Social Psychology: An Introduction PDF

1/9/2025 What IS Social Psychology and How Do We Study It? ​ Introduction ○​ Definition ○​ Core Themes and Core Concerns of Social Psychology ○​ Key Theoretical Perspectives ○​ How Social Psychologists DO Social Psychology? ​ What IS Social Psychology?...

1/9/2025 What IS Social Psychology and How Do We Study It? ​ Introduction ○​ Definition ○​ Core Themes and Core Concerns of Social Psychology ○​ Key Theoretical Perspectives ○​ How Social Psychologists DO Social Psychology? ​ What IS Social Psychology? ○​ Sociology & Psychology (mixed) ​ Taken aspect of individual and social influences together ​ Emerged in the 20th century ​ They were developed individual psychology and sociology around the same time ​ Next year will be emphasised differently (social psychology) ​ Definition ○​ Social Psychology Bridges the Interests of Psychology (emphasis on the Individual) and Sociology (emphasis on Social Structure) ○​ “the systematic study of the nature and causes of human social behaviour.” ○​ Interested in WHAT People Do and WHY They Do It ​ Key Themes ○​ We construct our social reality ​ How people perceive things ○​ Social influences ​ Social institutions (media, family, education, religions) influence who we are, shape our identity, and influence our actions, and how we influence them (cycle) ○​ Social relations ​ We need people (biological need) → e.g. isolation impact from COVID-19 on mental health ○​ Application of knowledge ​ Core concerns ○​ The impact one individual has on another ​ People make a great impact on each other ​ Monogolous interaction (1-on-1) ​ Direct and explicit ​ E.g. manually telling someone to do something ○​ Intent ​ Indirect and implicit ​ E.g. constantly telling someone about like something, which hints (or directs) someone to think they will do something  ○​ Unintentional ○​ The impact that a group has on its individual members ​ Establishment of rules and norms ​ Norms are the informal rules that govern our behaviour ○​ Norms are unwritten rules // rules are written ○​ The impact that individuals members have on the groups they belong to ​ Impact goes both ways ○​ The impact that one group has on another group ​ Groups impact groups ​ Area of research - intergroup conflict ​ Social psychology tends to look at smaller scale ○​ Looks at conflicts between organizations, gangs, businesses → questions how we solve problems ○​ The impact of social context and social structure on groups and individuals​ ​ Discipline is that individual impacts society, and society impacts individuals ​ Individuals have their own paths (decisions) that could relate into society ​ Society has norms and actions decisions that come from individuals – like the law of the criminal justice, smoking in public, and drinking hours in public ​ Theoretical Perspectives ○​ Symbolic interactionism ​ Developed by Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead ​ “Symbolic Interactionism” was Coined by Herbert Blumer ​ SI theorists understand the world as the product of the everyday interactions of people ​ SI - Blumer’s SI Premises ○​ People Act Towards Things Based on the Meaning Those Things Have for Them ○​ These Meanings are Derived Through Social Interaction and are NOT Inherent ○​ Meanings can be Modified and Changed Through Social Interaction ​ Meanings are not inherent, but rather up to a person’s interpretation ​ Like how a school can be a place for learning (norm) but it could also be a place for watching movies (if movies are constantly played there) ​ SI - Looking-Glass Self ○​ Three elements ​ Imagine how we appear to others  ​ Imagine the other person’s reaction to our appearance ​ People can not deprive unless we interact with other people – questions if people like us or not; in how we look, personality (strong emotions guides us to who we become) ○​ The person must have some sort of significance to make some sort of impact ​ Respond with some sort of feeling ​ Shame, Pride, Guilt, Happiness ○​ Group processes ​ The ‘Group’ as a social psychological entity ​ What is a group? ​ Two or more people ​ Become an ‘Us’ ​ Dependence on one another ​ Rules, roles, norms, power structures ​ Social Exchange theory ​ Social exchange ○​ cost -benefit ideology ​ Take sociology, psychology, and economics together – are the costs less or more than the reward? How much are we actually getting out of it? ​ Cost: doing more chores (and you do not like it ​ Benefit: if the significant other does it or not and if i'm okay with it ​ Rewards can be tangible or intangible ○​ Tangible: friend buys you a drink; free drink ○​ Intangible: emotional affect ○​ subjective ○​ Social structure and personality ​ Social structure → the individual ​ More top down effect; how social structure shapes our individual personality ​ What are social structures? ​ Relationships between groups of individuals ○​ Emphasis on the bigger picture and how that impacts who we are - heavily on sociologist (macro perspective) ​ Ex. Social class, religion, family, school, mass, media, etc…  ○​ Cognitive perspectives ​ Emphasis placed on mental activities as determinants of social behaviour ​ Problem solving, perception, judgement, memory ○​ Focus on the individual, but not exclusively; has some consideration on the individual and society ○​ Theorists argue that the more important determinants of social behaviour are those mental activities, and these mental activities include things like