SOCIAL PSYCH CH. 1

4 goals of scientific research

Description Prediction Control Explanation

informed consent

a research subject's agreement to participate after being informed of any potential risks and his or her right to withdraw at any time without penalty

social learning perspective

a theoretical viewpoint that focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a person's social behaviors

social cognitive perspective

a theoretical viewpoint that focuses on the mental processes involved in paying attention to, interpreting, and remembering social experiences

Sociocultual perspective

a theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes of social behavior in influences from larger social groups

evolutionary perspective

a theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes of social behavior in the physical and psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce

two types of experimental methods

lab experiments and field experiments

Equity and Exchange Theories

life as a social transaction (cost/rewards) *under social cognitive perspective

what drives this social behavior?

norms within cultural groups social class differences nationality/ethnicity fads EX: employees at IBM wear blue shirts to work so apple wears blue shirts to work

theories

-A theory explains existing observations and predicts new ones. Theories are scientific explanations that: -Connect and organize existing observations -Suggest fruitful paths for future research.

what drives this social behavior

-Classically conditioned preferences For example, the feeling of fear at sight of person who hit you. -Habits rewarded by other people For example, a boy who fights frequently after his father praised him for winning fight with neighborhood bully. -Imitating the rewarded behavior of others EX: teen boy decides to become a musician after watching an audience scream for someone at a concert

random assignment

-Everyone in our study has an equal chance of being assigned to any group. -What if all the "smart" people got assigned to the highest study time group? Our results are confounded - we cannot tell which variable is the cause of any changes we observe, because their effects are mixed.

what drives this social behavior

-Genetic predispositions inherited from our ancestors that promoted their survival and reproduction, such as: The tendency to automatically recognize an angry face The tendency for mothers to feel protective of their children EX: infants are born with mechanisms that induce hormonal changes in their mothers which helps care for the child

operation definitions

-Identifies one or more specific, observable events or conditions such that any other researcher can independently measure and/or test for them. -it reduces variability within and between observers.

scientific method

-Observe some aspect of the universe. -Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed. -Use the hypothesis to make predictions. -Test those predictions by experiments or further systematic observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results. -Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation -(analyze your results and make decisions).

what must u have in an experiment

-Random selection of participants from the population maximizes generalizability. -Random assignment of participants to groups minimizes pre-existing differences

random sampling

-Randomly select participants from a population that you wish to generalize to. -Everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of participating in our study. -This is rare, indeed. This limits generalizability, or the population of people we can generalize our study to include. -Therefore, we can only generalize to OOTSI: Others Of The Same Ilk (type or kind; the same).

what drives this social behavior

-What we pay attention to -How we interpret and judge social situations -What we retrieve from memory EX:if u pass a homeless person on the street, u may be more likely to help if you interpret it as something beyond his control, if u think hes a good person.

experiments

-factors of interest are manipulated and other factors are held constant. THIS ALLOWS FOR CAUSAL REFERENCES IN CONCLUSIONS!

naturalistic observation

-inconspicous recording of behavior as it occurs in a natural setting -strengths:spontaneous behaviors, doesnt rely on peoples ability to report to their own experiences -weaknesses:researcher may interfere, interesting behaviors are rare, researcher may selectively attend to certain events and ignore others, time consuming

case study

-intensive examination of a single person or group -strengths:rich source of hypothesis and allows study of rare behaviors -weaknesses:observer bias, difficult to generalize findings form a single case, impossible to reconstruct causes from complexity of past events

lab experiments

-involve the direct manipulation of (independent) variables and the observation of their effects on the behavior of other (dependent) variables. -strengths:allows for cause-effect conclusions, allows control of extraneous variables -weaknesses:artifical manipulations may not represent relevent events as they unfold, responses may not be natural bc they know theyre being observed

field experiments

-involve the manipulation of independent variables using unknowing participants in natural settings. -strengths: allows cause-effect conclusions, participants give more natural responses -weaknesses:manipulations may not be natural, less control of extraneous factors than in a lab experiment

nature vs nurture

-nature is in ur genes and nurture refers to your childhood, or how you were brought up.

survey

-researcher asking people direct questions -strengths:allows study of difficult- to- observe behaviots, thoughts, and feelings -weknesses:people who respond may not be representitive, people may be biased or untruthful in responses

social psychology

-scientific study oh how peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people.

correlation studies

-show a relationship between variables, but they do not show a cause-and-effect relationship.

hypothesis

-working assumption about a cause/effect relationship. -tentative explanation for a phnenomenon, often stated in the from of a prediction together with explanation for the outcome

confirmation bias

People have a tendency to remember evidence that supports their theories and ignore evidence that refutes their theories

Psychological perspectives in social psychology

Sociocultural Evolutionary Social learning Social cognitive

ways to collect data

Ways to collect data: -Correlational Methods -Case study -Naturalistic observation -Surveys -Experiment

debriefing

a discussion of procedures, hypotheses, and subject reactions at the completion of the study :benefits: benefits the participants bc it lets them learn more about that specific experiment and research in general, and it help researchers learn how the participants viewed the procedures, they wanna see if they perceived the experiment in the way the investigator wanted

we can divide the tasks of scientific social psychology into two general categories?

description: need this to have an objective and reliable de explanation: explains why people influence one another in the ways they do

Attribution/Information Processing Theories

effect of thinking on behavior *under social cognitive perspective

negative correlations

indicates that an increase in one variable is associated with an decrease in another variable.

curvilinear relationship

indicates that an increase in one variable is associated with an increase AND a decrease in another variable.

positivve correlations

indicates that an increase in one variable is associated with an increase in another variable.

Cognitive Consistency Theories

striving for consistency in feelings, beliefs, or attitudes and behavior *under social congnitive perspective

what must they be to be scientific?

theories and hypthesis's must be falsifiable (capable of being tested)