week 1 - intro to social psychology Flashcards
Neanderthals had similar-sized brains, so why are we the only species of human left?
- neanderthals had superior visual-motor skills & stronger than homosapiens
- BUT
- homo-sapiens have larger cerebellums associated with increased social ability
- able to form larger groups, share resources more effectively
What are the 3 main principles of qualitative research?
- grounded in interpretivism (how the world is understood, interpreted, experienced in a complex world)
- uses methods that are flexible and sensitive to social context rather than standardised or ‘structured’
- analyses using explanation and argument building, looks for nuance, less concerned with patterns, trends, and correlations
what are the assumptions of positivism
- believes, the nature of reality is objective, tangible, single
- goal of research is explanation, strong prediction
- the focus is on what is general, average, representative
- the knowledge generates is laws, absolute rules
- the subject/researcher relationship is rigid separation
what are the assumptions of Interpretivism
- believes the nature of reality is socially constructed
- the goal of research is understanding
- focus of interest is what is specific, unique
- knowledge generated is meanings, relative rules
- the subject/researcher relationship is interactive, cooperative, participatory
what is social psychology according to Allport (1954)?
the attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings
who was the first social psychology experiment conducted by, and when?
Triplett, 1898
what was Triplett’s (1898) social psychology study?
- social facilitation
- 2 groups of children had to complete a task to operate a pulley system to move a flag four times around a circuit
- faster children = aroused by competitive instincts and the idea of faster movements
- slower children = overwhelmed by the competition of the task
- Triplett believed people try harder when they have the real, or imagined presence of others
what is Cartwright’s (1979) famous and controversial quote about the influences of social psychology?
Cartwright believed that the “most important person in the history of social psychology is Adolf Hitler”
what impact did WW2 have on social psychology?
- Influential European researchers were displaced to USA
- research on group processes & communication stemming from studies conducted by the US army
- research on prejudice, racism, authoritarianism, and fascism stemming from nazism & Holocaust
- also interest in public health and propaganda
what did WW2 demonstrate about the social world?
post-WW2 research (largely in USA) demonstrated the dangers of the loss of individual rationality, judgement, and morality when placed in certain social situations
- e.g. Asch’s line experiment
- Milgram’s obedience experiment
- Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment
what is the meaning of pluralism?
not just one reality, but multiple ways in which people render the world meaningful
what are some problems with past social psychology?
- for too long, research focused on what is rather than what could be
- for too long, we conceptualised a static world (we now know it is dynamic, constantly evolving)
- over-reliance on experimentation only gives you a snapshot of human life
- experimental methods are disconnected from psychological conceptualisations (taking people out of social context to study social behaviour)
what is the replication crisis?
only one third of the experimental studies published in premier psychological journals could be replicated
what is the WEIRD problem?
our knowledge about psychology is based on samples that are mainly Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic, which is not representative of the world’s populations
what is world-making?
- “World-making refers to the fact that humans at both an individual and collective level contribute to the making of societies, social relations, and cognition (i.e., memory aids, distributed cognition).”
