social psyc 1

- open source free textbook link in syllabus (helpful for assignments but not super reccommended) - tested on stuff from slides - participation most weeks fridays (assignments, every1 in group must upload) worth 15%, 3 tests (including final quiz) (test jan 31 25%, march 7 25% - not cumulative, mc/short answer, pencil paper, final quiz april 10% - mc only), video assignment due march 21 worth 25% (explain concept (agression/prejudice discrimination/in group processes in vid format - pairs or alone - online textbook handy to start early - list of topics so pick soon - feb 7 latest),

what is social psyc? social psyc is the

scientific study of the way peoples thoughts/feelings/behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people and the study of the way people think/feel about/relate to/influence other people

• how do others influence us directly or when we are on our own? (being aware others exist, social psyc can exist when you’re alone - ie falling up stairs alone and still feeling embarrassed as you imagine what it is like if others were watching)

• humans are social beings, others are part of almost every thought/feeling/behaviour we have

• social psych helps provide explanations of why people act the way they do, helps us understand others

guiding principle in class is

mutual respect

• only need 8 in class participation assignments

social psyc topics fall into one of three categories:

social thinking, social relations, social influences

6 examples of social relations

group processes (how groups operate together, group decision making), interpersonal attraction (romantic attraction to others), interpersonal relationships (relationships with others, often romantic but sometimes platonic), prosocial behaviour (helping others), agression (hurt others), prejudice (negative attitude towards group based on inaccurate assumptions)

• babysitter example fits here in interpersonal relations cuz trying to establish with friends that she is a certain type of person + social thinking the self

• road rage (agression) cuz feeling frustrated

• holding door open for someone would be prosocial behaviour

5 examples of social thinking

social cognition (thinking about social things/how we process info), social perception (how we interpret social things), the self (best self), attitudes (how much we like or dislike social things, often other people or groups), attitude change (changing our attitudes to be more positive or negative towards something)

3 examples of social influence

conformity (going along with group), compliance (persuading others or self to do something), obedience (required to do)

• speeding to keep up with flow of traffic (conformity)

first social psych experiments were conducted in

1898

first social psych textbooks published in

1908

Experimental approach to studying behaviour was refined by the first social psychologists (aka when social psyc gained popularity) in the

1940s and 1950s

Social psychology influenced by historical events,

Many social psychologists attempted to understand how Adolf Hitler’s influence and behaviours during WWII, and why such strong prejudice and discrimination

• influenced by social contexts at time

examples of social psyc experiments include the

milgrim experiment (especially influenced by ww2 - how people obey others when asked to do things they dont wanna do: teacher/learner, teacher taught learner how to memorize words with groups and had to use a shock machine) and the stanford prison experiment (mock prison people assigned roles of prisoner or gaurd)

• videos to watch in powerpoint

• both influenced by ww2

• both brought up ethical concerns in psychological research, and how researchers can push things in the direction they want things to go by manipulating situation (which was happening in these studies, specifically zimbardo stanford prison studies - discovered tapes that showed zimbardo instructing guards on how to behave when in the study it said that the behaviour would indicate how they acted)

Topics emerging over time (still ongoing)

• Obedience, conformity (1930s-1970s)

• Helping, aggression, group processes, intergroup relations (1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (her research)

• Attitudes, persuasion, cognitive dissonance (late 1950s, 1960s)

• Social cognition (1970s, 1980s)

• Health, Happiness, Culture, Social neuroscience (2000s)

Kurt Lewin’s (social psychologisy) person-situation interaction equation is

Behavior = f (person, social situation)

• said that the behavior of a given person at any given time is a function of (depends on) both the characteristics of the person and the influence of the social situation

  • ie weather, time, responsibilities

  • social psych focuses on the situational aspect, but everything interacts (debate if it was situation or personal factors, lewin said it was both and they interact - which is correct as it is what the research shows is that most behaviours are a product of the person and situation - we are focusing in this class on the situational things, but personal factors come into play)

Fundamental attribution error is the

the common tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviour stems from internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors

• overestimating personal factors, underestimating situational factors

• ie girl alone at party, you walk by and assume it is because she is shy/antisocial (something involving personal dispositional factors) compared to situational factors like waiting for her friends to show up

• ie at resturaunt a server is “rude”, you say they aren’t nice (something about their personality) and discount potential situational explanations (first day, just got bad news, having bad day)

• overall people gravitate towards dispositional explanations when explaining behaviour of others

• when explaining behaviour of self, we often gravitate to situational explanations

in the road rage situation, the fundamental attribution error can be applied: ie

someone cuts you off

• everyone has different situations and is having different days (ie driving home from work, to visit family…)

why care about social psych? social psych can help us

solve social problems

• climate change, racism, war, are all social things that social psych research can be applied to to help solve or change

• ie of social psych creating change:

  • Promoting condom use reducing HIV transmission (cognitive dissonence)

  • Demonstrating discrimination exists via research evidence in certain contexts used in legal proceedings, like human rights complaints

  • Stereotypes (social psyc research topic) influence policy violence/ racial profiling

  • “Influencers” in the social network can significantly decrease school bullying via targetting kids who have power in social network (popular kids to stand up to bullying, leading to norms moving through network)

  • Demonstrating the importance of paid sick leave (social psyc has analyzed that people are more productive when they have paid sick leave and spend more time at work)

Social Psychology Methods: very first step is creating

a Hypothesis: A testable statement or idea about the relationship between 2 or more variables.

