ch.2 methods of scoial psychology

How did southerners react to the letter about an apologetic felon who had killed his fiance's lover?

Southerners were more sympathetic than northerners

How are the reasons for many of our behaviors described?

They are unconscious and immune to introspection

Can we be mistaken about the reasons for our own behaviors?

Yes

What does hypothesizing help avoid?

Hindsight bias

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe that after learning some outcome that you could have predicted it when in fact you may not have been able to predict it at all

What should you do if you cannot conduct a study?

Simply thinking about how you might test your hypothesis can lead to new ideas, that upon reflection, might surpass your initial speculation aka a thought experiment

Are thought experiments replacements for actual experiments?

No

Hypothesis

A prediction about what will happen under specific circumstances

Theory

A set of related propositions intended to describe some phenomenon or aspect of the world

What are theories backed by?

Empirical data

What kind of predictions result from theories?

They are surprising except in light of the theory

What can theories lead to?

More hypotheses to explore that are made in the framework of that theory

Dissonance theory

People like their thoughts to be consistent with one another and with their actions and will do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive consistency

What is the first step in scientific research?

Look at a phenomenon in a systematic way, with a view to understanding what’s going on, and coming up with hypotheses about why things are the way they are

Participants observation

Involves observing some phenomenon at close range

How do anthropologists sometimes gather observations?

They may live with a group of people for a long time

Barker and Wright study; anthropology study example

Children were followed around town as they did everything to observe how they interact with their environment

How do social psychologists often make observations?

In semiformal ways, taking notes and interviewing participants

What weakness do observations have?

They can be misleading

How should one deal with observations’ weakness?

Observations should be verified using other methods

Where is archival research conducted?

At the library or at your computer

What kind of archives do researchers look at?

Census reports, police records, sports statistics, newspaper articles, and databases containing ethnographic(anthropological) descriptions of people in various cultures

What did researchers discover when looking at FBI homicide reports?

Homicides were more common in the south(Nisbett, 1993)

What causes of murders were more common in the south?

Murders as a result of insult, barroom fight, or Sexual infidelity(Nisbett and Cohen, 1996)

What types of murders are less common in the south?

Any murder that doesn’t involve an honor component