problem solving, perception, judgement, memory. ​ Memory can impact how we engage with our social world, family, and friends ​ Cognitive processes are an intervening factor between external stimuli and behavioural responses ​ Cognitions ​ ‘Mental processes of Acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses ​ Cognitive Structure ​ Cognitions as interrelated ​ Emphasis on how they are structured and the affect on behaviour and judgement ​ Schemas ​ A blueprint of people and things ○​ Helps us interpret our environment ​ E.g schema of women – women are meant to be in the kitchen (aka, stereotypes) ​ Schemas are built from our experiences/ what we are exposed to – can be similar, but different, because we live in a society ○​ Evolutionary theory ​ Darwin’s theory of evolution ​ Our social behaviour is in our genes ​ Certain traits that have evolved over time because it ensures the survival of our lineage of our kin ​ We tend to be more friendly to those who are similar or like us based off of this evolutionary idea (the continuation of your genes) ​ Social behaviour is linked to our genes ​ We are evolved to be aggressive to protect our line ​ Social Darwinism has concerns in terms that certain attributes are genetic when you go cross culturally, but if they do not exist cross culturally they say evolution ​ How Social Psychologists DO Research ○​ Empirical Research ​ “the systematic investigation of observable phenomena (behaviour, events) in the world.” (Delamater et al.)  ​ Need to be able to test theories, with back ups and a bunch of checks and balances in place to make sure we are empirically grounding what we are saying ​ Relies on Observable and Measurable phenomena ​ There are somethings that are difficult to operationalize the definitions and to measure in a way that is consistent with more quantitative approaches/hard sciences ​ Research Methods in social Psychology ○​ Surveys ​ Popular source of data collection ​ Set of questions geared toward collecting information about a certain group ​ Able to obtain more people, and easier to get information that can be sensitive ​ Relies on self-reporting ​ Example: public opinion polls ​ Strengths and weakness ​ Strengths: Weakness ​ Generally ​ Problems with self-reporting inexpensive ○​ Subjects to memory – ​ Potential clear especially to a picture of the moment in time phenomena ​ Falling into a response set – under study may not give an accurate ​ Glimpse into picture infrequent or ○​ The large amount of private participants accounts behaviours for the short falling of answers ○​ Field studies ​ Observation of everyday life in action ​ Unobtrusive measures ​ Participant observation ​ Actually participating and talking with the people ​ Ethnography ​ Study of medical students ​ Understanding latent culture ​ Moving beyond technical knowledge ​ Strengths and weakness ​ Strengths Weakness  ​ Real-world behaviour ​ Significant effect of ​ Study private and data recording method sensitive matter chosen (unobtrusive) ​ The issue of consent ​ In-depth ​ Time consuming understandings ​ Archival research ​ The analysis of data that has already been collected by others ​ Sources of archival data ○​ Government ○​ Universities ○​ Formal organizations ○​ Content analysis ​ The systematic study of documents to identify themes and make inferences based on these themes ​ Example: criminalization of HIV Non-Disclosure ​ Speakman (2017) “constructing an ‘HIV-Killer: HIV Non-Disclosure and the Techniques of Vilification” ​ Content analysis of: ○​ Legal documents ○​ Newspaper articles ○​ On-line discussion ​ Strengths and Weaknesses ​ Strengths Weaknesses ​ inexpensive ​ Level of control over ​ Less time consuming quality of information ​ Socio-Historical ​ Difficulty creating a analyses reliable and valid study ​ Inconsistent or missing information in archives ○​ Experiments ​ High level of control ​ They are composed of 2 characteristics: ​ Independent variables must be manipulated ​ Participants must be assigned randomly ​ Lab Experiment ​ Researchers have more control ○​ Can control the physical space ​ Field Experiment ​ Less control ​ More generalizable  ​ Mitigation of reactivity ​ Strengths and weaknesses ​ Strengths Weaknesses ​ High level of internal ​ Limits to what can be validity studied ​ More researcher control ​ Ethical concerns ​ costly ​ Subject effects and experimenter effects ​ Low external validity ​ Ethics ○​ The role of the Nuremberg Trials in Modern Day Ethics ○​ Protecting and Respecting Research Participants ○​ Ethics approval is required for any research involving Human subjects ​ Protecting our participants ○​ Volunteer ○​ Informed consent ○​ Avoiding Harm ○​ Ensuring Confidentiality ​ Sources of Harm ○​ Physical ○​ Psychological ○​ Breach of confidentiality ​ The Stanford Prison Experiment ○​ 1971 ○​ Zimbardo - Lead Psychologist ○​ Randomly Assigned Male College Students to the Roles of ‘Prison Guard’ and ‘Prisoner’ ○​ A Number of Ethical Issues ​ Violation of the harm principle, first and foremost Textbook: Chapter 1 – Introducing the science and methods of social psychology ​ The person people root for changes depending on the perspective being taken ○​ That's the power of the situation and the power of perspective ​ The french philosopher-novelist Jean-Paul Sartre believed “first of all beings in a situation, we cannot be distinguished from our situations, for they form us and decide our possibilities.” What is