• Where do hypotheses come from? Theories, Previous research, Personal observations

ie: what is relationship between alc consumption and making friends? hyp is people who drink more frequently make more friends because social inhibitions are reduced

Operational definition:

the precise specification of how variables are measured or manipulated

• ie alc consumption: people who drink vs dont drink, or # of drinks per week, or ml volume of alc (many dif ways to define it)

• ie friendship: hard to define, as a researcher could say: how many people’s phone numbers are in your phone, people you see/hangout with in person, if someone agrees to hang in person (definitions are often unique to study, or taken from prior research)

• figure these out early on in research process

3 Types of Social Psychology Methods

1) Observational: What is the nature of the phenomenon? no interaction, no manipulation (ie watching ppl at bar)

2) Correlational: What is the relation between variable X and variable Y? interact, no manipulation (ie asking people things and looking at results)

3) Experimental: Is variable X the cause of variable Y? interact, with manipulation (ie assigns one group drinks alc, one group drinks water, with social situation present)

Random selection/ Random sampling is needed to draw causal conclusion, which is

a means of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population, by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample.

• considered gold standard

Correlational research includes the Correlation coefficient, a

statistic assessing how well two variables are associated, or how well you can predict one variable based on another

• Ranges from -1 to +1

• Positive correlation: increases in the value of one variable are associated with increases in the value of the other variable

• Negative correlation: increases in the value of one variable are associated with decreases in the value of the other variable (can still have strong association)

• no association = no correlation

Experiments involve the Researcher randomly assigning participants to

different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable.

• Independent variable (can be more than one) –the variable manipulated by the experimenter

• Dependent variable (can be more than one) –the variable measured by the experimenter

• Random assignment-Process where all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment.

Why random assignment? So researchers can be relatively certain that

differences in participants’ personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions.

Social psychologists use two major types of experimental methods: Laboratory experiments and Field experiments

• laboratory experiments are when participants know they are being observed/measured

• field experiments are when participants do not know they are being observed/measured

Experiments invove Internal validity, which is

Ensuring that nothing other than the independent variable can affect the dependent variable

• better/higher in lab experiments than field experiments as labs have more control

• Accomplished by controlling extraneous variables and random assignment to condition

how can experiments accomplish internal validity?

by controlling extraneous variables and random assignment to condition

experiments involve external validity, which is

The extent to which study results can be generalized to other situations and other people

• higher/better in field experiments than lab experiments (no good in lab cuz not “real world”)

• Accomplished by ensuring that the psychological processes triggered in anexperiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

how can experiments accomplish external validity?

• by ensuring that the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

Experiments pros/cons

• Advantages: Allows cause-effect conclusions, Allows control of extraneous variables

• Disadvantages: Artificial situations may not represent relevant events as theynaturally unfold (subjects’ responses may not be natural,given that they know they are being observed).

• drawback to external validity as its so controlled

Key component of social psychology:

 Replication! - Repeating a study  

• Sometimes with differences (e.g., method, setting, population); sometimes the same or as close as possible

• Want to get the same result to demonstrate external validity/ generalizability in case first study was a fluke or flawed in some way

• replication crisis in 2015 - lots of effects in psych were not being replicated, other scientists would try to replicate and they did not obtain the same results; meaning researchers were fabricating data or could be a fluke (like milgrim and zimbardo). movement in 2015 to do better when it comes to replication. was across the board, but especially an issue within social psyc

Research ethics in Canada

 Tri Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2)

• Overarching Canadian policy framework for research involving human participants

Ethical Principles – TCPS2: 1. Respect for persons

• Free and informed consent

• Protecting those with developing/diminished autonomy

Ethical Principles – TCPS2 - 2. Concern for welfare

• Consideration of impact on physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as participants’ physical, economic and social circumstances

• Consider risks & potential benefits of research

Ethical Principles – TCPS2 - 3. Justice

• Obligation to treat people fairly & equitably

• Equal access to benefits/equal share of burdens

• Avoid under protection & overprotection

Research ethics for all/any research in psyc include:

1. Informed consent: agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment that has been explained in advance

   • if the study contains deception, it must contain;

2. Debriefing: explaining to participants, at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and what exactly transpired.

In order to examine the impact of marriage on happiness, researchers asked participants: a) whether they were married or not; and b) how happy they are on a scale from 1-10

 What kind of research is this?

it is correlational

Researchers wanted to examine the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression. All participants played a video game for 1 hour (Half were assigned to play Halo; Half were assigned to play the Sims). Then, participants are given the opportunity to harm someone they dislike (by pouring hot sauce in their drink) and researchers observe whether they choose to do this.

 What is the hot sauce behaviour?

it is the dependent variable

 In the video game-aggression study just described, participants who played Halo could bring a friend to play with them; whereas this opportunity was not given to participants playing the Sims. What does this compromise?

 1) Internal validity

2) External validity

it compermises internal validity

Researchers have observed that those who identify less with their racial group are less likely to be prejudiced. This is an example of a:

 1) positive correlation

 2) negative correlation

positive correlation