Weeks 1-2 Flashcards

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1
Q

What is social psychology?

A

Scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.
- Gordon Allport

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2
Q

What is a major difficuly of social psychology?

A

Making reliable inferences about internal states from overt behaviour.

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3
Q

What three things do we rely on to create successful social interactions?

A

Cognition - thought
Affect - emotion
Behaviour - actions, interactions

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4
Q

What is the person-situation interaction?

A

How characteristics of the person and characteristics of the social situation interact to determine behaviour

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5
Q

What is the equation used to define the person-situation interaction?

What does it mean?

A

Behaviour = f (person x social situation)

The behaviour of a given person at any given time is a function of both the characteristics of the person and the influence of the social situation.

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6
Q

What is social influence?

A

The process through which other people change our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and through which we change theirs.

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7
Q

What is the belonging hypothesis?

A

The need to belong or the need for affiliation.

Our basic need to be with and be accepted by others.

All humans share a fundamental motive to seek and maintain social contact with others.

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8
Q

What are the differentiating factors beween most and least happy people?

What factors were not significant?

A

High quality relationships

Gender, income, religion

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9
Q

What happens to people who do not feel they belong?

A

They are more vulnerable to depression and problems with physical health.

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10
Q

What is meant by “implied presence” in the definition of social psychology?

A

The way that human interaction assigns meaning to things, typically constructed and transferred through language.
E.g. Norms such as littering. We don’t litter, even when no one else is around and there is no chance of being caught. The presence of other people is implied, and determines our behaviour even when there’s no one around.

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11
Q

How is social psychology different from general psychology?

A

It focuses on social interaction, between individuals and within and between groups.

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12
Q

How is social psychology different from sociology and anthropology?

A

It focuses on the role of psychological process of an individual in a social context, as opposed to the organisation of groups (sociology) or culture (anthropology), which deal with the group as a whole.

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13
Q

What is reductionism?

A

The practice of explaining a phenomenon in terms of the language and concepts of a lower level of analysis.

E.g. Society is explained in terms of groups, groups in terms of interpersonal processes, interpersonal processes in terms of intrapersonal cognitive mechanisms, etc…

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14
Q

What is a major problem with reductionist theorising?

A

It may leave the original question unanswered.

E.g. An explanation of social neuroscience may not necessarily address how one person interacts with another.

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15
Q

What is one criticism of social psychology?

A

It tries to explain social behaviour in terms that are not social, such as cognitive and motivational processes, o rneural activity and genetic predisposition.

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16
Q

What is a level of analysis?

A

The type of concepts, mechanisms and language used to explain a phenomenon.

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17
Q

What is social identity theory?

A

Both individual cognitive processes and large-scale social forces are used to explain intergroup behaviour.

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18
Q

Whaqt solution did Doise propose to reductionist issues with social psychology?

A

Accept that different levels of explanation exist, but construct theories that formally integrate concepts from different levels.

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19
Q

What are the four levels of explanation in social psychology?

A

Intrapersonal
How people organise their experience of the social environment

Interpersonal and situational
Analysis of interpersonal interaction excluding external factors such as social status.

Positional
Analysis of interpersonal interaction in specific situations, including external factors such as social position

Ideological
Analysis of interpersonal interaction that considers the role of general social beliefs, and of social relations between groups.

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20
Q

What is the scientific method and why is it used in social psychology?

A

Method for studying nature that involves the collecting of data to test hypotheses

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21
Q

What are a hypothesis and a theory?

What does each attempt to do?

A

A theory is a well-substantiated explanation for something based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.

Hypotheses are predictions based on theories or past observations. Data is then collected to test if the hypothesis is correct.

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22
Q

What is methodological pluralism?

A

When a hypothesis is supported a number of times by different research teams using different methods. This proves the result was not an artifact of the research method.

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23
Q

What is an experiment?

A

A hypothesis test in which something (manipulation of the IV) is done to see its effects on something else (changes in the DV).

24
Q

What is a confounding variable?

A

A third variable in a study examining a cause-and-effect relationship that may influence the findings.

25
Q

What is a one-factor design?

A

An experiment in which there is only two levels of only one independent variable

26
Q

An experiment is conducted to test the hypothesis that aggression in children is increased by TV programs that contain realistic violence.

To test this hypothesis, The participants would be randomly assigned across four experimental conditions in which they watched (1) a non-violent fantasy program, (2) a non-violent realistic program, (3) a violent fantasy program, or (4) a violent realistic program. What are the factors and levels of this experiment design?

A

Two-factor design with two levels.

IV1 - violence of the program (low vs high)
IV2 - realism of the program (realistic vs fantasy)

27
Q

What process does the scientific method follow?

A
  1. Hunches from observations
  2. Theory development
  3. Hypothesis / predictions / questions
  4. Empirical research to test hypotheses
  5. Theoretical support, redevelop, or abandonment
28
Q

Why do social psychology experiments often occur in labs?

A

In order to control as many potentially confounding variables as possible and to isolate and manipulat a single aspect of a variable.

29
Q

How does social psychology intersect with biochemical and brain activities?

