PSY234 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Alcohol Intoxication, Lie Detection, Random Assignment
2 Jun 2018
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Week 8 Lecture – Introduction to Social Psychology Research
Lecture outline:
• What is social psychology?
• Where do research questions come from?
• The experimental approach
o Between subjects designs
o Within-subjects designs
o Factorial designs
o Quasi-experimental designs
• The correlational approach
What is social psychology?
• Personality
o Individual differences in behaviour
o Consistency across different situations
• Social psychologists
o Reactions to situational influences
o The scientific study of the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of
individuals in social situations (Gilovich et al.)
Why bother with research?
• Common sense seems to serve us pretty well
• But many situations contain surprises or pitfalls leading to errors in judgement
o We overly rely on shortcuts (heuristics) in making judgements (e.g.
stereotyping)
o Our insight into the reasons for our own behaviour and that of others is
often limited (Festinger 1959)
• Insufficient justification and dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959)
o Subject do two 30min boring tasks
o Experimenter asks for assistance with the next subject
o Tell next person that:
▪ A) they just finished the task and
▪ B) they found it extremely enjoyable (a lie)
o DV: how fun and enjoyable you actually found the tasks (asked just
before leaving)
o IV: no pay and no lie vs. $1 for lying (insufficient justification) vs. $20
for lying (sufficient justification)
• Our intuitions are not adequate in explaining such phenomena – we need
theory and research to provide us with the answers i.e. hindsight bias
• Psychologists are unique in that they are skilled researchers
• Many students are under the impression that social psychologists just do
surveys
Where do research questions come from?
• Testing a theory
o A general principle or set of principles that accounts for a group of
empirical findings
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o Differing levels of complexity (e.g. Terror Management Theory vs. lie
detection)
o Used to derive predictions (e.g. TMT: MS – bolstering world view)
• Curiosity
o E.g. what percentage of people would obey an order to administer a
lethal shock?
• Testing techniques e.g. Zadro et al. (2004) – cyberball vs. ball toss; just as
effective as ostracism in real situations
• Demonstrating a phenomenon:
o E.g. Williams and Bargh (2008) – can experiences of physical warmth
increased feelings of interpersonal warmth?
o Subject given a coffee cup vs. iced coffee/hot vs. cold ice pack
▪ Rated target person as having a warmer personality
▪ Chose a gift for a friend instead of self
Steps in a research process –
• 1. Research question
• 2. Generate hypotheses (specific, directional predictions)
• 3. Operationalise
o Measure: What? How? (e.g. how would you operationalize
superstition) Who? (representative sample, generalization)
• 4. Design experiment/correlational study
• 5. Collect data
• 6. Analyse data
• 7. Draw appropriate conclusions
Example 1: Between-subjects experiment –
• Washing away your sins: Threatened morality and physical cleansing (Zhong
and Liljenquist 2006)
o Link between physical cleansing and moral purification is explicit in
many religions
o ‘Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins’ Holy Bible
o The words ‘clean’ and ‘pure’ are commonly used in everyday language
to describe physical and moral states
o The emotion of disgust is experienced in both physical and moral
domains
• 1. Research question: Is there a link between moral purity and physical
cleansing?
• 2. Hypothesis (formal statement of RQ) → threat to moral purity activates the
need for physical cleansing
• 3. Operationalise
o Measure what? – preference for a free cleansing gift (either pencil or
antiseptic cleansing wipe – this is the DV)
o NB pilot test showed that preference for the gifts were about equal
o Manipulate moral purity: write about deed from your past
o Measure who? Ordinary individuals (undergrads)
• 4. Design experiment
o Randomly assign people to etiher control or treatment group (i.e.
between subject design) – this is the IV
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