Week 10: The Bigger Picture

Question 1

Can social psychology study anything without including culture in analysis?

Answer 1

No
Fundamental attribution Error- present in all cultures but culture dependent

Question 2

What is the problem with having WIERD participants?

Answer 2

Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic (normative standard) participants make up the majority ppt in psychological studies (12% of population) Results from this sample are then generalizes across all cultures and all humans.
Structural and racial inequalities cause certain groups to be under-rapresented and causes a lack of diversity
Implications: by neglecting race/ethnicity inequlity grows
Any phenomena cannot be fully understood by ignoring effects of ratial discrimination, cultural heritage and structural inequality.

Question 3

What do we mean when we talk about the oversimplification of culture? What are issues associated with this?

Answer 3

Labeling cultures as either individualistic or collectivist.
Problems:
- in any society subgroups will exhibit both individualistic and collectivist tendencies. City- 🏙️ individualistic /countryside=collectivist
- obscures interplay of 2: same individual may be collectivist or individualistic depending on situation
- lead to stereotyping and essentialism

Question 4

How can the oversimplification of culture be reduced?

Answer 4

• understand cultures are on a spectrum and will change ver time
• include multidimensional models (include fem/masc, power imbalance, uncertainty avoidance alongside coll/indiv)

Question 5

How does culture influence self-construction?

Answer 5

Independent self construal = based on individuality, autonomy, personal achievement, uniqueness and self-concept not tied to context –individualistic countries
Interdependent= based on relationship, harmony, social obligations, group loyalty, relational interdependence – collectivist countries

Question 6

What is multiculturalism? What are benefits of it?

Answer 6

Coexistance and interaction of multiple cultural identities within one individual or society and how they influence cognition,identity and behavior
-Cultural mosaic 🖼️ effect: exposure to many cultures allows presence of multiple viewpoints - beneficial for problem solving and innovation
- In cultures where there is different cultures there is a higher levels of social cohesion and mutual respect vs assimilationalist policies (which force individuals to abandon heritage for dominant norms) which create division and inequality

Question 7

What is Bicultural identity integration (BII)?

Answer 7

A specific type of identity developed by individuals who navigate many cultures and reflect the degree to which an individual perceives the various cultural identities as compatibile or conflicting
Having a high BII = individual can easily integrate values of two cultures
2 in 1

Question 8

What are downside to multiculturalism?

Answer 8

• cultures may incompatibile and individuals may face external pressures like discrimination
• this can cause, stress, identity struggles and disengagement

Question 9

What were key criticisms that caused crisis in social psychology in the the 1960s /70s? Method problems

Answer 9

• only lab-based experiments were being used
• high levels of demand characteristics (ppt self presented in a way to conform to experimenter expectations)
• studies constructed in a way that would confirm experimenter expectations

Question 10

What were key criticisms that caused crisis in social psychology in the the 1960s /70s? Relevance and ‘theory and approach’

Answer 10

• Relevance:because experiments were conducted in labs findings had little relevance to real world problems
  Theory +approach:
• there was the lack of overarching theories so it social psych had no cohesive broad explanatory power (many mini theories)
• broad societal structures like culture class and political system were ignored
• there was psychology (looked and individual level processes) and sociology (studies how societal factors influences behavior) but no inbetween

Question 11

How did social psychology respond to crisis in social psychology in the the 1960s /70s?

Answer 11

• Gergen in ‘Social Psychology as History’ suggested that social psychology should shift to have a historically aware and fluid approach for studying behavior
• Change: shift towards cognitive psychology (focused on mental processes like perception and decision making)
• Improvement:
  certain psychologists don’t see critiques as fundamental flaws so simply refined existing model – innovation of experimental design and heightened awareness of the complexity of experimenter-participant dynamics
  Introduce cultural psychology, longitudinal studies, observational and non-experimental methods
  Re-evaluate philosophical assumptions to understand the influence of macrostructure (race/class) on the individual + the influences of constructionism, feminism, interctionality

Question 12

What are examples of questionable research practices in social psychology?

