PSYB10H3 Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The Methods of Social Psychology
- experiment → get a “fake” applicant to apply for a job but confess he
murdered before
- with sympathetic letter
- results → Retailers from the South complied with the applicant’s requests
more than the retailers from the North did.
The Value of Social Psychology Research
● many situations—interviews, initiations, dating—can contain surprises and
pitfalls that social psychology research can help us anticipate and avoid
○ even in familiar situations, our ideas about how people are likely to
behave can be mistaken
● hindsight bias
○ the tendency to believe that you could have predicted some outcome
which in fact you couldn’t have predicted accurately
○ When you have to predict the results of studies and then find out what
they were, you avoid it!
● Social psychologists can demonstrate this hindsight bias by telling some
people a fact and asking them if they would have predicted it, and not telling
other people about the fact and asking for their predictions.
○ It’s very common that the people kept in ignorance make incorrect
predictions, but those told the fact are confident they could have
predicted it correctly
*** social psychologists can have hindsight bias
How Social Psychologists Test Ideas
● thought experiment
○ thinking through how you would test a given idea can lead you to new
hypotheses that, on reflection
● hypothesis
○ prediction about what will happen under particular circumstances
● theory
○ body of related propositions intended to describe some aspect of the
world.
○ In science, including social science, theories generally have support in
the form of empirical data
● Evolutionary theory is supported by an enormous number of facts as well as
non intuitive predictions that have been confirmed by empirical observation.
● Relativity theory in physics, which is also supported by a huge number of facts
and accurate predictions, led to the development of the atomic bomb.
● balance theory
○ the theory that people like their thoughts to be consistent with one
another, and will do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive
consistency
● Hypotheses are tested by studies, which examine predictions about what will
happen in particular concrete contexts.
○ Thus theories are more general than hypotheses, which are more
general than findings from the studies that test them.
Observational Research
● Social psychologists themselves learn a great deal from observation
● participant observation
○ involves observing some phenomenon at close range.
○ An anthropologist may live with a group of people for a long time, just
noting what they do and coming up with guesses—sometimes inspired
by conversations with the people being studied
○ e.g. cultural anthropologist Shirley Brice → lived with working and
middle class
■ The middle-class families read to their children a great deal,
included them in dinner-table conversations, used the printed
word to guide their behavior (recipes, game rules),
■ The working-class families didn’t do those things as much,
○ e.g. Roger Barker and Herbert Wright → studied how children in a
U.S. Midwestern town interacted with their surroundings.
■ The study revealed a great deal about the way young people
interact with their environments, the opportunities and
constraints that came with their environments, and the factors
that molded their characters
● Social psychologists often observe social situations in a semiformal way,
taking notes and interviewing participants.
● Observations are often misleading, so any tentative conclusions gleaned from
observation should ideally be tested using other methods.
Archival Research
● One type of research can be conducted without ever leaving the library
● Researchers can look at evidence found in archives of various kinds,
including census reports, police records, sports statistics, newspaper articles,
and databases containing historic and ethnographic (anthropological)
descriptions of people in different cultures.
○ in the South, the most common kinds of homicide involved some type
of insult—for example, barroom quarrels and cases of sexual infidelity
○ other kinds of homicide not involving personal honor are actually less
common in the South
Surveys
● One of the most common types of study in social psychology involves simply
asking people questions
● surveys
○ can be conducted using either interviews or written questionnaires.
○ random sampling is important
■ give everyone in the population an equal chance of being
chosen.
○ convenience sampling
■ contacting people as they enter the library or e-mailing fraternity
and sorority members, is not random
■ A convenience sample may be biased in some way; that is, it
might include too many of some kinds of people and too few of
others.
● researchers found that Southerners were more likely to favor violence in
response to insults and to think that a man would be justified to fight an
acquaintance who “looks over his girlfriend and talks to her in a suggestive
way.
○ Southerners were also more likely to approve of violence in response
to threats to home and family, thinking, for example, that “a man has a
right to kill a person to defend his house
○ Southerners were more approving of violence in socializing children:
they were more likely to say that spanking was a reasonable way to
handle a child’s misdeeds, and more likely to say that they would
encourage a child to beat up someone who was bullying him.
● Several sources suggested that the South might be a “culture of honor.”
○ perhaps because they were herding communities as well
● In addition to the fringes of Britain, herding has traditionally been much more
common in the Mediterranean countries than in northern Europe, and those
countries in general have always been cultures of honor
Correlational Research
● correlational research
○ psychologists simply determine whether a relationship exists between
two or more variables
● experimental research
○ enabling investigators to make strong inferences about how different
situations or conditions affect people’s behavior
Correlation does not imply causation
Document Summary
Experiment get a fake applicant to apply for a job but confess he murdered before. With sympathetic letter results retailers from the south complied with the applicant"s requests more than the retailers from the north did. The value of social psychology research many situations interviews, initiations, dating can contain surprises and pitfalls that social psychology research can help us anticipate and avoid. Even in familiar situations, our ideas about how people are likely to behave can be mistaken. Hindsight bias the tendency to believe that you could have predicted some outcome which in fact you couldn"t have predicted accurately. When you have to predict the results of studies and then find out what they were, you avoid it! Social psychologists can demonstrate this hindsight bias by telling some people a fact and asking them if they would have predicted it, and not telling other people about the fact and asking for their predictions.
