Social Psychology Reviewer PDF

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER LESSON 1 – SOCIAL from engaging in behaviour that conflicts with one’s beliefs or attitudes. PSYHCOLOGY 3....

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER LESSON 1 – SOCIAL from engaging in behaviour that conflicts with one’s beliefs or attitudes. PSYHCOLOGY 3. Availability Heuristics - tendency to Social psychology is a basic science aimed at judge the likelihood or frequency of an understanding human social behaviour and the event by the ease with which relevant motivations, cognitions and emotions related to instances come to mind. such behaviour. Theory – is an integrated set of principles that DESIGN EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR describes, explains, and predicts observed events SOCIAL PROBLEMS SIMILARITIES Phase 1 – to understand which behavior causes Basic Social Psychology – May conduct studies the given problem merely out of scientific curiosity about some Phase 2 – it is important to examine which factors phenomenon. influence the particular behavior. Deductive Approach: Start with a particular Phase 3 – understand which intervention theory, and examine to what extent the theory techniques are available to change behavior may be helpful in understanding various types of social behaviour DEFITION Applied Social Psychology – Specifically trying Basic Social Psychology – may be defined as the to contribute towards solving social problems. scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour and thought in Inductive Approach: Start from a specific social social situations. problem, and examine to what extent various theories may help to understand this specific Applied Social Psychology – the systematic problem. application of social psychological constructs, principles, theories, intervention techniques, NOTE: Combining basic and applied work is research methods and research findings to quite valuable, since it demonstrates to what understand or ameliorate social problems extent theories tested in experimental settings are valid in real-life situations as well. Thus, studies Constructs – Refers to a clearly defined may be both theory oriented and problem individual (psychological) characteristic that is oriented. generally latent and thus not directly observable, although it can be assessed through interviews or CORRESPONDENCE questionnaires. Developing and Testing Theories – Generally not PRINCIPLES the primary interest of applied social psychologists). In fact, valid theories are very 1. Foot-in-the-door Technique – which useful in solving social problems, involves making a small initial request, followed by a larger related request USES: within a short period Understanding causes of social problems, 2. Cognitive Dissonance – uncomfortable and may suggest techniques by which tension that can result from having two such problems can be solved conflicting thoughts at the same time, or SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER Provide coherent frameworks for INVASION OF PRIVACY: Personal understanding behaviour that causes details should be kept confidential. social problems. DEBRIEFING: research participants Help us to structure problem situations, should be debriefed as soon as possible and to find critical factors (such as after the research is completed in order to attitudes or values) causing behaviour or update them on the research, and deal cognitions. with any misconceptions. Provide ideas that guide our research and Goals of Science - motivated by four main goals provide a direction that may yield of science: solutions for social problems. Helpful in understanding and interpreting DESCRIPTION: refers to identifying results of research. and specifying the details and nature of a Help us to understand why and how phenomenon. things are related, and to identify where PREDICTION: enhances understanding further research work is needed. of phenomena Requires knowing what Develop interventions as well, by factors are systematically related to the specifying variables or conditions that phenomenon of interest must be controlled or changed in order to CAUSALITY: identifying causes of a reach our goals phenomenon and to find out whether changes in one factor indeed cause Scientific Methods – depend on empirical tests, changes in the other factor that is, the use of systematic observations to EXPLANATION: implies the need to evaluate propositions and ideas, establish why a phenomenon or CORE SET OF VALUES: relationship occurs ACCURACY: carefully examined, Causes of Behavior and Cognitions – Interested precise, and error-free as possible. in understanding the many factors and conditions OBJECTIVITY: minimize bias in that affect the behaviour and thoughts of obtaining and evaluating data. individuals concerning other people SCEPTICISM: accept findings as INDIVIDUAL FACTORS: interpersonal accurate only to the extent that they have characteristics and processes. Individual been verified over and over again by the differences may exist. data SOCIAL FACTORS: effect of opinions OPEN-MINDEDNESS: accept evidence and actions of other people on our as valid, even if the evidence is not behaviour and thoughts. consistent with one’s initial. o MILGRAM TEST SOME ETHICAL PRECEPTS: o ASCH EXPERIMENT o STANFORD PRISON DECEPTION: should be avoided EXPERIMENT SITUATIONAL whenever possible. FACTORS: contextual factors that may INFORMED CONSENT: This implies affect our behaviour and thoughts. that participants should be informed CULTURAL FACTORS: cultural values about the aim of the study and the impact that affect cognitions and behaviour the study may have on them. