Introduction to Social Psychology

Introduction to Social Psychology

• Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.
• Contemporary social psychology emphasizes the power of the situation, the importance of cognition and construal, the power of the person, and the importance of biological processes.
• Social thinking encompasses how we perceive ourselves and others, how we make judgments, what we believe, and our attitudes.
• Social influence includes how culture and biology affect behavior, including pressures to conform and persuasion techniques.
• Social relations involve helping, aggression, attraction, intimacy, and prejudice.
• Social psychology distinguishes itself from personality psychology by focusing on the role of the situation/social influence, avoiding the fundamental attribution error, and examining psychological processes shared by most people.
• Experimental methods are often utilized in social psychology.

Course Structure

• The course consists of 10 lectures.
• Attendance is not required, but lectures are not recorded.
• In-class assignments are available for bonus points; attendance is expected for these assignments.
• Lecture slides are available online the evening before each lecture.

Grading

• Midterm: 25% of the final grade. Multiple-choice and matching/short answer questions covering lectures 1-5. Exam date: February 11th.
• Research Proposal Outline: 5% of the final grade. A review of the student's research idea for a social psychology experiment, written in their own words. Due: February 18th.
• Research Paper: 20% of the final grade. A research proposal for a social psychology experiment. Due: March 18th.
• Final Exam: 50% of the final grade. Multiple-choice and matching/short answer questions covering lectures 6-10, weighted towards lectures 6-10 (~75%). Exam date will be scheduled by the Registrar.

Course Help

• Email the teaching assistants directly for assistance.

Power of the Situation

• Physicist Kurt Lewin's work on the power of the situation is similar to how objects move in physics in that social situations are a function of the field of surrounding forces.
• The situation is like a field of forces.
• Examples like Nazi Germany and Milgram's obedience study illustrate how situational factors can strongly influence individuals' behaviour.

Milgram's Obedience Study

• The study was designed as a "study of learning."
• Participants (teachers) were instructed to administer shocks to another participant (learner) for incorrect answers.
• Shock levels increased progressively, reaching up to 450 volts.
• The learner (an actor) would express discomfort and pain.
• The experimenter (also an actor) would encourage participants to continue even when the learner expressed severe distress or even silence.
• A significant proportion of participants (65%) continued administering shocks up to the maximum level despite clear discomfort exhibited by the learner.
• This study provides clear evidence of the significant power of the situation in influencing our behaviour and our tendencies to obedience when under pressure from an authority figure.

The Milgram Experiment - Results

• Despite the potential for severe harm, 65% of participants completed the experiment.
• Participants were of different socio-economic classes and ages.
• Similar result were observed in both men and women.

Seminarians as Samaritans

• This study shows how situational factors, such as deadlines, influence helping behavior.
• Seminarians were asked to give a short sermon related to the Good Samaritan.
• Half were told they were late and needed to hurry.
• The study measured how the seminarians would respond when they saw a person in need of help.
• A significant relationship was observed, demonstrating that time pressure is a powerful situational factor that inhibits helping tendencies.

Fundamental Attribution Error

• This is the tendency to overestimate the role of personality and underestimate the role of situations when explaining other people's behaviour.

Channel Factors

• Situational factors, sometimes overlooked, can greatly influence behaviour by guiding behavior in a particular direction.

Construals

• How individuals interpret and infer the meaning of stimuli or situations.
• Interpretation is an active process.
• Construals influence how individuals respond to social situations; as influenced by their subjective interpretations.

Schemas

• Schemas represent general knowledge about the physical and social world.
• They include expectations for how to behave in different situations.

Stereotypes

• Stereotypes are schemas about specific social groups.
• They can influence our interactions with various social groups:
• They can make social interactions more effective
• People have an expectation of what to expect
• However, stereotypes can be applied incorrectly to the wrong individuals or they can bias related judgements.