Answer 12

Three famous studies based findings on ‘fabricated data’. These articles claimed:
-littered enviornments promote stereotyping and discrimination
- reminding people of money created feelings o threat and resistance in response to social influence
- elevated physical high increases prosocial actions

Question 13

What are the consequences of questionable research?

Answer 13

• A retraction: a serious mark against one’s academic career, symbolizing significant dishonesty and irreproducibility of their work
• Impossible replicating results so new and controversial data will never be published
• it undermines reliability and trust of psych research
  -diverts resources to looking for an effect that may not exist in reality
• presence of un replicable non results encourages a culture when methodological sound but uninteresting studies are undervalued

Question 14

What are examples of unethical practices in social psychology?

Answer 14

Most famous studies:
- Stanford Prison Experiment: lack of informed consent and psychological damage
- Milgram’s Obedience: deception, psychological harm, lack of debriefing
- Little Albert experiment: psychological harm, no consent, exploitation of a vulnerable member of society

Question 15

What is the file drawer problem?

Answer 15

• tendency for studies with statistically significant results to be published more than those with non-statistically significant results (which never see the light of day 🗄️)
  -academic journals will publish more interesting studies with significant findings

Question 16

What are the effects of the file drawer problem?

Answer 16

• publication bias
• scientific records provide scientists with a false indea on the strength and reliability off certain effects
• it distorts literature as body of lit will only contain positive results

Question 17

What are the questionable research practices (GRP)?

Answer 17

Most of these have emerged as a result of the filed’s need of only positive results:
- cherry picking results 🍒:out of all variables measured only those that report statistically significant results are reported
- p-hacking 👨‍💻: researchers keep collecting data until significant findings are found. the larger the sample, the more likely findings are statistically significant
-post-hoc story telling 📚: when researchers find a statistically significant effect they hadn’t originally predicted but work backwards to construct a hypothesis that fits findings
- adjust for covariates: 👧👶 variables like age and gender may be adjusted until experimenter finds statistically significant results
-false positives: 🥸distorting scientific records provide scientists by presenting data in a biased with an overly optimistic view on the reliability and generalizability of the findings

Question 18

What is the producibility project?

Answer 18

-one of most ambitious collaborative effort in history of psychology
- hundreds of high profile experimental and correlational published in leading psych journals were replicated
-process took 5 years and only 36% of findings replicated and effect size of replicated studies was half the size of the original

Question 19

How did social psychologists react to the findings of the producibility project?

Answer 19

• some suggested that differences across studies are bound to exist: biomedical and cancer research
• science has a self-correction nature with the goals of increasing transparency, replicability and reproductivity of results
• some journals have created sections dedicated for publishing non-significant findings
• Some of the major changes therefor include:
  Pre-registration:where psychologists are required to report method, hypothesis, analysis method before starting any research to ensure no post-hoc 📚modification
  Data collection termination: establish date when data collection will finish to reduce p-hacking 🧑‍💻 and adjusting for covariates 👶👧
  Data sharing: making data available for others to re-analyze. Increases accountability and collaboration and reduces false positives 🥸

Question 20

What are limitations on relying on undergraduate student samples for research studies?

Answer 20

1) Lack of generalizability: undergraduate students only represent a narrow demographic (young, educated, WIERD and from similar socioeconomic backgrounds)
2) Limited life experience: students are usually at early stages in adulthood, lacking life experience and responsabilities that might influence behavior
3) participants are often motivated by incentives like course credit, money or other rewards that may influence behavior

Question 21

Why is the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct important?

Answer 21

1) Protects participant’s psychological and physical wellbeing, requires informed consent
2)Respects individual’s rights: confidentiality and respect for dignity
3)Ensures there is research findings are valid, reliable and not skewed by unethical shortcuts or misconduct
4) Favors integrity of the field, increasing public confidence