Social Psychology Chapter 1 PDF

CHAPTER 1 What is Social Psychology? ▪ The scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in a social context. ▪ For example: ▪ Where do stereotypes come from? ▪ What factors lead people to help each other? ▪ Why do we sometimes find ourselves buying things we don’t real...

CHAPTER 1 What is Social Psychology? ▪ The scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in a social context. ▪ For example: ▪ Where do stereotypes come from? ▪ What factors lead people to help each other? ▪ Why do we sometimes find ourselves buying things we don’t really want or need? WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? 3 WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? ▪ Social Psychology vs. Sociology ▪ Social Psychology vs. Personality Psychology 4 WE CONSTRUCT OUR SOCIAL REALITY ▪ Humans like to explain behaviour. ▪ Make it orderly, predictable, controllable. ▪ Beliefs about ourselves and how we construe the world also matter. 5 OUR SOCIAL INTUITIONS ARE OFTEN POWERFUL BUT SOMETIMES PERILOUS ▪ Intuitions shape fears. ▪ Intuitions influence all of us. ▪ Intuitions are often wrong: ▪ We often trust our memory more than we should. ▪ We are poor at predicting our emotional reactions. 6 SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOUR ▪ Humans are social creatures ▪ Respond to immediate contexts ▪ People are heavily influenced by culture 7 PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND DISPOSITIONS ALSO SHAPE BEHAVIOUR ▪ Attitudes influence behaviour ▪ Personality dispositions also affect behaviour 8 SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED ▪ Our psychologies are the result of the interaction between biology and experience. ▪ We are a bio-psycho-social organism. 9 RELATING TO OTHERS IS A BASIC NEED ▪ Relationships can be a source of stress or comfort. ▪ Being excluded can be a source of pain. ▪ Relationships with others may be the foundation of self-esteem. 10 WAYS IN WHICH VALUES ENTER SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY ▪ Values influence research topics. ▪ Values vary by time and culture: ▪ E.g. European social psychologists study social identity, North American social psychologists study individuals. ▪ Values influence the analysis of data. 11 TRUE OR FALSE? ▪ Beauty and brains don’t mix: physically attractive people are seen as less smart than unattractive people ▪ People will like an activity more if you offer them a large reward for it. ▪ Playing contact sports releases aggression and makes people less likely to behave violently overall. IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY MERELY COMMON SENSE? Hindsight bias: ▪ The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen it ▪ aka the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon 13 RESEARCH METHODS: HOW DO WE DO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?  THE RESEARCH PROCESS ▪ Ask questions ▪ Search the literature ▪ Develop hypotheses and theories  FORMING AND TESTING HYPOTHESES ▪ Theory ▪ An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events ▪ Hypothesis ▪ A testable proposition that describes the relationship that may exist between events 16 LO5 CONCEPTUAL VARIABLES ▪ For example: ▪ Obedience ▪ Conformity ▪ Love ▪ Social Anxiety Operational Definitions The specific procedures for manipulating or measuring a conceptual variable RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ▪ Imagine that the speedometer in your car always measures your speed as 5 km/hr faster than you are actually going. ▪ Is your speedometer reliable? ▪ Is your speedometer valid? DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH ▪ Observational studies ▪ Archival Studies ▪ Surveys CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH: DETECTING NATURAL ASSOCIATIONS  Study of naturally occurring relationships among variables Correlation versus causation  Allows prediction; does NOT infer causation 20 CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH: DETECTING NATURAL ASSOCIATIONS 22 CORRELATION RESEARCH: WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN? ▪ Which is larger? ▪ A correlation of +.70 or a correlation of -.80? CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH: DETECTING NATURAL ASSOCIATIONS Survey Research  Random samples help obtain a representative group  Concerns include:  Unrepresentative samples  Order of questions  Response bias and social desirability  Wording of questions 24 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH: SEARCHING FOR CAUSE AND EFFECT ▪ The only way to determine causality. ▪ Contains: ▪ Random assignment ▪ Dependent variable ▪ Independent variable Experimenters manipulate the independent variable and measure the dependent variable. 25 RANDOM SAMPLING ▪ Who is selected to be in the study RANDOM ASSIGNMENT  Which condition of the independent variable a participant is in EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH: SEARCHING FOR CAUSE AND EFFECT Random assignment: The great equalizer ▪ Each person has an equal likelihood of being put in each condition of the experiment ▪ Creates equivalent groups ▪ Can conclude that observed effects are not due to extraneous factors ▪ When manipulation is not possible researchers use observational research methods instead 27 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH: SEARCHING FOR CAUSE AND EFFECT 28 GENERALIZING FROM LABORATORY TO LIFE ▪ The laboratory is a simple controlled reality. ▪ Same effect may not be observed in a complex real world scenario ▪ Participants in most studies are university students ▪ May limit the generalizability of the results in some cases 29 CORRELATIONS VERSUS EXPERIMENTS 30 CORRELATIONS VERSUS EXPERIMENTS 31 ETHICS ▪ Free & Informed Consent ▪ Minimal Risk ▪ Privacy & Confidentiality ▪ Vulnerable Persons ▪ Conflict of Interest