ch.2 methods of social 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

In what formats are surveys conducted?

With written questionnaires and interviews

What type of people should take the survey?

They must be representative of the target population

What is the best way to obtain a representative sample?

You must select potential respondents randomly

What must you do to obtain a random sample?

You must give everyone an equal chance of being chosen

Convenience sampling

Contacting people as they enter the library or emailing fraternity or sorority members; it is not random and it may be biased in some way

Biased

It might include too many of one type of people and too few of others

Which surveys should you typically ignore?

The ones touted in magazines

Why should you ignore surveys touted in magazines?

They often survey their own readers who are a particular type that like to read that magazine

How do southerners and northerners from the US feel about violence?

Southerners are more likely than northerners to approve the use of violence in various situations, including defending your home and spanking your children

How did anthropologists explain the reasons behind southerners’ and northerners' feelings about violence?

They found Northerners descended from farmers and farmers tend to be peaceful, but southerners descend from shepherds and shepherds tend to be sensitive to insults and are afraid of losing their flock

Correlational research

Psychologists measure two or more variables and examine whether they are related

Experimental research

Enables researchers to make strong inferences about Why a relationship exists or how different situations affect people's behaviors

What is a good way to begin your inquiry?

Look for correlations

Why must correlations be tested before they are considered significant?

Does variable 1 influence variable 2, or is it the other way around? Or is there a third unseen variable that affects them?

Self-selection

The participant rather than the researcher, the participants’ level of each variable

What problem does self-selection create?

Other unknown properties might be responsible for the observed relationship

How is the strength of a correlational relationship graded?

From 0 to -1 or +1

What does a 0 mean for a correlational relationship?

There is no relationship at all

What does a +1 grading mean for a correlational relationship?

One variable is high while the other variable is also high

What does a .1 grading mean for correlational relationship?

It is weak

What does a .3 grading mean for a correlational relationship?

It's a moderate relationship

What does a .5 or higher grading mean for a correlational relationship?

It is a strong relationship

Why should scientific studies reported in the media be taken with a grain of salt?

They usually come from correlational studies which may or may not show a causal relationship

Why are correlational studies valuable?

They can point you to several possible variables

Longitudinal study

A study where data is collected at different points in time from the same participants

What is the best way to be sure about causality?

Experimentation

Independent variable

Assumed to be the cause of some particular outcome

Dependent variable

The outcome, which is measured

Who determines the level of the independent variable?

The researchers

In what ways is the dependent variable measured?

Verbal reports, behavior, physiological measures, or neural measures

What is an example of a verbal report?

Statements about degree of anger or anxiety

Control condition

A condition comparable to the experimental condition in every way except that it lacks the one ingredient hypothesized to produce the expected effect on the dependent variable

Random assignment

Assigning participants in experiments to different conditions randomly

What is the purpose of random assignment?

It makes the types of people in the different conditions roughly equal

What are some limits that experiments have?

Sometimes they are difficult to conduct or unethical

Natural experiment

A naturally occurring event or phenomenon with somewhat different conditions that can be compared with almost as much rigor as conditions manipulated by the investigator in an experiment

What is an example of a natural experiment?

In the 70s, when Sesame Street first came out, not all areas had the ability to broadcast it. It was found that in areas that could watch Sesame Street, children had higher grades

External validity

How well the results of a study generalize to contexts outside the conditions of a lab

Why is external validity so important?

The purpose of research is to be directly relevant to events of the outside world

When is external validity not essential?

When the purpose is to clarify assumptions, general idea or theory

What happened when American participants were shown repeatedly images of fake Chinese characters?

Words and characters that were presented many times were more likely by participants to be thought to have positive meanings