The Methods of Social Psychology

Hindsight Bias

people’s tendency after learning about a given outcome to be overconfident about whether they could have predicted a given outcome

How does social psychology help us understand our behavior?

Social psychological research has provided a great deal of insight into human behavior that often runs counter to our intuitions.

Thought Experiment

speculating about how you would test a given idea

Hypothesis

a prediction about what will happen under particular circumstances

Theory

a body of related propositions intended to describe some aspect of the world

Dissonance Theory

People like their thoughts to be in line with their actions, and they will do significant cognitive work to achieve this consistancy

Observational Research

involves observing participants in social situations. Social psychologists often observe social situations in a semiformal way, taking notes and interviewing participants. Observations can be misleading, however, and any tentative conclusions gleaned from observation should be tested using other methods

Participant Observation

Observing a phenomina at close range

Archival Research

involves analyzing social behaviors documented in past records. Can be used to test theories about social behavior

Surveys

asking participants questions, usually through an interview or a questionnaire.The sample of the survey must be representative of the whole population.

Random Sampling

Every person has an even chance of being selected

Convenience Sampling

Is not random. The people are chosen because they are easy to reach

Correlation Research

psychologists measure two or more variables and examine whether they are related.

Can be helpful in alerting psychologists of something that needs further studying

Experimental Research

Research that randomly assigns people to different conditions, or situations, enabling researchers to make strong inferences about why a relationship exists or how different situations affect behavior.

Third Variable

A variable that exerts a causal influence on both variable 1 and variable 2

Does Correlation equal causation?

NO!

Self-Selection

this is a problem that arises when participants, rather than the researcher, select their level on each variable, bringing with this value other, unknown properties that make causal interpretation of a relationship difficult.

(Is the participant a genius or an idiot?)

What is the range of the strangth of association?

-1, a negative assocation

0, no association

+1, a positive assocation

Longitudial Study

collecting measures at different points in time from the same participants

Independent Variable

variable is manipulated; it is hypothesized to be the cause of a particular outcome.

Dependent Variable

This is the variable that is measured (as opposed to manipulated); it is hypothesized to be affected by manipulation of the independent variable

Control Condition

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

Random Assignment

assigning participants in experimental research to different groups randomly, so they are as likely to be assigned to one condition as to another

Natural Experiment

This is a naturally occurring event or phenomenon having somewhat different conditions that can be compared withalmost as much rigor as in experiments in which the investigator manipulates the conditions

External Validity

An indication of how well the results of a study pertain to contexts outside the conditions of the laboratory.

Field Experiment

Takes place in the real world, usually with participants who are unaware that they are involved in a research study at all.

Internal Validity

confidence that only the manipulated variable could have produced the results.

How are internal and external validity related?

oppositely related; the more one type of validity can be controlled, the less control will be possible for the other type.

Reliability

Degree to which a measure gives consistent results on repeated occasions or the degree to which two measuring instruments (such as human observers) yield the same or very similar results.

Measurement Validity

The correlation between some measure and somen outcome that the measure is supposed to predict

Statistical Significance

a measure of the probability that a given result could have occurred by chance.

Replication

reproducing the results of a scientific study

You need to be able to reproduce the results of a study

Regression to the mean

the tendency of extreme scores on a variable to be followed by, or associated with, less extreme scores.

Open Science

Practices such as sharing data and research materials with anyone in the broader scientific community in an effort to increase the integrity and replicability of scientific research.

Institutional Review Board

This is a university committee that examines research proposals and makes judgments about the ethical appropriateness of the research. All research done at colleges must be approved.

Informed Consent

a person’s signed agreement to participate in a procedure or research study after learning all the relevant aspects

Deception Research

Research in which the participants are misled about the purpose of the research or the meaning of something that is done to them

Debrifing

Asking participants directly if they understood the instructions, found the setup to be reasonable, and so on. After an experiment, debriefing is used to educate participants about the questions being studied.

Basic Science

science or research concerned with trying to understand some phenomenon in its own right, with a view toward using that understanding to build valid theories about the nature of some aspect of the world

Applied Science

research concerned with using current understanding of a phenomenon in order to solve a real-world problem

Intervention

an effort to change a person’s behavior