Discussion
Raciel1990
2 years ago
10
files (5)Discussion.docx
Ch1IntrotoSocialPsych.pptx
- Ch3TheSelfpart2.pptx
- Ch3TheSelfpart1.pptx
- Ch8SocialInfluencePersuasion.pptx
Discussion.docx
Discussion
1. Discussion Question: Create a post with a discussion question. This can be a short post, just a sentence or three, that poses an interesting question. For example, “Based on the material from this week, what additional research do psychologists need to conduct to continue to understand and reduce racial prejudice?” Or “In addition to business meetings and juries, what are some other situations where we could see group decision-making happening in the real world? And what potential problems would arise during such a meeting?”
2. Two Discussion Replies: Provide a reply to at least two different questions that someone else has posed. Your reply should be at least a paragraph long, at least 150 words long. You can also reply to other people’s replies instead of just the question. In your reply, you must reference material that we have covered that week and how it relates to the question, but you can certainly expand your reply beyond the material and discuss your own ideas as well. For example, “In keeping with what we learned about the bystander effect, because more bystanders present doesn’t necessarily increase the chances of receiving help, I recommend trying to point at one person specifically to ask for help. The idea is to make that person feel some amount of responsibility in the situation. Additionally, I would recommend…...(reply continues up to 150 words or more)” That reply references the material from the week (the bystander effect) but it also includes the student’s opinion on what to do in such a situation.
Ch1IntrotoSocialPsych.pptx
Social Psychology
Chapter 1 - Introduction
What is Social Psychology?
Social Psych is an exciting and absolutely critical branch of psychology!!!
It has the answers to questions like:
What is so broken within our political system?
How/why does discrimination and institutionalized racism occur?
What tricks are people using to get you to buy things?
Why do people love selfies/Facebook so much?
How can we all improve our decision-making?
Course outline
In Module 1 we’ll cover the Self and Persuasion
In Module 2 we’ll cover Attitudes and Prejudice
In Module 3 we’ll cover Individual and Group Decision-Making
And in Module 4 we’ll cover Emotions, Stress, & Aggression
*Remember, post on discussion boards each week and there are exams after every 4 lessons
What is Social Psychology?
Definition:
Social Psychology – is the scientific study of how people affect and are affected by others
Social psychology is one of the primary/basic theoretical subdivisions of psychology, along side behaviorism, cognitive psych and physiological psych
The applied subdivisions of psych (therapy, legal psych, I/O psych, sports psych, etc.) all draw from those basic 4 theoretical areas of psychology
Where did Social Psych come from?
Some findings in behaviorism were inexplicable and required a new explanation
We’ll cover that in Chapter 7 under dissonance
Researchers began to see that people’s behavior varies largely based on the presence (or imagined presence) of other people
For example, a cognitive psychologist may research how someone generates solutions to a problem, but it takes social psych to demonstrate that more people being present will mean that person generates less solutions
Where did Social Psych come from?
The basic/theoritcal subdivisions of psychology developed in the following order:
1. Behaviorism
Behaviorism and Freudian Psychology were at odds, Freud studied the inner workings of the mind whereas behaviorists were only concerned with actions
Freudian psych was not scientific and so faded away
2. Social Psych: 1950’s
3. Cognitive Psych: 1970’s
4. Physiological/Biological Psych: 1990’s
Now the 4 theoretical subdivisions of psych all compliment and inform each other
Where did Social Psych come from?
Social Psych also arose to address societal issues during very turbulent times:
World Wars 1 & 2
Following orders
Increase of communism
Changes in sexual behaviors
The Great Depression
Where did Social Psych come from?
The person credited with doing the first Social Psych study was Norman Triplett in 1897
He found bicyclists who compete against other people go faster than those who compete against the clock
Then in the early 1920’s Ross and Allport both published the earliest books on Social Psych
Allport’s concept of the ‘attitude’ and Lewin’s concept of the person-situation were foundational concepts
Example of person-situation: if you want to predict Bill’s work behavior, you must know about him (is he motivated & intelligent?) and the situation (is there an imminent deadline?)
What separates social psychology from other disciplines?
Many of the topic areas studied by social psychologists are also studied by anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, economists, etc.
