PSYC 2015 University of Cincinnati Essay on Social Psychology Experiments

Essay on Social Psychology Experiments

PSYC 2015 - Social Psychology

University of Cincinnati

November 28, 2023

The term paper involves all the researches that were made on the

scope of experimental psychology in social psychology. Social

psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with social

interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual.

Our researches involve the wider perspective of how cognitive

abilities affect behavior. The wider range of experiments is performed

in the field of social psychology intimating the face of its importance.

In the respected term paper five of the research experiments are

summarized. The first experiment is about how feeling good enhances

your capability to help. How the good mood directly increases your

will power to help. Second research experiment is about how rising

income affects human nature either positively or negatively. The result

turned out to be that income doesn't positive behavior as it requires

more potential to earn. Another research report involves how different

stereotypes reside in different minds of people. And how individual

and group judgments effect it. The next search report is about how the

fear inflicts among the people. Two studies have performed that show

that fear transfers from one individual to another likewise empathy.

The last experiment was based on the breakfast task and telephone

interview task. Two studies were conducted. These studies involve the

computerized testing of people's level of planning and monitoring

through their cognitive processes. These experiments sum up the idea

that how experimental psychology has a very significant in the field of

social psychology.

Keywords: social psychology, experimental psychology, mood, help,

income, behavior, stereotypes, fear, planning, monitoring, working

memory, prospective memory, executive processes.

Introduction:

Scope means the futuristic approach of any field that it holds. The

scope of any field means the value it has in our social environment. As

we know that Psychology is not about reading books only, it’s about

communicating and experimenting. And Experimental Psychology is

perhaps, the most realistic subfield of Psychology. Social Psychology

is all about understanding the behavior and nature of the environment

that surrounds us. Experimental Psychology and social psychology are

perfectly linked together because without experimenting we can't find

and explain the nature, behavior, and effects of different social aspects

on the human mind.

Experiment No 1:

This experiment is a part of social psychology because as it is about

human behavior and helping behavior is a socialistic behavior. Social

psychology includes the interaction of people with each other; this

experiment is also about the interaction of people. These are the

reasons this experiment is linked to social psychology. In this

experiment, the effect of a person's positive affective state on

helpfulness was studied. Two studies were conducted in this

experiment. In the study I students studying in the library were given

cookies and checked the effect of this on helping behavior. In study II

people using public telephone were getting a dime from return slot

and studied the effect on helping behavior. In previous studies helping

and success were linked with each other but recent studies suggested

that feeling good enhances the helpfulness of a person. Therefore, the

experiment conducted in which in the study I was conducted in the

library where 52 students were studying. 5 sessions were done.

Experimenter randomly divided the carrels for cookies and no

cookies. And after the distribution and non- distribution of cookies, the

experimenter asked if someone would serve as a confederate. But they

were told that there is an assignment of help and distract to see the

activity of students during examination as compared to rest of the time

and distracter were told that the purpose of the experiment is to see

distractibility. In actual help was confederate's aid that provides

books, novels and things to subjects. While distract will drop things

and make noise to see who would help them. The result of this

experiment was that those who received cookies were more helpful

than those who didn't. In study II, there were 24 females and 17 males.

The experimenter used a public telephone and acted like he had taken

his dime from return slot but in actual he didn't. And whoever comes

next gets the unexpected money from return slot. Then the

experimenter drops the papers and file to see who will help more.

There was a control group who didn't receive any dime. The result

showed that people who received dime helped more than those who

didn't. These studies proved that feeling good and warm makes a

person more helpful.

Experiment No 2:

The summary mainly focuses on the point that if rising income helps

produce a healthy society. Richard Easterlies, a wellrenowned

socialist explained this phenomenon with his debate, explaining how

rising income is not related to social well being of a person, according

to him the rich people are more satisfied as compare to the poor. If

societal wealth is increasing, and then it will prove more beneficiaries

to the rich instead of the poor, hence creating an imbalance in the

society, he also stated that increasing demands of a person may cause

him to demoralize himself when it comes to his wage or salary.

Researchers related this Easterlies hypothesis with GDP. Upon

focusing on both, they concluded that GDP analyses the economic

growth of a nation and merely skip the income and output of a regular

household system. Rising income with regards to social well being is

also concerned with how and where the income is spent. The social

well being of a person depends on the fact that if he is happy spending

his money the way he wants to spend it. Researches carried out this

research AMERICA, Middle East and southeast, around 158 nations

were covered under this survey having both rural and urban states.