Automatic vs. Controlled Processing

• Automatic processing is involuntary, unconscious, and often based on emotional responses.
• Controlled processing is conscious, systematic, and deliberate, often overriding automatic responses.

Evolution and Human Behavior

• Human behaviour is influenced by evolutionary factors.
• Natural selection plays a role in passing traits from one generation to the next.
• Cultural differences, such as independent vs. interdependent views of self (a person oriented toward individual success and personal pursuits vs. a person's self-concept is defined in terms of interpersonal relationships and social harmony) and gender roles shape social behaviours.

Collecting Data - Observational Methods

• Naturalistic Observation: Advantages include good external validity and relative ease; Disadvantages include poor validity, potential participant reactivity (participants changing their behavior if they are aware of being observed), and observer bias.
• Structured Observation: Advantages include a standardized environment, easier comparison, good internal validity, and opportunity to observe infrequent or undesirable behaviours; Disadvantages include artificial environment, potential observer bias, and poor external validity (harder to generalize).
• Archival Analysis: Examination of existing documents; Advantages include good validity and ease of conduct; Disadvantages include potential for inaccurate data, missing data, rater bias, and inability to draw causal conclusions.

Collecting Data – Survey Methods

• A form of data collection that involves asking a representative sample of people questions about thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; It includes questionnaires and interviews.
• Experience Sampling: A type of survey that involves participants reporting their experiences at regular time intervals.
• Advantages include collecting data from numerous participants, studying unobsevable events, and relative ease of conduct; Disadvantages include validity & reliability issues (unrepresentative sampling, order of questions, and wording effect), potential biases in responses, and unreliability.

Collecting Data – Psychophysiological Methods

• Measurement of relationships between physiological processes to aspects of people's physical/cognitive/social/emotional behaviour.
• It includes heart rate, EEG, and fMRI; it offers an understanding of the biological underpinnings of social-psychological events.
• Advantages include insight into biological underpinnings but disadvantages include variability in reliability and validity, high cost, and correlational nature of the findings (cannot definitively establish causal relationships).

What is the Relationship? - Correlation Methods

• Researchers measure two or more variables to assess their relationship (e.g., how much one variable predicts the other).
• A correlation coefficient (often Pearson's r) ranges from -1 to +1; positive correlation suggests a positive relationship, while negative correlation suggests a negative relationship.
• Correlation does not equate to causation.

What is the Relationship over Time?

• Correlational methods can also study variables across time.
• Cross-sectional studies examine different naturally-occurring groups (e.g., age groups) to see their differences.
• Longitudinal studies examine the same group over time and look at age-related changes.

Is the relationship causal? Experimental Methods

• Researchers randomly assign participants to various conditions, ensuring the conditions are the same except for the variable (independent variable) that is being tested.
• Characteristics: involves control, random assignment, and independent/dependent variables.
• Increasing External Validity: use random sampling, ensure mundane realism (similarities between experiment and real-life), and ensure psychological realism (the extent to which the task is meaningfully perceived by the individual as being similar to real-life).
• Replications: repeated experiments with different populations and methods are the best and most rigorous way to test the external validity of the original findings.

Interpreting results

• Statistics are used to summarize and describe data (descriptive statistics).
• Inferential statistics allow us to generalize findings to larger populations and predict future occurrences.
• Meta-analyses combine the data from multiple studies on related topics.

Basic and Applied Research

• Basic research is concerned with gaining knowledge for knowledge's sake.
• Applied research seeks to solve real-world problems using existing knowledge.
• Social psychology often involves both basic and applied research.

Ethical Considerations

• Research protocols must be reviewed and approved by a Research Ethics Board.
• Informed consent is a core ethical principle; participants must understand the study and willingly agree to participate.
• Deception may be used in specific circumstances if justified.

Topics Covered

• This collection of lecture notes covers the introduction to social psychology, methodological approaches, examples of research, and the core principles underlying social psychological inquiry.