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER BIOLOGICAL FACTORS: effect of Second, they may evaluate the effects of biological processes and genetic factors interventions on cognitions and on our behaviour and thoughts behaviour. Third, applied social psychologists can Role of Personal Values – should be aware of evaluate effects of interventions on social their personal values, and the way their values problems and individual quality of life. may affect their work. In some cases, their values may conflict with values of other groups involved. Consultant - Assist individuals, groups, organizations, or communities to resolve Interdisciplinary Research – not only social particular problems they are facing. science knowledge should be considered, but knowledge from a wide range of other disciplines Public Advisor – they can advise policy makers should be taken into account as well on ways to change cognitions and behaviour in order to improve or solve social problems of Social Utility – increases if scientists focus their different kinds. efforts on those aspects of a social problem where they are likely to have the most impact in LESSON 2 – THE USE OF resolving the problem(s) at hand THEORY IN APPLIED SOCIAL THE USE OF MULTIPLE THEORIES, PSYCHOLOGY INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES AND RESEARCH METHODS ROLE OF THEORY (USE) Various factors may cause a particular Understand social problem. factors are being studied o Knowledge-Deficit Model – if from different theoretical perspectives. no knowledge, then no changes Intervention techniques are more in behavior effective to the extent to which they Solution – Guide and inform how to specifically address those factors that develop the intervention contribute substantially to the particular o Intervention – Train and educate problem behaviour, and those factors that by motivating can be improved. o Structure Change Multiple research designs may be Evaluation – Area to test the practicality followed to study social problems. A and usefulness of your intervention priori, no research design is superior to o Action-Research Model – others improved situations using evidence Field Setting – more likely to conduct research in field settings, that is, in natural settings where TERMS RELATED TO THEORY people live, work or recreate. Theory - form basis for our understanding of Researcher – interested in contributing towards human behavior, and should provide the solving social problems. foundation of our efforts to change behavior First, by studying the antecedents of Principles - describe a specific process and often behaviour that causes social problems integrated to a theories SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER Hypothesis - Testable prediction derived from a behavior are assessed using the theory and are specific same measurement Model - frameworks that integrate theories and SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL principles THEORIES: SOCIAL INFLUENCES Construct - building blocks of psychological Imitation - Replicating of another theories action - appears to be an innate tendency for humans SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES: o Chartran and Bargh SOCIAL THINKING Conformity - Occurs when a person Attribution Theory (Fritz Hider) - People attempt seeks to change behavior to fit in the to explain behavior both their own and that of group other people Kelman's Social Influence theory: Fundamental Attribution Error – over- o The Rule Orientated - only emphasize personality and under- follow the rule or law when emphasize situation. there are consequences o Intervention: plan to aim at o The Role Oriented - will breaking dysfunctional thinking follow the law only to the Attitudes - Person's favorable or extent that it is their role as a unfavorable evaluation of an object (or person person, or idea) o The Value Oriented - might Cognitive Dissonance Theory - People chose not to break the law are motivated to maintain a basic level of because they value the rule consistency in their thoughts and actions or law o How to confront: change attitude Obedience - Behavioral change is in (thinking), change behavior response to an explicit demand. (needs action), add new Not willing to do the cognition. behavior. Theory of Planned Behavior - More likely a person Framework for understanding