social psychology? ○​ A science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention to how we view and affect one another – how people think, influence, and relate to one another ○​ Lies at psychology’s boundaries with sociology ​ How much of our social world is just in our heads? ○​ Our social behaviours varies not just with the objective situation but with how we perceive it ​ Social beliefs can be self-fulfilling ​ Would you help others? Or help yourself? ○​ E.g – a bag of cash tumbled and most people stopped to help themselves ​ But people do not always think just about themselves in these situations ​ Some often go out of their way to help people, even those they dislike and disagree with What are the major themes of social psychology? ​ We construct our social reality ○​ Humans have an irresistible urge to explain behaviour, to attribute it to some causes to make it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable ○​ People react differently to similar situations because we think differently ​ Depends on your culture and life experiences ​ Our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes perilous dangerous ○​ Our intuitions shape our fears, impressions, and relationships ○​ Nonconscious mind guide our thoughts and behaviors ○​ Thinking, memory, and attitudes all operate on two-levels–one conscious and deliberate, and the other nonconscious and automatic (called dual processing) ○​ We misperceive others, and often fail to appreciate how our expectations shape our evaluations ​ Even our intuitions about ourselves are often wrong – we trust our memories more than we should ○​ People mistake authenticity for truthfulness, integrity, and competence when the opposite is true ○​ In most situations, “fast and frugal” snap judgements serve us well enough. But in others, where accuracy matters–as when needing to fear the right things and spend our resources accordingly– we had best restrain our impulsive intuitions with critical thinking ​ Social influences shape our behaviour  ○​ We speak and think in based on what we learned from others ​ We long to connect, to belong, to live in a society, and to be well thought of ○​ We respond to immediate context, sometimes the power of a social situation leads us to act in ways that depart from our espoused attitudes ○​ Powerful situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to unspeakable cruelty ​ E.g. under Nazi influence, many otherwise decent people became instruments of the Holocaust ○​ Yet in other situations may elicit great generosity and compassion: the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, the 2016 fires in Fort McMurray ○​ Culture define situations – e.g same sex relationships can help us tell which part of the world you live in (parts of Africa are oppose of same sex relationships, while western areas are not) ○​ Social psychologist Hazel Markus summed up: “people are, above all, malleable.” – we adapt to our social context. Our behaviour, then, is shaped by external forces ​ Personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behaviour ○​ Internal forces affects our behaviours, leading us to believe strongly in those things for which we have committed ourselves or for which we have suffered ○​ Personality disposition also affects behaviour – facing same situation, different reaction ​ Social behaviour is biologically rooted ○​ Nature and nurture form who we are (biology and experience crease people) ○​ Evolutionary psychologists remind – our inherited human nature predisposes us to behave in ways that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce ​ We carry the genes that enable traits and to survive and reproduce (natural selection) ○​ Nature endows us with an enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environments ○​ Social neuroscience: an integration of biological and social perspectives that explores the neural and psychological bases of social and emotional behaviours ​ Do not reduce complex social behaviours to simple neural or molecular mechanisms ○​ To understand social behavior… ​ We must consider both under the skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influences ​ E.g. feeling left our elevates blood pressure ​ Relating to others is a basic need ○​ We want to fit in with others, and our relationship with others can be an important source of stress and pain as well as joy and comfort ○​ Kip Williams and His colleagues experiment – feeling left out has dramatic effects on how people feel about themselves  ​ Experimenter passed the ball to one another, and left out the real participants out of the action – making them feel miserable and self-esteem drop ​ This could potentially lead into acts of aggression and prejudice in general sense ○​ Relating to others is not all pain. When others help, when we form romantic relationships, and when we promote harmony between groups, interpersonal relations can be an important source of joy and comfort ​ Our relationships with others form the basis of out self-esteem ​ Our self-esteem is nothing more than a reading of how accepted we feel by others – acting as a basic need that shapes all of our social actions ​ Social Psychology’s principles are applicable in everyday life ○​ Principles of social thinking, influence, and relations have implications on health, well-being, judicial procedures and decisions in the courtroom ○​ Social psychology is all about life – your life: your beliefs, your