Lecture Notes: Research Methods & The Self (Comprehensive)

Quiz and Exam Logistics

  • Open-book/open-note quiz conducted; purpose is to encourage engagement with material and identify red flags before the exam for those who need them.
  • If grading seems off, contact instructor: Canvas sometimes marks answers exactly as typed. Example: if the expected term is "observational study" but a student types "observational studies" or vice versa, grading can be affected; instructor sometimes includes near equivalents to anticipate student responses and then hand-grades items one-by-one.
  • Instructor once corrected an error in grading after a student highlighted a correct response that Canvas marked wrong; students should advocate for themselves and point out issues.
  • If you miss a concept, analyze why you missed it to direct your study (e.g., confusion between concepts or complete lack of familiarity).
  • Exam date: in about a week; format: 45 multiple-choice questions and 2 short-answer questions (short answers likely longer, about a paragraph).
  • Question types: MCQs generally will not be pure vocabulary terms; you should understand vocabulary conceptually to distinguish between concepts or apply to examples.
  • Example of a potential short answer prompt: operationalizing a construct – identify the best operationalization for a construct like Love.
  • If uncertain during the exam between two options, raise the question to instructor; they won’t provide the answer, but will highlight differentiating emphases to guide your reasoning.
  • Study guide: will be posted late tonight (around midnight); not a comprehensive pretest but a guide to emphasize key topics; anything not on the guide may still appear as a vocabulary term in questions.
  • The study guide directs studying but is not exhaustive; expect to cover material from the chapter; if something not on the guide appears, it may reflect a vocabulary term.
  • After the exam, debriefing and additional questions are possible in office hours or follow-up discussions.

Exam Preparation and Study Strategy

  • Plan to study over the next week using the study guide, focusing on emphasized material and concepts rather than only vocabulary.
  • Think about how to apply vocabulary terms to scenarios and distinguish between concepts; practice explaining concepts to others to test understanding.

Today’s Plan and Preview of Chapter Roadmap

  • Today: finish up slides from Research Methods; begin Chapter 3: The Self.
  • Thursday plan: wrap up the self, highlight key research studies from that chapter, and discuss important data and why those studies matter.

Research Methods: Overview and Core Concepts

  • Experimental method as the gold standard in social psychology: aims to document what people do, when they do it, and why (causal explanations).
  • Functionalism (William James) as the foundation for asking: what is the function or adaptive purpose of a process?
  • Distinctions among research designs:
    • Observational study: passive recording in natural settings; no manipulation.
    • Correlational study: assesses relationships but cannot prove causality; uses predictor/outcome terminology.
    • Experimental study: active manipulation of an independent variable (IV) and measurement of a dependent variable (DV); aims to infer causality.
  • Key terms and relationships:
    • Predictor/Independent Variable (IV) or Cause
    • Outcome/Dependent Variable (DV) or Effect
    • In correlational research: a relationship exists but causality cannot be established (e.g., a relationship between high self-esteem and body image concerns).
    • In experiments: manipulation of IV with random assignment and control of confounds allows inference of causality.
  • Example topic: the Mere Exposure Effect (Robert Zients) – familiarity increases liking even when exposure is below conscious awareness.
    • Procedure concept: briefly flash stimuli (e.g., nonsense words, unfamiliar characters) so briefly that participants cannot consciously identify them.
    • Later, participants rate liking for previously seen versus unseen stimuli; familiar stimuli are liked more.
    • Broader implication: familiarity influences liking; this extends to faces and social proximity effects on attraction (proximity increases exposure and liking).
  • Experimental vs observational trade-offs:
    • Experiments require manipulation, multiple conditions, and careful measurement of DV to infer causality.
    • Observational and correlational studies are more naturalistic but do not establish causation.
  • Practice example for IV manipulation: studying in different auditory environments.
    • IV: music condition with three levels (no music/white noise, classical music at low level, loud music).
    • DV: memory recall performance on a list of words.
    • Expected pattern: white noise > low-level classical music > loud music (in terms of average recall); this exemplifies predicting a causal effect of the environment on study performance.
  • Important distinction: random assignment versus preexisting differences across participants.
    • Random assignment helps prevent confounds by distributing participant characteristics evenly across conditions.
    • Confounds are variables other than the IV that could influence DV, such as conscientiousness or baseline motivation.
  • Control and placebo conditions:
    • Control condition provides baseline for comparison, lacking the hypothesized influencing component.
    • Placebo condition: a type of control where participants believe they may receive an intervention, but in reality receive no active manipulation.
    • Placebo effect: outcomes influenced by participants’ expectations rather than the manipulation itself; relevant for both participant reactions and measurement outcomes.
  • Random assignment and precise manipulation underpin the validity of conclusions about causal effects.

