PSYC 2040 Chapter 1: Chapter One
Document Summary
How we think about and interact with others. Social psychology-- the scientific study of the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situations. Most people think of it as a applied psychology/a shrink laying down on a couch thinking about problems. This is half of it but there is another field of basic/research psychology. We do research and use the same scientific method used in biology, chemistry and physics. The difference is that we are dealing with humans, who have a mind of their own and can be unpredictable. Accuracy-- we want an accurate, error free representation of our data. we want to measure and define things and specifically as possible and document our observations. Objectivity-- we have biases as humans that may influence our perceptions. Observer bias-- we are looking at the same thing, but do we perceive it and interpret it the same way? (he gives.