the perceived the order relationship between attitudes and when they are an behaviors authority figure o Attitude Compliance - Robert Cialdini and o Subjective Norms - persons Noah Goldstein belief about what others who are important to him tell him what he Three possible goals: should do o Accuracy - to reduce o Perceived Behavioral Control - ambiguity belief that something is o Affiliation - develop or achievable to the extent of one preserve meaningful thing relationship o Compatibility Principles - the o Self-Concepts - improve his three above, intentions and or her self-concepts SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) opinion/not be a part of the - Richard Petty and John Cacioppo prejudice o Extrinsically Motivated - to Different Routes to Persuasion: avoid prejudice when they don't o Central Route - attends to the want others to see/be labeled as specific of the message prejudiced o Peripheral Route - does not Discrimination - refers to an equal or attend to the specific of the unfair behavior towards a person base on message nor the other group membership message, but persuasion can o Theory of Identity Maintenance - still happen. this contents that discriminated groups promote a positive SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES: collective identity that protects SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS an individual’s sense of worth What makes people get along or conflict with and esteem. each other? Contact Hypothesis - suggest that prejudice and conflicts between groups Inter-group tension - within the relationship there can be reduce when they interact with is tension other people Stereotypes - generalized beliefs about a Four features to maintain contact: person base on his/her membership of the group 1. the groups are of equal status. o Self-Serving Bias - it refers to 2. the groups share common the tendency for individuals to goals. interpret social information in a 3. there is intergroup way that reflects positively on cooperation. themselves 4. there is institutional support Dual Concern Model - seek to predict How to control biases? what strategic choice a person of group o Perspective that Stereotypes - shall make when they are facing conflict this is automatic response in of influence. controlling stereotypes. Your 1. Yield or Give in - low mind makes available concern for self and high information associated with concern for others. resilient groups 2. Inaction - low concern for o Second Information-Processing - self and low concern for this stage follows in which how others. they apply the stereotyping. 3. Contend or Fight - high Prejudice - an unjusted negative attitude concern for self, low concern on an individual base on his group for others. membership 4. Problem solver - high o Intrinsically Motivated - inner, concern for self and high person values or believes that it's concern for others. important that they don't give SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER INTERVENTIONS: larger and broader, they reach a point where they seem to fit almost any Prosocial Behavior - acting in a matter that situation. benefits others Prediction (means forecasting) and 1. Relationship-mending - repairs and explanation are not equally Attainable restored relationships Connecting the principles and constructs 2. Relationship-enhancing - promote, defined in the theory to the situation in develop and sustain relationships the real world Other Prosocial Behavior: LESSON 3 - APPLICATIONS OF 1. Helping - one person intends to SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO reduce other person’s burden INCREASE THE IMPACT OF 2. Altruism - the person is motivated to help without thinking BEHAVIOUR-FOCUSED INTERVENTION Social Impact Theory - John Darley and Bibb Latan'e A BEHAVIOUR-ANALYSIS APPROACH TO INTERVENTION o According to Bibb: individuals’ feelings, thoughts, behavior One effective way to increase the frequency of influenced by the real implied or desirable behavior or decrease the occurrence of imagined presence or actions of undesirable behavior is to change the others, number of people, consequences. strength or importance, or Focus on Observable Behavior closeness of a person Selection by Consequences 1. Diffusion of Responsibility - refers to the finding as the size of the group Three-term Contingency increases, the probability of a single BEHAVIOURAL INTERVENTIO individual’s action decreases. STRATEGIES 2. Pluralistic Ignorance - tendency for other people to look to others as a Antecedent Strategies source of information when 1. Education and Training: interpreting information/action. o Training usually involves adding THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN USING role-playing and feedback THEORY IN APPLIED WORK components to verify participants can perform the Not all social problems are identical. target behavior. o Multiply Determined - many o The effectiveness of educational variables may need to be and training interventions can be changed enhanced by tailoring the o Boundary Conditions - information to the target distinguish when a theory does audience. and does not apply. 