Validity in Experimental Research

  • External validity: how well study findings generalize beyond the lab to real-world settings and broader populations.
    • Milgram’s obedience study as a debated example: artificial laboratory setting (shock apparatus) may limit generalizability to real-world aggression or obedience, but some aspects (e.g., social influence) can be generalized with caution; factors such as participant recruitment (newspaper ads, community members) improve external validity in some respects.
    • Trade-offs: lab settings offer control (internal validity) but may reduce real-world applicability; field studies increase external validity but may sacrifice control.
    • Generalizability concerns when sampling: if only testing students from a southeastern elite university, generalizability to other cultures or socioeconomic groups is limited.
  • Internal validity: how tightly an experiment tests the causal mechanism and minimizes confounds.
    • Emphasizes control, rigorous manipulation, and random assignment to ensure that observed effects are due to the IV rather than extraneous variables.
  • Reliability and validity of measurement:
    • Reliability (dependability): consistency of a measurement across time or items; e.g., a personality test should yield similar results on repeated administrations under similar conditions.
    • Measurement validity: the degree to which a measure actually assesses the intended construct; e.g., IQ tests should correlate with other indicators of intelligence and related cognitive tasks.
    • Convergence: multiple measures of the same construct should show correlated results if measured well.
  • Notes on personality measures:
    • Personality tests often predict general, average behavior across many situations, not behavior in a single specific situation, due to situational variability.
    • Across many contexts and times, personality predicts average tendencies; situation-specific behavior can diverge due to situational demands.

Ethics in Social Psychology Research

  • Institutional Review Board (IRB): federally mandated committee at universities to assess research involving humans and animals.
    • Responsibilities: weigh costs and benefits, assess validity, ensure the study justifies participants’ time and potential discomfort.
    • Require informed consent before participation: participants must have enough information to decide whether to participate; use the reasonable person standard (legal origin) to judge what information is sufficient.
  • Informed consent in practice:
    • Not always full disclosure of every aspect of the study because deception and methodological tricks are sometimes necessary to answer research questions.
    • When deception is used, debriefing is required after participation to restore participants to their prior state and explain the deception.
  • Deception research and debriefing:
    • Example: false feedback paradigm (participants told they scored at certain levels; later told this was random) is used to study effects on self-esteem and subsequent behavior.
    • Debriefing should reveal the deception and provide an accurate explanation; many participants report learning from the experience when properly debriefed.
  • Debriefing and post-study follow-up:
    • Debriefing is a general process of explaining the study’s purpose, procedures, and what was manipulated.
    • For deception cases, explicit return-to-baseline and explanations are essential; optionally, provide access to study results or contact information for further information.
  • Replication and best practices (Replication Crisis context):
    • The field has faced concerns about non-replicable findings; causes include statistical practices, selective reporting, different operationalizations, historical changes in social norms, and sometimes questionable data practices.
    • Solutions proposed by Diener and Biswas-Diener and others include: preregistering hypotheses, sharing data, and promoting transparency; these practices help reduce biases and enhance credibility.
  • Replication specifics and nuances:
    • Not all non-replications imply fraud; some arise from changes in social context, methodological differences, or alternative valid operationalizations.
    • Examples include conformity research across decades showing changes in social norms; Milgram’s obedience studies replicate well, while the Stanford Prison Experiment faces ethical and validity criticisms.
    • Emphasis on transparency and verification to reinforce trust in findings.

The Self in Social Psychology: Core Ideas

  • The self is social; even private beliefs are shaped by social interactions and demands.
  • Classical approaches to the self:
    • Kun and McPartland (1954) introduced the 20 Statements Test (the 20Q/"Who am I?").
    • Task: list 20 different self-descriptions; format typically involves self-concept content and ordering reflects salience of attributes.
    • Public vs private responses: publicly writing 20 statements emphasizes surface-level attributes (e.g., student, Wake Forest student, age), while private responses might reveal political or religious orientations.
  • Interpretive frameworks:
    • Sociologists emphasize internalized but consciously held social roles (e.g., wife, mother) and social-relationship-based identities as organizing principles of behavior.
    • Psychologists emphasize a mix of social roles and personal traits that define the self beyond social roles.
  • Cross-cultural findings (20Q contents):
    • Kenyan and U.S. samples show cultural differences in self-concept content; some cultures emphasize relational attributes (e.g., being a good friend) while others emphasize individual attributes.
  • The self-concept research uses content analysis of the 20Q to understand what is most central to a person’s identity and how that content varies culturally and contextually.