A

E.g. We may wish to know why stress or anxiety sometimes occur when we interact with other people, and so might measure the change int he level of the hormone cortisol in our saliva.

30
Q

What is one drawback of laboratory experiments in social psychology?

A

Lab findings can’t be generalised to the real world where conditions are less ‘pure’

31
Q

How are lab findings applied to social psychology in the real world?

A

They address theories about human social behaviour, and we can generalise these theories to apply to conditions other than those in the lab.

32
Q

Why are lab experiments low on external validity?

A

They are dissimilar to real world conditions (mundane realism)

33
Q

Why are lab experiments high in internal validity?

A

The manipulations must be full of psychological impact and meaning for the participants (experimental validity)

34
Q

What are subject effects?

A

Effects that are not spontaneous, owing to demand characteristics and/or participants wishing to please the experimenter.

35
Q

What are demand characteristics?

A

Features of an experiment that seem to ‘demand’ a particular response.

E.g. Giving participants information about a hypothesis may influence them to answer in a way that they think will make the researcher happy or in a way that will confirm the hypothesis.

36
Q

What are experimenter effects?

A

The experimenter is aware of the hypothesis and may inadvertently communicate cues that cause participants to behave in a way that confirms the hypothesis.

37
Q

What is a field experiment?

A

An experiment to test a hypothesis done outside a controlled laboratory.

38
Q

What are the pros and cons of a field experiment?

A

Pros
May have high external validity as participants are usually unaware that an experiment is taking place

Cons
There is less control over extraneous variables
Random assignment may be difficult
May be difficult to obtain accurate measurements of subjective feelings

39
Q

What kinds of theories may not be studied through experimentation?

A

Theories where we have no control over the variables.
E.g. The relationship between biological sex and decision making - we can’t manipulate sex to see what effects emerge.

Theories where ethics are a concern
E.g. Hypotheses about the effects on self-esteem of being a victim of violent crime - we can’t subject participants to violent crime.

40
Q

What is archival research?

A

A non-experimental method for investigating large-scale, widely occurring phenomena that may be remote in time, such as a stockmarket crash or a disastrous decision by a government. The research can’t conduct an experiment and must make do with data that is already available.

Often used to make comparisons between different cultures or nations regarding things such as suicide, mental health or child-rearing strategies.

Pros
Not subject to demand characteristics

Cons
Can be unreliable because the researcher has no control over the primary data collection, which might be biased or unreliable in other ways (e.g missing vital data)

41
Q

What are case studies?

A

A non-experimental method involving in-depth analysis of a single case (a person, group, or event). Best suited to the study of unusual or rare phenomena such as serial killers, cults or distasters, etc.

Pros
Useful as a source of hypotheses

Cons
Findings can be compromised by researcher bias

42
Q

What is discourse analysis?

A

Focuses on what people actually say innaturally occurring conversation or ‘discourse’ and what is behind the words to detect underlying discursive themes.

Pros
Can be effective at detecting attitudes and feelings that people are careful to hide, such as racism or sexism, etc.

Cons
Interpretation of discourse is influenced by the perspective and expertise of the researcher

43
Q

What is survey research?

A

Participants answer questions on a subject

Pros
Can obtain a lot of data from a large sample of participants
Representative of the population as a whole

44
Q

What is a field study?

A

A non-experimental equivalent of a field experiment. A non-intrusive and ‘invisible’ researcher observes, records and codes naturally occurring behaviour.

Pros
Investigating spontaneous action sequences in a natural context

Cons
Prone to observer bias
Prone to distortions by the unintended impactof the researcher on the people being investigated
Lack objectivity
Make for poor generalisations
45
Q

What are the five ethical principles that receive the most attention in socail psychology?

A
Protection from harm
Right to privacy
Deception
Informed consent
Debriefing
46
Q

What did early social psychologists call themselves?

A

Folk psychologists

47
Q

What is the group mind?

A

Either
1. A societal way o fthinking within the individual
or
2. A form of trans-individual mentality that could encompass a whole group of people

48
Q

What are norms?

A

Accepted standards of behaviour in social groups

49
Q

Do work groups perform better with democratic or autocratic leaders?

A

Democratic

50
Q

Do people perform better individually or when competing?

A

When competing

51
Q

What are group dynamics?

A

Focuses on interaction within groups, group processes, and intergroup relations.

Merely being categorised into groups is sufficient to cause people to discriminate between groups.

52
Q

What is minority influence?

A

People can be swayed by a minority.

E.g. A consistent minority brought people to apparently see blue as green.

53
Q

What are heuristics?

A

Mental short cuts we use to make cognitive inferences

54
Q

What is confirmation bias?

A

The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.

55
Q

Why do researchers use non-experimental methods?

A

An experimental method might be inappropriate for the hypothesis, such as for practical or ethical reasons.

56
Q

What is correlation?

A

Where changes in one variable reliably map onto changes in another variable, but it cannot be determined which of the two variables caused the change.

57
Q

What is causation?

A

Where changes in one variable can be predicted by changes in another variable.