7125 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Observer-Expectancy Effect, Social Anthropology, Discourse Analysis
21 Jun 2018
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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 1
Introducing social psychology
- What is social psychology
oSocial psychology: scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and
behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence
of others
oSocial psychologists don’t generally study animals
Unless interested in evolutionary origins
Interested in feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions and goals
Can influence or determine behaviour
Almost always relate psychological aspects of behaviour to more
fundamental cognitive processes and structures in the human mind and
sometimes to neuro-chemical processes in the brain
oBehaviour: what people actually do that can be objectively measured
oSocial psych: because deals with how people are affected by other people who are
present or imagined to be present
oConcepts to explain social psychological phenomena
Dissonance
Attitude
Categorization
Identity
oTheory, validity: pg 2
- Social psych and its close neighbours
oSubdiscipline of general psychology
Explaining human behaviour in terms of processes that occur within the
mind
General: focus on peoples reaction to stimuli that do not have to be social
(colours, shapes, sounds)
oStrongly influenced by cognitive psychology since late 1970s
Social cognition = dominant in research today
oSociology and social anthropology
Studying groups, social, cultural norms, social representations, language,
interpret behaviour
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Group as a whole rather than individual
Sociology is a social science
Social psychology is a behavioural science
Social anthropology
Focused on exotic societies
oBecause linked with so many: boundaries get confused
- Topics of social psychology
oDoes not properly differentiate it from other disciplines
- Methodological issues
oScientific method
Study human social behaviour whereas others (chemistry, biology, physics)
study no organic phenomena and chemical and biological processes
Hypotheses
Based on prior knowledge, speculation and casual or systematic
observation
Replication: guards against fraud and chance
Alternative to science is dogma or rationalism: understanding based on
authority (something is true because an authority says so
Experiemental vs non experiemental
oExperiments
Systematic experimentation is one of the most important research method
In science
IVs and DV
Social psych is largely experimental
Confounding: where two or more IVs covary in such a way that it is
impossible to know which has caused the effect
Coder should know little about experimental conditions and research
hypothesis
Laboratory experiment
To isolate and manipulate a single aspect of a variable; that mightn’t
occur in isolation or outside the lab
Things like fMRI: used to measure where electrochemical activity in
the brain is occurring
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Cannot be generalized to real world as easily
Low external validity or mundane realism: how similar the
conditions are to those usually encountered by participants in the
real world
High internal validity or experimental realism: full of psychological
impact and meaning for participants
Subject effects: non spontaneous, owing to demand characteristics
and/or participants wanting to please experimenter
Demand characteristics: features of an experiment that demand a
certain response
oBecome no longer blind to hypothesis and so do what they
think is wanted
Experimenter effects: may inadvertently communicate cues that
cause certain behaviour: can minimize by being double blind (not
knowing condition)
Field experiment
High external validity
Less control over extraneous variabes
Random assignment is hard
Hard to get accurate measurements of subjective feelings
oNon experimental methods
Correlation not causation!
Where changes in one variable reliably map on to changes in
another variable, but cant be determined which of the two variables
caused the change
Archival research
Assembly of data, or reports of data collected by others
Large scale, widely occurring phenomena
Ie compare different cultures in suicide, mental health, child rearing
strategies
Can be unreliable because no control over primary data collection;
could be bias or have missing data
Case studies
Single person or event
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
What is social psychology: social psychology: scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others, social psychologists don"t generally study animals. Interested in feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions and goals. Social psych and its close neighbours: subdiscipline of general psychology. Explaining human behaviour in terms of processes that occur within the mind. General: focus on peoples reaction to stimuli that do not have to be social (colours, shapes, sounds: strongly influenced by cognitive psychology since late 1970s. Social cognition = dominant in research today: sociology and social anthropology. Studying groups, social, cultural norms, social representations, language, interpret behaviour. Group as a whole rather than individual. Focused on exotic societies: because linked with so many: boundaries get confused. Topics of social psychology: does not properly differentiate it from other disciplines. Study human social behaviour whereas others (chemistry, biology, physics) study no organic phenomena and chemical and biological processes.