The Self and Social Cognition: How We Think About Ourselves in a Social World

  • Social cognition study focus:
    • How we think about ourselves in relation to others; how we select, interpret, remember, and use social information.
    • Our memories and interpretations are biased; memory is not an objective processor and can be influenced by motivations and social identities.
  • Key themes in social cognition:
    • Perceptual construction: experiences are subjectively interpreted through our past experiences, motivations, and current concerns.
    • Priming and accessibility: what we think about often shapes how we interpret new information.
    • Most of our thoughts are not linear or purely logical; they’re influenced by situational context and personal relevance.
  • Everyday examples:
    • Personal arguments: others may remember events in a negative light, while you remember them differently; in many cases, both sides are influenced by self-protective cognitive biases.
    • Everyday choices and impressions are shaped by which thoughts are most salient to us (e.g., sports, politics, social justice) and by our self-concept contents.
  • General consequence: research in social cognition shows that impressions are constructed and not purely objective; our self and others are interpreted through cognitive filters.

The Historical and Conceptual Foundations of the Self

  • Wilhelm Wundt and early psychology: introspection as a method for understanding the self and mental processes.
  • William James (1890): The Principles of Psychology – introduced the I and the Me, the dynamic self that experiences current events (I) and the self that is observed or described (Me).
    • The social Me: aspects of the self that are shaped through social interaction (roles, relationships, social identities).
    • The I: experiencing, thinking self in the moment; the Me includes the interior self-contents that we reflect on.
  • The narrative self: some researchers argue that people develop a continuous self-narrative, updating a life story as experiences occur.
  • The era of introspection and narrative self underscores the social nature of the self and how interactions shape self-concept.

Practical Takeaways for Exam and Study

  • Be ready to discuss: difference between IV and DV, random assignment, control vs placebo, and threats to internal/external validity.
  • Be able to describe: why replication matters, how preregistration and data sharing improve research integrity, and how deception requires debriefing.
  • Be prepared to explain: Mere Exposure Effect and its implications for social behavior (e.g., proximity and liking).
  • Be able to articulate: the relationship between social context and self-concept, including the role of social roles and personal attributes in self-definition.
  • Practice applying vocabulary terms to scenarios and explain why a given operationalization best captures a construct (e.g., Love).
  • Remember the cultural context: the self is partly constructed through social and cultural content; cross-cultural studies reveal different self-concept contents.
  • Review key ethical concepts: informed consent, IRB review, deception, debriefing, and the balance of risk/benefit in human research.

Quick Reference: Symbols and Concepts to Remember

  • Independent Variable (IV) / Predictor: the manipulated factor in an experiment, often denoted as X.
  • Dependent Variable (DV) / Outcome: the measured result, often denoted as Y.
  • Random Assignment: assigning participants to conditions by chance to minimize preexisting differences.
  • Control Condition: a baseline condition lacking the experimental manipulation.
  • Placebo Condition: control condition where participants believe they may receive an active manipulation.
  • Internal Validity: rigor and control in the experimental design ensuring that changes in DV are due to IV.
  • External Validity: extent to which findings generalize beyond the study setting.
  • Reliability: consistency of measurement across time or items.
  • Construct Validity / Measurement Validity: the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure; convergence with related measures supports validity.
  • IRB (Institutional Review Board): evaluates ethical aspects and risk–benefit ratio of research involving humans.
  • Informed Consent: participants’ agreement to participate based on understanding potential risks and benefits.
  • Deception and Debriefing: deception may be used under strict ethical guidelines; debriefing is required to restore participants’ understanding after the study.
  • Replication: repeating studies to verify findings; promotes reliability and credibility of scientific knowledge.
  • Mere Exposure Effect: increased liking for stimuli due to repeated exposure, even without conscious awareness.
  • Self-Concept Content (20 Statements Test / 20Q): 20 statements describing self-attributes; cross-cultural content differences reveal social vs. personal emphasis.
  • I vs. Me (James): I is the active experiencing self; Me is the self that is observed and described, including the social Me.

Final Note on Exam Strategy and Support

  • If you’re unsure between two answer choices, recall the core distinctions discussed (e.g., what makes the IV manipulate causality, what constitutes a control vs. placebo, differences between internal/external validity).
  • Use the study guide to prioritize topics, but be ready to discuss any chapter content and apply vocabulary in context.
  • Remember to manage time on the exam and to ask clarifying questions during the exam if you’re unsure about a prompt’s requirements; instructors will guide you without giving explicit answers.
  • After the quiz feedback, use it to refine study targets: identify which concepts were challenging and review their practical applications.