2. Prompt: Issue of Complexity of the problem is Prompting Strategies complexity of the theory - As theories get SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER a. Target behavior is clearly requires backing by defined by the prompt. the proper authority. b. They are relatively easy to b. Main Reason: the perform. effect it has on the c. The message is displayed attitudes and long- where the target behavior term behaviors of can be performed. those who receive it. d. the message is stated politely. 2. Rewards Few disadvantage to incentive/reward Prompts are Popular: strategies: a. Simple to implement. a. Practical Disadvantage: can b. Relatively low cost be expensive to implement. c. Can have considerable Fixed and variable-ratio impact if applied properly on reinforcement schedules a large scale both produce high rates of 3. Modelling: response. o More effective when the models b. Second Limitation: target are presented with rewarding behaviors on which they are consequences immediately after contingent tend to decrease the desired behavior is when the rewards are performed. removed. 4. Behavioral Commitment: c. c. Third Limitation: reward o Behavioral commitments take interventions have been this process a step further by criticized by some who asking individuals to formally contend rewards diminish agree to change their behavior, intrinsic motivation. thereby making a behavioral 3. Feedback: commitment. o Strategies involve providing information to participants about Consequences Strategies the rate or consequences of their 1. Penalties behaviors. o Behavioral psychologists have ENHANCING INTERVENTIONS typically avoided this approach THROUGH SOCIAL INFLUENCE in community interventions for a variety of reasons. Describes the principles as compliance a. Practical Reason: techniques, because they are frequently used to penalty increase the odds a target individual will comply interventions with a request. usually require Robert Cialdini outlines six Social Influence extensive Principles: enforcement in order to be effective, 1. Consistency and enforcement o Foot-in-the-Door - Principle refers to the observation that SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER individuals who comply with a past failures to small request are more likely to perform according comply with a subsequent larger to their commitment request. BEHAVIOURAL o Cognitive Dissonance - SELF-PERCEPTION Individuals are motivated to 2. Social Proof – follow the crowd/conform reduce negative tension by Social Norms: changing their behavior or Descriptive – what adjusting their attitudes to match members of social group the behavior. typically do. Bad News: is that it is Injunctive – describes also possible that what group approve or individuals may reduce disapprove of. dissonance by changing o Normative Prompts their attitudes instead of o Correcting Misperceived Norms their behaviors. o Personalized Normative o Public Commitment - Social Feedback psychologists have found that o Make Participation Salient commitment strategies work best 3. Authority: when the commitment is active, o More likely to comply with a public and perceived as request from an authority figure voluntary. than someone who lacks status. There is some evidence 4. Liking: suggesting that Complying because they like/know the commitments may person become more effective o Identify with the Target when followed by Audience reminders of past o Block-Leader Approach failures to live up to the 5. Reciprocity values espoused in the Reflects the norm that people should commitment. repay others for benefits received Elliot Aronson has from them. termed the phenomenon o Pre-Behavior Rewards as HYPOCRISY o Reciprocity Prompts EFFECT: 6. Scarcity a. First step: obtaining Freedom of choice. Choice for our a commitment to a own benefit. certain course of o Avoid Reactance - Avoiding action. reactance is important for b. Second step: behavior-change interventions, individuals because a message or complete an manipulation that results in exercise in which perceptions of authoritarian they are reminded of control or lost freedom may SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER backfire and result in behavior TRUE EXPERIMENTS: MAXIMIZING opposite to that desired. PRECISION o Make Potential Losses Salient - Features: Messages framing consequences in terms of what will be lost if Two Components: behavior is not changed may be more effective than those 1. Manipulator – independent variable emphasizing what will be gained 2. Random Assignment – every if a change is made. participant has an equal chance of o Fear Appeals - Fear appeals are being pick effective when they persuade the Advantages: target audience: Confound – is an additional variable that They are susceptible to systematically varies with the negative consequences. independent variable and influences the The consequence is dependent variable. severe. 