attitudes, your relationships How do Values Affect Social Psychology? ​ Obvious ways in which values enter social psychology ○​ Social media’s impact of society spreads acceptance of conspiracy theories (such as the anti-vaccination movement), and political polarization countries to grow in western democracies ​ Values differ nor only across time but also across culture ○​ The scots are self-consciously distinct from the English; and the Austrians frm the Germans ○​ North American social psychologist focuses more on individuals – how one person thinks about others ○​ Australian social psychologist look at theories and methods from both Europe and North America ○​ They investigate how vales form, why they change, and how they influence attitudes and actions, but can not tell use which values are “right” ​ Not-So-Obvious Ways in Which Values Enter Social Psychology ○​ The subjective aspects of science ​ Science is not purely objective, but they interpret nature using their own mental categories ​ We view the world through the lens of our preconceptions ​ Your mind blocks from awareness something that is there, if only you were predisposed to perceive it ​ This tendency to prejudge reality based on our expectations is a basic fact about the human mind ​ Those who share a common view or come from the same culture, their assumptions may go unchallenged – taking granted the shared beliefs; called social representations ○​ The hidden values in psychological concepts  ​ Psychologists refer to people as mature or immature, as well-adjusted or ⬇️ poorly adjusted, as mentally healthy or mentally ill. – they speak facts when making value judgements (examples: ) ​ Forming concepts: ○​ Taking a personality test, and you were told good things from the first test, but when you are given another similar test that was had the same questions as the first one, and it gave you different answers – it could be because all these labels describe the same set of response (a tendency to say nice things about oneself and not to acknowledge problems) ​ The label reflects a value judgement ​ Labelling ○​ Values judgements are often hidden within our social-psychological language–but that is also true of everyday language ​ E.g. “brainwashing” is bad but “social influence” is good ​ Naturalistic fallacy ○​ A seductive error for those who work in social science is sliding from a description of what is into a prescription of what ought to be. ○​ No survey of human behavior dictates what is “right” behaviour ​ If most people do not do something, that does not make it wrong. If most people do it, it does not make it right ​ We inject our values whenever we move from objective statements of fact to prescriptive statements of what ought to be ​ At the level of labelling a phenomenon is a human activity – therefore, it is natural and inevitable that prior beliefs and values will influence what social psychologist think and write ​ Human thinking always involves interpretation Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense? ​ We constantly observe people thinking about, influencing, and relating to one another ​ Much of our thinking aims to discern and explain relationships among social events ○​ Discern what that facial expression predicts, how to get someone to do something, or whether a person is a friend or foe. ​ Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: 1)​ It is trivial because it documents the obvious 2)​ It is dangerous because it findings could be used to manipulate people ​ Some people believe that wealthy brings people happiness – called the “cycle of work and spend” working more to buy more  ○​ mostly rich people are prosperous and satisfied; Bulgarians are neither – before 1990, higher levels of national wealth were not predictive of increased well being ​ Happiness was about the same for an average Irish person, or an average Belgian, Canadian, or Norwegian with more than double the Irish purchasing power ○​ In poor countries, low income are often threatens basic human needs-being relatively well off does predict greater wellbeing ​ Once a comfortable income level is reached, more and more money provides diminishing long-term returns ○​ Shows income-happiness correlations to be “surprisingly weak” ○​ Seek extrinsic goals– wealth, beauty, popularity and you may find anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic ills ○​ Those who strive for intrinsic goals such as intimacy, personal growth, and contribution to the community experience higher quality of life ​ Common sense, Revisited ○​ Common sense is that we invoke it after we know that facts ○​ Events are far more “obvious” and predictable in hindsight than beforehand ○​ Experiments reveal that when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome suddenly seems unsurprising ○​ In everyday life, we often do not expect something to happen until it does ​ People often think we knew what we did not ​ Soren Kierkegaard says “life is lived forward, but understood backwards.” ​ If this hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) is pervasive, you may now be feeling that you already knew about it ○​ People are not very good at identifying the causes of their failure, and when they try to (and make mistakes) it can actually inhibit later performance ​ E.g. you think you failed a test because you were drinking the night before, but in reality, it was you not reading the question properly – so not drinking the night