This report involved some measures which were asking if the person

is self-confident on his stand in society. Secondly, the country's GDP

was seen and lastly the lifestyle of the nation was taken into

consideration. This article is pretty much linked to social psychology

because it explains the nature and behavior of our social environment

by rising income.

The results showcased descriptive analysis by analyzing income by

log 10 methods. The difference in income between the rich and the

poor were also seen depicting social imbalance. Income of a nation

was seen about the social well being of the society and as to how the

regular household correlates with the nations GDP. Also, relations

between rich states like the USA and poorer state like

BANGLADESH were seen, in poorer nations, a slight income change

wouldn't really contribute to the social well being of the nation.

Easterlies somehow couldn't prove his point on social well being and

income as he only focused on materialistic mindset, he forgot

happiness in his approach and, he approached a few nations, which in

turn can't contribute to global findings. Somehow all the research done

may lead to the fact that why rising income has a weak effect on

positive life or enjoying life. Maybe because to earn more, you must

work more, hence happiness is taken out of the equation.

Selfemployment may, however, cause an increase in income and may

initiate positivity in terms of life. Conclusively, we can say that

increasing income has an effect on the social wellbeing of a person as

the needs continue to grow as time passes by.

Experiment No 3:

This case study was related to making comparisons that how same or

different mindsets affect stereotyping on the basis of individual

judgment rather than the group. This experiment was conducted to

check that the self can also act as a reference point, suggesting that the

power of comparison mindsets depends on what is important for

which we take two studies to check this relationship by manipulating

comparison mindsets and activated representations. In the first study,

94 females from Columbia University took part in this paid study that

self-representation-activated in competition with grouprepresentation

activated (similarity versus difference mindset) between-participant

design. Participants first reported preferences on 18items assessed

from out-group and from self-group which was totally done by the

randomization method. The order was that 6 of the items were

dependable with a shared stereotype, 6 were independent and 6 were

unrelated to shared stereotype. And comebacks were noted on 5 points

scale. Later, participants assigned to write about their typical whole

day for self or group representation. Participants then received

sketches of two scenes portraying urban squares randomly and asked

to list ten ways in which the scenes differed and similarity condition

listed ten ways in which scenes were similar. Lastly, participants

judged a female target; Janet by her sketch constructed on past work

then rated preferences on 18 items mention in the study. The results

found by this study are that participants use group preferences more

than self and when assessed target preferences stereotyping was

stronger than a prediction. And in case of self-ratings on target rating

participants projected more in similarity mindsets.

In study 2 undergraduate 58 female students took part. It's also paid

and principles were all similar to the first study and items were

answered on 5 points scale. The study was done through online

surveys and lab sessions. 6 items were taken for shared stereotype

which was relevant and 6 for unshared which was irrelevant. After

some days in lab sessions, students were supposed to design t-shirt

through markers that would replicate their views. And in last

participants were assigned to rate opposite gender and were given with

the same description of gender mention in study 1.

And we find almost similar results in both of the studies that

supported the idea that different mindsets have different belongings on

projection and stereotyping based on activation of self or group

reference point. When self-representations were triggered, a similarity

mindset intensified projection compared to a different mindset. When

group representations were triggered, a similarity mindset intensified

stereotyping.

Experiment No 4:

In this experiment, it is explained that fear is like the torch of light that

can be passed from person to person, especially when it comes to

passing the fear of a child through the parents. An example of a parent

is afraid of the raccoon behind the bins is presented which conditioned

the child to believe that all sorts of hideous monsters reside behind

dark corners of bins. The experiment that has been mentioned in this

article is that there were mice which were kept in either complete

isolation, or in selected social groups. After that, they were kept near

the other mice where one of them went through a fear conditioning

that inflicted the fear on the other mice as well. The 'fear' was

conditioned through a sound or anything that caused a shock among

them. Here, the independent variable was the sound of a loud bang

which had no effect of anything on itself, but the dependent variable,

which was the mice were pretty much affected by it and conditioned a

certain fear which was later transmitted into the other mice in their

company. The same way, empathy is also transferred in the children

when they see their parents performing any social work or feeding the

poor, which enables the child to put himself into another person's

shoes and feel for him. This urges a sense of humanity and kindness

and it works the best in upbringing. Even though this topic has been

talked about a lot and is seen to influence many people, but there are

hardly any researches which showed how to counteract in such a

situation. Lastly, the link between social and experimental psychology

with respect to this experiment is that a social situation where fear is

inflicted has been justified by proving it with an experiment with

proper use of subjects, IV, and DVs.

