Defining the Field/Social Psychology Theory

Social Psychology

• The science that seeks to understand how people think about, feel about, relate to, and influence one another

Key Areas of Study

• Social cognition

• Attraction, close relationships

• Person perception

• Attitudes

• Group influence

• Interpersonal conflict

• Persuasion and social influence

• Prejudice and discrimination

• Prosocial behaviour, aggression

Goals of Social Psychology

• Describe phenomena with clarity and precision

• Predict outcomes by understanding the relationship between variables

• Identify causal relationships

• Explain why a causal relationship exists -- What is the mechanism?

Mechanism or Mediator

• The psychological mediator explains at least part of the reason the independent variable has an effect on the dependent variable

• There can be multiple mediators or mechanisms that help to explain a complex effect

Goals of Applied Social Psychology

• Describe phenomena with clarity and precision

• Predict outcomes by understanding the relationship between variables

• Identify causal relationships

• Explain why a causal relationship exists -- What is the mechanism?

• Use this knowledge to identify levers for change

  • To control personal or social behaviour or outcomes -- Intervention

Intervention

• A strategy/procedure/information campaign intended to influence the behaviour of people for the purpose of improving their functioning with regard to some social behaviour or outcome, personal or practical problem

What is a Theory?

• A set of interrelated hypotheses or propositions concerning a phenomenon or set of phenomena

• A set of ideas that can help to explain and/or predict certain outcomes or patterns of behaviour

• Theories help to explain observable patterns of behaviour in systematic ways

Dirty Dishes Example

• You leave dirty dishes in the sink instead of cleaning up

• Some says this makes your roommate mad, other days it does not bother them

• In its simplest form, a theory specifies a relationship between two or more variables

  • Frustration → Aggression

  • Cues to Aggression → Frustration → Aggression and Attribution → Frustration → Aggression

Scientific Process

• Theory Development → Specific Hypotheses → Hypothesis Testing → Observation → Cycle continues constantly

4 Steps of the Scientific Process

• Theory Development

• Specific Hypotheses

• Hypothesis Testing

• Observation

Induction

• Moving from the specific to the general -- From specific observations to general principles or theories

Deduction

• Moving from the general to the specific -- From theories to specific hypotheses

Hypothesis

• A prediction that specifies a directional relationship between two or more variables

Diffusion of Responsibility

• Bystander effect

  • Solo bystanders will help more than when they are one of many people

    • Kitty Genovese case

Role of Anecdotal Evidence

• Anecdotal Evidence: A piece of biased evidence, usually drawn from personal experience, used to support a conclusion that may or may not be correct

• Limited by the quality and representativeness of obersvations and by memory shortcomings

Functions of Theories

• Organize: Organize all observations about test preparation behaviour

• Direct: Guide a search for more evidence

• Intervene: Identify and implement new study behaviours

Applied Social Psychology

• Observation of a real-world problem leads to theory development and to explain the problem, then later illuminates ways to change the outcome

• Sometimes a problem is identified, past relevant theories are used to inform interventions

Characteristics of Social Psychological Theories

• Scope

• Falsifiability/Testability

• Parsimony

• Range or Generalizability

  • WEIRD Participants

Scope

• The number of behaviours tested

Falsifiability/Testability

• Could it be tested and refuted?

• Unfalsifiable theories:

  • Snake Handlers: “your faith protects you”

  • Freud: Mental illness stems from childhood experience

Persimony

• Complex enough, but no more complicated than necessary

Range or Generalizability

• Universal to humans or limited to certain groups, cultures, genders, ages, personalities?

W.I.E.R.D Psychology

• Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic

  • Make up 12% of the world population but 80% of psychology participants

• More individualistic, analytic, fairness-focused, higher existential anxiety, less conforming, less situation-attentive

• External validity/generalizability issues

• Most susceptible to Müller-Lyer Illusion

  • may be related to exposure to Western architecture/straight lines

Develop a Theory

• Problem: Some students, at every level of education, seem to just give up when they do poorly at something, while other students do not

• Various terms have been used to describe these students:

  • “failure syndrome”

  • “defeated”

  • “learned helplessness”

• To answer, you may consider:

  • Personal past experiences

  • Observations in the world

  • Reviewing research literature

  • Looking at related theories

Attribution Thoery

• A set of related theories dealing with the way in which individuals perceive/explain the causes of a behaviour

• Attribution is not about identifying actual causes of an outcome, its about people’s interpretation of the causes

Weiner’s Attributional Theory of Motivation and Emotion

• Internal and Stable -- Lack of ability (i’m not smart enough)

• External and Stable -- Task difficulty (This topic is too hard)

• Internal and Unstable -- Lack of effort (I didn’t work hard enough/wrong strategies)

• External and Unstable -- Luck (I had a bad day/unlucky)

Failure Syndrome

• Children who gave up in the face of failure attributed their failures to a lack of ability

• Children who persisted in the face of failure attributed their failures to a lack of effort

Key Intervention Insight

• Ability -- Students conclude they can’t change it

• Effort/Strategy -- Students conclude it is changeable/can be improved

Attribution Retraining

• Shift students’ explanations away from (lack of) ability and toward more controllable causes, such as insufficient effort or use of an inappropriate strategy

• Expose students to a structured series of experiences (modeling, socialization, practice, and feedback) that shift these attributions

Attribution Retraining -- Example

• Divided children identified as “extremely helpless” into two groups

  • Attribution Retraining

  • Success Only

Intervention:

• Did series of math problems for 25 days

  • Success Only children

    • Criterion for success set at or below number of problems child was able to complete

  • Attribution Retraining Children

    • Criterion for success set above what child was able to complete

    • Child was told “you had to do 2 problems to earn a token and you only did 1. You should have tried harder”

Hypothesis:

• How will attribution retraining relate to giving up vs. persistence?

Measuring:

• Children from both groups given sheets of math problems

  • One of the sheets contained problems beyond their capability -- a “failure” sheet

• Measure of persistence: how many problems did they correctly solve after the “failure” sheet

Results:

• Success only students did significantly better than attributional retraining theory

How Did Theory Help?

• Helped us organize observations, research findings

• Gave us direction

  • Stimulated thinking about other factors that might be important in determining reaction to failure

• Served as a guide to intervention

  • Helped us think of what some of the key elements of an intervention might be

Why is Theory Useful?

• Attribution theory deals with the explanations people make for their outcomes - the stories they tell to help them make sense of their lives – the previous example is linked to growth mindset

• This theory can then help us make predictions about other related phenomena