before the next test will not solve the problem ○​ We sometimes alme ourselves for “stupid mistakes” but looking back on the event, we see how we should have handled it, but sometimes we are too hard on ourselves ​ We forget that what is obvious to us now was not nearly as obvious at the time ○​ Common sense are sometimes usually wrong until science overthrow the common sense; countries of daily experience assured people that the sun revolved around the earth ​ Common sense usually is right after the fact, therefore easily deceiving ourselves into thinking that we know and knew more than we do and did is why we need science to help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions from easy hindsight Research Methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology? ​ Social psychologists propose theories that organize their observations and imply testable hypotheses and practical predictions ​ Predict behaviour using correlational studies often conducted in natural settings or may seek to explain behaviour by conducting experiments that manipulate one or more factors under controlled conditions Forming and Testing Hypotheses ​ Human nature is used to pin down secrets, and we organize our ideas and findings into theories ​ A theory is an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events ○​ “Theory” often mean “less than fact” a middle rung on a confidence ladder from guess to theory to fact ​ Facts are agreed-upon statements that we observe – theories are ideas that summarize and explain facts with testable predictions called hypotheses ○​ Hypotheses purpose is to test the theory, give direction of the research and make theories practical ​ Testing our theories with specific we must translate variables that are described at the theoretical level into the specific variables that we are observing – called operationalization Correlational research: detecting Natural Associations ​ Research varies by location ○​ Laboratory (a controlled situation) ○​ Field research (everyday situation) ​ Varies by methods ○​ Correlational research (asking whether two or more factors are naturally associated) ○​ Experimental research (manipulating some factors to see its effect on another) Correlation versus causation ​ Correlational research allows us to predict but cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause change in another ○​ Correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement → people believe a “healthy self-concept” contributes to achievement thus some think problems and failures cause low self-esteem // self-esteem and achievement correlate because both are linked to underlying intelligence and family social status ​ When correlational research is extended over time, it is called longitudinal research – beings to sort out cause and effects because we now that some things happen before others ○​ Cause always happens before effects ​ Time-lagged correlations reveal the sequence of events (i.e by indicating whether changed achievement more often precedes or follows changed self-esteem) Survey research ​ To measure variables in the population – surviving representative samples of people ○​ Obtain a representative group by taking a random sample  ​ To evaluate surveys, there can be four potential bias influences: unrepresentative samples, the order and timing of the questions, the response options, the wording of the question ○​ Unrepresentative samples ​ How closely the sample represents the population under study matters greatly ○​ Order and timing of questions ​ Order, response, and wording effects enable political manipulators to use surveys to show public support for their views ​ Professionals may influence people’s decisions by how they frame our choices ○​ Response bias and social desirability ​ Response options can bias people’s response ​ Some people do not want to admit their true actions and beliefs either to the experimenter or sometimes themselves ​ This is the tendency for people to say what they want others to hear or what they want to believe about themselves called social desirability ○​ Wording of the questions ​ The precise wording of question and itself form may influence answers → directing the participants to answer a certain way ​ Survey wording is a very delicate matter; subtle changes in the tone of a question can have marked effects Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect ​ Control: Manipulating variables ○​ Constructing social situations that simulate important features of our lives – one or two factors that vary at a time are called independent variables ○​ Distinction between correlation and experimental research ​ Correlational and experimental studies of prejudice against those with obesity  ​ People perceive those with obesity to be slow, lazy, and sloppy–often less likely to be married and earn high salaries than the general women ○​ Men spoke less warmly and happily if the women were presumed to have obesity; prejudice and discrimination has an effect ​ Correlational and experimental studies of TV violence viewing ​ Children who watch many violent televisions programs tend to be more aggressive than those who watch few ○​ Suggest children might learn from what they see on the screen ​ The observed aggressive acts of the show power rangers (in the experiment) was the dependent variable ○​ Manipulate one or two independent variables while trying to hold everything else constant ​ Random assignment: the great