Introduction to Social Psychology

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Introduction to Social Psychology
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What is Social Psychology?

• Social psychology is the scientific study of how
  people think about, influence, and relate to one
  another.

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Questions social psychologistsmight ask

• 1. How much of our behavior can be attributed to
  our perceptions of social interactions or
  situations?
• 2. Are we all capable of being cruel given the
  right circumstances?
• 3. Do we help others?

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Our behavior is largely influenced by our
perceptions of social interactions.

• A happily married person will attribute their
  spouses nasty remark to an external factor.
  ( Oh, shes having a bad day.)
• In contrast, unhappily married people attribute
  the same comment to a hostile disposition.
• (Shes the wicked witch!)

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Expectations

• Peoples expectations are often met, not because
  they are true, but because we look for
  information to confirm our view.
• Our expectations will actually influence how
  others behave around us.

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Are we capable of being cruel?

• Yes!!!! Milgram showed that we are capable of
  causing potential harm to others, when obeying
  authority.
• Real-world examples (Nazis, Al Qaeda) soldiers

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History of Social Psychology

• First experiments - reported in 1898.
• First textbook - published in 1924.
• 1930s marked period when social psychology began
  to grow as a solid field of psychology.

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Issues in Social Psychology (Today)

• 1. How does the power of the situation influence
  us? We are influenced by our social and
  cultural surroundings. (e.g., Serbs raping
  Bosnian women during war)
• 2. How do we influence others?
• We can influence those around us.
• 3. What we think influences how well react in
  social situations.

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How values influence research in social
psychology?

• 1. The choice of a research topic is one way by
  which values influence social psychology.
• Social psychology reflects social
  history
• Prejudice studied in 1940s (facism in Europe)
• Conformity studied in 1950s (Leave-it-to-Beaver)
  .
• Gender and sexism studied in the radical
  1960s.

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Values-contd.

• 2. Our opinions can influence our
  interpretations of the results of studies.
• Science is not purely objective, our views
  and our methodology influence how we interpret
  data. (visual perception).
• 3. Value judgments influence concepts in
  social psychology.
• In this field we often describe
  individuals using terms such as mature vs.
  immature, well-adjusted vs. malajusted, and
  normal vs. abnormal. These are categories we
  have created to define a given set of behaviors.
  They are not facts, but opinions.

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Values judgments contd.

• Maslow, the well-known humanistic psychologist,
  studied how people become self-actualized.
• Self-actualizaed individuals have met all their
  needs for survival, safety, belongingness, and
  self-esteem and go on to fulfill their human
  potential.
• (E.g., Ghandi)
• Maslow was guided by his own values to pick
  those individuals he thought were
  self-actualized. Had he adopted different values,
  the list of names may have changed.

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Values
4. Confusing what is with what ought to
be. Naturalistic fallacy the error is
defining what is good in terms of what is
observable. (What is typical or normal is
good. What is different or deviant is
bad.) Mom always said, Would you jump
off a bridge if everyone was doing it.
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Methodology - Theories

• A theory is an integrated set of principles that
  explain and predict observed events.
• Social psychologists use theories to explain how
  a group of behaviors work, how they are
  influenced by one another, and how they might
  predict future behavior.

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Advantages of theories

• 1. Theories allow us to summarize the results of
  many research studies.
• Good theories are parsimonious.
• 2. Theories provide starting points for new
  research.

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Disadvantages of theories

• 1. No theory explains all that is known about
  social psychology.
• 2. Theories affect what new information is
  published, biasing the knowledge we have about
  social psychology.
• New evidence that does not support the
  current view may or may not get published.

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Judging Theories

• 1. Testability- should make unambiguous
  predictions that can be tested.
• 2. Simplicity-the theory that explains the data
  with the fewest of assumptions is the best.
• 3. Generality
• 4. Fruitfullness should encourage more
  research in areas.
• 5. Agreement with data

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Hypothesis testing

• A testable prediction is called a hypothesis.
• Hypotheses serve many purposes
• 1.They allow us to test theories (by suggesting
  ways to falsify it).
• 2. Hypotheses give direction to research
  (researchers look for things they might not have
  thought of before).

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Correlational studies

• A correlation is the relationship between two
  variables (e.g., height and weight, SAT and
  performance in college)
• It can have a value from 0 to 1.00 and its
  direction is indicated by a or sign.
• In social psychology correlations are useful
  because they can be obtained in natural settings.
• No causal inferences can be made.

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Survey research

• A representative group is one in which every
  person in the population had an equal chance of
  being picked (this means all subgroups- joggers,
  republicans, brunettes).
• The larger the sample size, the greater the
  likelihood all groups will be represented.

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Experimental Research

• True experiments allow researchers to manipulate
  the variable of interest, while holding all other
  variables constant.
• The variable that is manipulated, is called the
  independent variable (e.g., amount of caffeine
  consumed).
• The variable that is influenced by the
  independent variable is the dependent variable
  (items recalled on a memory test).
• . Social psychology experiments examine why
  behavior varies among people, across situations,
  and over time.
• Social psychologists have used the experimental
  method in about three-fourths of their research
  settings (Higbee others, 1992) and in two out
  of three studies the setting has

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Experiments in social psychology

• Social psychology experiments examine why
  behavior varies among people, across situations,
  and over time.
• Social psychologists have used the experimental
  method in about three-fourths of their research
  settings (Higbee others, 1992)

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Experiment

• Do children model violent behavior from being
  exposed to violent TV?
• Chris Boyatzis and colleagues (1995) showed some
  elementary school children, but not others, an
  episode of the 1990s most popular and violent
  childrens TV program, Power Rangers.
• Immediately after viewing the episode, the
  viewers committed 7 times as many aggressive acts
  per two-minute interval as the non-viewers. The
  observed aggressive acts we called the dependent
  variable.

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Ethics in Social Psychology

• Social psychology can border on the edge of what
  is ethical.
• To achieve realism in the experiment, subjects
  (Ss) often have to be deceived about the true
  nature of the study. This is usually
  accomplished with an elaborate ruse or plausible
  cover story.
• The true nature of the study is often hidden so
  that we can access the Ss real behavior in a
  given situation.

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Ethics contd.

• Demand characteristics are cues in the experiment
  that give the S information about the nature of
  the study.
• We need to avoid demand characteristics as much
  as possible.
• Ss need to be debriefed about the true nature
  of the study following their participation in the
  experiment.