Social Psychology, 1: Overview Flashcards
When did social psychology begin?
The first social psychological experiments, and publication of a Social Psychology text, occurred around 1900.
Who does social psychology study?
The vast majority of studies focus on normal adult humans.
Sociology
Field closely related to social psychology, however, emphasizes group rather than individual behavior.
Philosophy
Social Psychology and all other sciences spring from philosophy, but differ in their reliance and emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method.
Common Sense/Folk Psychology
Contains much ‘knowledge’ about social behavior, but many common proverbs are contradictory or oversimplified.
Norman Triplett
Investigator in one of the first social psychology experiments, who studied how people compete against other people versus a clock.
Max Ringelmann
Investigator in one of the first social psychology experiments, who studied how people perform in groups versus alone.
Random Assignment
Essential component of experimentation, in which participants are randomly distributed to different experimental groups. This ensures groups that are as close to equal in background characteristics as possible.
Kurt Lewin
Early social psychologist. Among other contributions, emphasized that behavior is a function of both the person and the situation.
Scientific Method
Involves making predictions and collecting careful data to test those predictions. When theories disagree, researchers try to design studies in which the theories make different predictions, to discard or refine theories that do not predict behavior well.
Correlation
Research design in which two or more variables are measured and studied for a relationship. Useful when variables are difficult to manipulate, but precludes causal interpretation.
Experiment
Research design in which a variable is manipulated, and the effect of this manipulation is studied on another variable.
Behaviorism
School of psychology that emphasized only observable stimuli and behavior. Known for studies of conditioning, such as the effects of rewards or punishment.
Cognitive Psychology
School of psychology that emphasizes information processing. After behaviorism, reopened the “mind” as an area of study.
Confederate
A research assistant acting (posing) as a research participant.
Confound
In an experiment, a confound is an uncontrolled background variable. These confuse the interpretation of the study, because cause and effect is clearest when only the manipulated variable changes.
Internal validity
Only applies to experiments; high internal validity means a causal conclusion can be drawn because the study is well controlled and confounds have been eliminated.
External validity
Applies to all studies, and refers to how well the findings of the study generalize to other situations and persons.
Meta-Analysis
Type of literature review (analysis of published studies) that uses statistical techniques to combine studies and draw overall conclusions about an area of research.