Experiment No 5:

The studies involve the cognitive process in the breakfast task. It is a

computerized task that stimulates the planning and monitoring

requirement involved in cooking breakfast. In the first experiment, the

experimenter selected 28 adults were divided into males and female

category they were provided with the touch screen monitor for the

breakfast task. All they have to do was to make the 5 foods and

assemble them on the given table in the given period of time. Their

time was set properly so that the duration of overcooking and

undercooking could be calculated. Their primary goal was to make the

food and assemble them on the table which was said as the secondary

goal. The three types of screen settings were provided. In the one-

screen condition (performed first), all the foods and the table were on

the same screen. In the two-screen condition (performed second), the

table appeared on one screen and the five foods and their time bars

appeared on a different screen, requiring switching between the two

screens. In the six-screen condition (performed last), each of the five

foods occupied a separate screen, in addition to the table screen. The

result came out to be participants often temporarily neglected one or

more foods while concentrating on other foods or setting the table.

This feature of the task resulted in many cases in which participants

might have four discrepancy scores of a few seconds but one poorly

monitored food with a discrepancy of 60 s or more. In the second

experiment, there were 59 adults having the age in between 60 to 79

years. They were divided into 38 males and 21 females. They all were

screened for dementia which is a sort of inability to plan or memory

impairment using the telephone interview of cognitive status TCIS.

The maximum score of TCIS was 41 and the cutoff of dementia at 25.

There were 36 controlled participants of 71.8 years. Their TCIS was

33.4. However, the mean TCIS score was 35.8. All of the participants

were fluent English speakers and the scored 17.3 out of 20 in the

vocabulary test having the 15.4 years of education. They all had

normal hearing and vision too. Later, almost 55 participants were

allowed to perform the breakfast task again after 4 to 5 weeks. 24 of

returning participants had received 2 hours of practice on a

computerized version. 13 had received instruction in aspects of music,

and 18 were controls who received no further training. The resulting

data from the second visit provided a further opportunity to assess the

structure of the Breakfast Task and to measure test-retest reliabilities

of its component measures. Administration of the Breakfast Task was

the same as in Experiment 1 except that participants did not perform

the two-screen condition. We wanted to see if the same factor

structure could be achieved with a shorter version of the task.

Additionally, all participants used the computer mouse rather than a

touch screen in this study.

These experiments link to social psychology because social

psychology comprises the idea of cognition and behavior of human

beings which was all explained through these experimental studies.

Conclusion:

As mention above social psychology is totally depending on

experiments so, our articles are all related to experiments conducted in

the field of social psychology. One of the experiments in which

feeling good enhance your helping behavior and under this study, two

experiments were conducted by which it was proved that your good

mood increases your helpfulness. The second experiment related to

social psychology was that Inflicting fear among the people near you.

Under this study, one experiment was conducted on a mouse which

proves that fear and empathy can be transferred through one another

even without experiencing it. The third study was related to how rising

income effect human beings either positively or negatively. Under this

experiment, 10 studies were conducted and the accuracy rate reached

to 66000. And researchers found that rising income has a low positive

effect on human nature because for more earning you have to work

harder. So it is inversely proportional to happiness and positive life

effect. The fourth study which we take is based on how same or

different mindsets affect stereotyping on the basis of individual

judgment rather than a group. In this study, two experiments were

conducted. We found the same results in both of the experiments that

different mindsets have different belongings on projection and

stereotyping based on activation of self or group reference point.

When self-representations were activated, a similarity mindset

intensified projection compared to a different mindset. When group

representations were triggered, a similarity mindset strengthened

stereotyping. Another study was based on cognitive processes in

which they conduct two experiments. The first experiment was

computerized in which researcher judge planning and monitoring.

And in the second experiment, they judge dementia which is the

inability to plan or memory impairment and measure through scores

that how it is different from person to person. The purpose of all these

case studies was to prove that experiments are very much important in

social psychology as many fields. By experiments, we can see cause

and effect relationships because it is important to utilize the scientific

method to study psychological phenomenon in an objective, empirical

and analytical way and generalize the results to a large population.