may be an outcome of nurture rather than nature as helping very so much from culture to culture. Perhaps it is more likely to be learned than to be a fundamental feature of human nature..
Free will/determinism
Behaviour is determined by social roles and influence on other people. For example, Milgram study of obedience suggest that participants obedience was caused by the prods given by the experimenter, rather than their spontaneous choice..
Individual/situational
Arousal in the Piliavin et al. Cost reward model is influenced by situational factors. E.g. the proximity to an emergency situation situational factors in LEvine et al study are understood in a broad sense to include wider cultural and socioeconomic factors.
Core study one
-Milgram on obedience
Participants obedience was influenced by the presence of a legitimate authority figure in a prestigious location, dressed in a laboratory coat. This shows how other people influence our behaviour.
Core study two
-Bocchiaro et al on disobedience
Participants showed higher levels of obedience and lower levels of whistleblowing than predicted. This suggests that disobedience as well as obedience can be attributed to situational factors rather than dispositional ones.
Core study three
-Piliavin et al. On the subway samaritan
In the study, there was a high rate of helping which can be explained by the fact that participants believed the cost of not helping were high and the costs of helping willow. This was presumably because of the social situation, i.e. a close subway carriage with a clear emergency..
Core study four
-Levine et al. On cross cultural altruism
Helping behaviour varied from one city to another and was related to economic productivity. This shows that helping behaviour is influenced by culture which is a situational factor..