equalizer ○​ Random assignment eliminates all extraneous factors – provides each person an equal chance of viewing the violence or the non-violence ​ Creates equivalent groups//eliminates potential bias ​ Random assignments in experiments and random sampling in surveys ​ Random assignment helps infer cause and effect ​ Random sampling helps generalize to a population Can participants be Independent variable Dependent randomly assigned variable to conditions? Are early maturing children No → correlation more confident? Do students learn more in Yes → experimental Take class online or in learning online or classroom classroom courses? Do school grades predict No → correlation vocational success? Does playing violent video Yes → experimental Play violent or nonviolent aggressiveness games increase games aggressiveness? Do people find comedy No → correlation funnier when alone or with others? Do higher-income people Yes → experimental Higher income people self-esteem have higher self-esteem? and low income people  ○​ Causal inferences using observational research methods where individuals are observed in natural settings, often without awareness, in order to provide the opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour ​ Replication: Are the results reproducible? ○​ Replication: a study that runes the same experiment again, multiple times to discover if the same results will still appear ​ Any single study provides information is one estimate ​ Better is the aggregated data from multiple studies ​ Replication = confirmation ○​ Another useful method is meta-analysis – analyzes many on the same topic ​ Summarizing the results across many different studies to discover the average effect ​ The ethics of experimentation ⬇️ ○​ Ethical grey area is when social psychologist’s experiment engages with intense thoughts and emotions called ​ Mundane realism: degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations ○​ For many researchers, mundane is not important but the experiment should have experimental realism – should absorb and involve the participants ​ Not consciously play-acting, but actually engaging real psychological processes  ​ Achieving experimental realism sometimes requires deceiving people with a plausible cover story ○​ Experimenters also seek to hide their predictions lest the participants in the eagerness to be “good subjects”; doing what is expected to give desired response (participant bias) ○​ Minimizing demand characteristics (cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected), experimenters typically standardize their instructions or use a computer to present them ○​ The ethical principles: ​ Tell potential participants enough about the experiment to enable their informed consent (an ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate) ​ Be truthful. Use deception only if essential and justified by a significant purpose and if there is no alternative ​ Protect people from harm and significant discomfort ​ Treat information about the individual's confidentiality ​ Debrief participants – fully explain the experiment afterward, including any deceptions ○​ Experimenter should be sufficiently informative and considerate to leave subjects feeling at least as food about themselves as they came in, or they learnt something ​ Generalizing from laboratory to life ○​ The laboratory uncovers basic dynamics of human existence, but still simplified, controlled reality ​ Tells us what effect to expect of variable X, all other things being equal–which in real life, they never are Summary What is social psychology? ​ Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Its central themes are listed below What are the major themes of social psychology? ​ We construct our social reality ​ Our social institutions are often powerful but sometimes perilous ​ Social influences shape our behaviour ​ Personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behavior ​ Social behaviour is biologically rooted ​ Relating to others is a basic need ​ Social psychology’s principles are applicable in everyday life How do Values affect social psychology? ​ Psychologists value penetrate their work in obvious ways, such as their choice of research topic and the type of people who are attracted to various fields  ​ They also do this in a subtler way, hidden assumptions when forming concepts, choosing labels, and giving advice ​ Penetration of values into science is not a reason to fault social psychology or other science. Human thinking is seldom dispassionate is precisely why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we are to check our ideas against reality Is social psychology merely common sense? ​ Criticized for being trivial because it documents things that seem obvious ​ Experiments reveal that outcomes are more “obvious” after facts are known ​ Hindsight bias often makes people overconfident about the validity of their judgements and predictions Research methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology? ​ Social psychologists organize their ideas and findings into theories to generate new research, and suggest practical application ​ Most social psychological research is either correlational or experimental ​ Prefer to conduct experiment that explores cause and effect – by constructing a miniature reality that is under their control ○​ Sometimes staging situations that engage people’s emotions through the following of professional ethical guidelines