1. Person Confound The target audience 2. Procedural Confound receives a prevention Noise – refers to variables that influence strategy they can apply the dependent variable successfully to avoid the Interactions – indicate that the effect that negative consequence. one or more independent variables has on the dependent variable depends on an LESSON 4 – RESEARCH additional independent variable. DESIGNS IN APPLIED SOCIAL 2x2 Factorial Design – has become the PSYCHOLOGY most common laboratory method for studying social behavior SELECTING A RESEARCH METHOD Disadvantages: Joseph McGrath described the most common trade-offs researchers must consider as a ‘three- Incidental Reason – is that research horned dilemma’. laboratories are often situated on university campuses, and it is very easy SELECTING A RESEARCH METHOD and cost effective to utilize this resource. GOOD RESEARCHER MUST: Purposeful Reason – is that using homogeneous samples reduces noise. Know the unique advantages and disadvantages for each research design. Minimizing Disadvantages: Conduct studies that make the best use Difficulty with these approaches, however, is that of each design’s advantages while researchers can rarely, if ever, find the one minimizing disadvantages. ‘perfect’ situation that captures the range of situations of interest or the ideal complement of Carefully construct research samples that will define the degree to which an programmed using multiple designs that effect generalizes to different people compensate for each method’s weaknesses. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER Aronson and Carlsmith (1968) – there are Longitudinal Design – used into the multiple ways of interpreting the realism correlational studies whenever reverse of a laboratory experiment causality offers a plausible alternative o Mundane Realism – the physical explanation. setting of the study is like the QUASI-EXPERIMENTS: real-world setting in which the COMPROMISING BETWEEN PRECISION phenomenon of interest typically AND GENERALIZABILITY TO occurs. SITUATIONS o Psychological Realism – by asking if it ‘feels’ realistic on Features: psychological dimensions. One of the most commonly used designs CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH: in social psychology: PERSON-BY- GENERALIZING TO SITUATIONS TREATMENT QUASI- EXPERIMENT Features: Even though quasi-experiments have less Researchers must generate a fixed set of control than true experiments, there are observations about a group of people. particular measurement procedures that Correlational research takes a more increase precision in these designs. passive approach to studying variability. Advantages: Advantages: Preserves much of the control over Behaviors of interest can be measured confounds and extraneous variables that within natural settings, thereby occur with true experiments. increasing the chances that the research Takes the middle-of-the-road approach findings are representative of what by seeking a moderate level of precision occurs naturally in the ‘real world’. while providing some assurances that the This method is particularly useful when results will generalize to meaningful circumstances prevent the use of situations. manipulations. Disadvantages: Disadvantages: The ‘Experiment-to-correlational’ Continuum In order to increase generalizability to Closely resemble true experiments (by situations Correlational research forfeits using laboratory methods) are more measurement precision. likely to suffer from artificiality. 1. Inability to infer causality Resemble correlational studies (by going 2. Reverse causality into the field) are more likely to suffer 3. Third variable problem from the influence of confounds and Minimizing Disadvantages: noise Covariates – an independent variable that can influence the outcome of a given statistical trial, but which is not of direct interest. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER SURVEY RESEARCH: GENERALIZING TO PEOPLE Features: Survey research is broadly defined as the process of collecting information from a sample of people who have been systematically selected to represent a larger population. There are several procedures that a researcher can use to ensure a representative sample: 1. Random Sampling 2. Cluster Sampling 3. Sampling Error 4. Formula of SE Advantages: Surveys are the most capable method for describing and representing information about a large population The survey is an efficient and flexible method that can be employed for a wide range of uses. Disadvantage: Survey research is costly, in terms of time and money. Careful attention to many aspects of the design process to ensure the quality of the survey. Survey questionnaires must often be short because of limited time for interviews or limited space for mailings Minimizing Disadvantage: The best way to minimize the disadvantages of survey research is to pair a sampling procedure with either a true experimental or a correlational design