Psychology Theories Overview

Practical Theories

• Goal of psychological science: describe/observe, predict, identify cause-effect, explain mechanisms
• Mechanism: underlying psychological process that explains how a particular social behavior occurs. Often involves cognitive factors, emotions, and social norms.
• Psychological Processes: a series of steps that cause changes in thoughts, emotions, or behaviors. Examples include sensation, perception, attention, and memory
• Goals of social psychology: describe/observe, predict, identify cause-effect, explain mechanisms, and control/intervene
• Applied social psychology: identifies and tests interventions based on evidence. Interventions often focus on the psychological mechanism, and are used with individuals and groups. Both lab and field settings are used.
• Theory: a set of ideas to explain/predict outcomes or patterns of behaviour. Theories are used to systematize observations and direct searches for more evidence. New behaviours can be implemented based on the theory.

Scientific Process

• Induction: moving from specific observations to general theories
• Deduction: moving from general theories to specific hypotheses
• Hypothesis: A prediction that specifies a directional relationship between two or more variables.
• Anecdotal evidence: observations that sometimes begin with a personal example, but it is less likely it will be helpful when more people are present
• Scope: some theories explain a particular type of behavior (narrow) or many types (broader)
• Falsifiability/Testability : can be tested and refuted (proved incorrect).
• Parsimony: Theories are better if they are as simple as possible to explain a phenomenon.
• Range or Generalizability: Theories that apply universally to humans, or to a limited set of groups (cultures, genders, ages, personalities). Theories tested on Western, educated, industrialized, democratic participants are common.

Generating/Testing Theories

• Attribution Theory: Explains how we perceive the causes of behavior (ours and others). Attributes are not the actual causes, but rather people's interpretations of the causes. (Example: doing badly on a test may be attributed to a lack of ability by the student, but may be attributed to lack of effort by the teacher).

• Key intervention: attributing poor/bad test performance to a lack of effort instead of a lack of ability can help students learn to improve in future tasks.

Operational Definitions/Variables

• Construct: a conceptual or hypothetical variable that cannot be directly observed. (e.g., love, happiness).
• Operational Definition: translates a construct into a meaningful measure. (e.g., operationalize happiness by measuring self-reported positive emotions)
• Construct Validity: whether an operational definition or measure accurately reflects the construct of interest
• Internal Validity: the extent to which a study can determine a causal link between variables
• External Validity: extent a study's findings can be generalized to other situations, people, or groups. The more generalizable the more externally valid.
• Ecological Validity: the extent that the findings of an experiment can be applied to real world situations/results

Descriptive/Injunctive Norms

• Descriptive Norm: What most people do; what is the usual/expected behavior.
• Injunctive Norm: What is considered to be the socially approved/disapproved behavior.
• Hindsight Bias: results seem far more obvious after the answer or data is known
• Variable: a property of a person, object or event that can vary in quantity or quality.
• Construct: the concept or idea that can not be directly observed, but can be measured with a variable.

Feasibility and Ethics

• Deception (in experimental design): Can only be used if debriefing is possible.
• Ethical Considerations: Doing no harm, deliver benefits, consider dynamic norms, correlations do not imply causation
• Dynamic Norm: how a behaviour changes over time
• Quasi-experiments: the study participant is randomly assigned to a comparison of treatment or control group
• Correlation studies: Measuring different variables and observing the relationship between those variables
• True Experiments(Experimental Designs): Independent variables, random assignment, measuring dependent variables.

Descriptive Studies

• Qualitative Research: Gathering and analyzing non-numerical data to understand people's beliefs, attitudes, and motivations. (e.g., interviews, focus groups)
• Quantitative Research: Gathering and analyzing numerical data to understand patterns and relationships. (e.g., surveys, experiments, statistics)

Qualitative Research/Mixed-Methods

• Mixed Methods: involves both qualitative and quantitative methods to obtain broader insights about a topic. Qualitative provides in-depth context and quantitative methods offer broader insights.
• Qualitative Research: use when understanding the context and deep meaning (e.g., new societal concepts/ideas).
• Randomized sampling: every participant has an equal chance of being selected.
• Random assignment: Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions to ensure groups are comparable.

Wise Interventions

• Process that influences a people's behavior in a specific direction or choice. Specific conditions impact the effectiveness of wise interventions, for example, the process.
• Psychological process target must be meaningful and measurable.
• Timing of interventions is important.
• Structural changes are important to be considered along with individual changes.

Social Norms Intervention Strategy

• Research and identify existing social norms (Current Norms) to help target behaviors that need to change
• Evaluate target audience (size, readiness, reachability).
• Identify barriers and benefits, and target these to change behavior (Barriers/Benefits)
• Use 4Ps to apply effective approach to behavior change (Place, Price, Product, Promotion

Principles of Persuasion

• Principle 1: Reciprocity
• Principle 2: Scarcity
• Principle 3: Authority
• Principle 4: Consistency
• Principle 5: Liking
• Principle 6: Consensus
• Principle 7: Unity
• Nudges: subtle ways to influence behaviour without restricting choices.