The key difference is that social psychology uses the scientific method to answer it’s questions
Philosophers or economists often write-up 90+ page essays on why some phenomenon occurs, their points may be well-reasoned and logical
But often real-world data don’t follow what should logically happen
Humans are complex, messy, irrational creatures, and many of the findings from psychology are counterintuitive
*Note I’m a philosophy minor, so I’m not just randomly trash-talking other fields. But I do firmly believe that any discipline that follows the scientific method brings invaluable tools to understanding the world
Social Psychology as a Science
For starters, when doing science, try to avoid being science doggo:
The Scientific Method
The vast majority of Social Psychology studies (as well as studies from other areas of psychology), should all follow the scientific method
Form of critical thinking based on careful collection of evidence, accurate description and measurement, precise definition, controlled observation, and repeatable results
One exception is observational or case studies, but those are rare
The Scientific Method (cont’d)
Six basic elements
Making observations
Defining a problem
Proposing a hypothesis
Gathering evidence/testing the hypothesis
Theory building
Publishing results in peer-reviewed journals
Peers being scientists
Testing Hypotheses
Hypothesis: scientifically testable predicted outcome of an experiment or educated guess about the relationship between variables
Operational definition: defines a scientific concept by stating specific actions or procedures used to measure it
e.g. Anxiety, one could definite it as physiological arousal (increased heart rate and sweating)
Theory Building
Theory: a system of ideas that interrelates facts and concepts, summarizes and explains existing data, and predicts future observations
A good theory is potentially falsifiable (i.e., operationally defined) so that it is open to disconfirmation
This is where Freudian Psychoanalysis failed as an area of study
Data must be shown to support a theory
Experimental Approach to Science
To identify cause-and-effect relationships, we conduct experiments
What effect does the independent variable
have on the dependent variable?
Three Types of Variables
Independent variables (IV): condition altered by the experimenter; experimenter sets their size, amount, or value; these are suspected causes for behavioral differences
Dependent variable (DV): demonstrate effects that independent variables have on behavior
aka outcome variable
For example:
Does caffeine (independent variable) improve memory (dependent variable)?
Does Zoloft (IV) reduce depression (DV)?
Do carbs (IV) give you more energy (DV)?
Does music (IV) improve your mood (DV)?
Does mental imagery (IV) improve free-throws (DV) in basketball?
Do breaks (IV) help jurors pay attention (DV)?
***I remember it by: DV depends on the IV***
Experimental and Control Group
Experimental group: the group of participants exposed to the independent variable
Control group: the group of participants exposed to all variables that the experimental group is exposed to EXCEPT the independent variable
***Should be no difference between groups other than the IV
***In the experimental approach, participants should be randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control group
For example:
Grp 1 (experimental group): is given Zoloft
Grp 2 (control group): is given a sugar pill, placebo
Result: Grp 1 had less depression
Placebo effect: believed effect or expectation is accounted for here via sugar pill
IV: Drug, Zoloft
DV: Depression
Taking Zoloft reduced depression (cause & effect)
Let's say you want to look at if kids from a broken home (IV) perform worse at school (DV).
Well, you can't split up newborns at the hospital and assign them to either a stable family (control group) or a broken home (experimental group)
So, what can you do to research this?
Correlational Approach to Science
Studies designed to measure the degree of a relationship (if any) between two or more events, measures, or variables
With our example, "Is there a correlation between having a stable home and good grades"?
Correlations (cont’d)
Positive correlation: increases in one variable are matched by increases in the other variable
Negative correlation: increases in one variable are matched by decreases in the other variable
Correlation does not demonstrate causation: just because two variables are related does NOT mean that one variable causes the other to occur
It could be that the 2nd variable causes the first
Or it could be a third variable can explain the relationship
What are some features of quality scientific research?
The concepts on the following slides are a good start!
Eliminating or reducing Extraneous Variables
Extraneous variable: condition that a researcher wants to prevent from affecting the outcomes of the experiment
Aka "Confounding variable"
Aka "third variable problem"
For example:
Does protein (IV) in breakfast give kids more energy (DV), laps ran during P.E.?
Grp 1 (experimental): bacon & eggs
Grp 2 (control): plain toast
Result: Grp 1 kids ran more laps
Problem: CONFOUNDING variable....TASTE
Resolve: remove taste, tasteless protein powder in cereal (grp 1) vs regular cereal (grp 2)
Random Assignment
Random assignment: participant has an equal chance of being in either the experimental or control group, evenly balancing extraneous personal variables
Other extraneous variables are made exactly alike between the two groups
Resulting dependent variable differences between the experimental and control groups MUST be due to independent variable
*Note when studies can’t use random assignment, such as our broken homes & grades example, correlational studies should systematically factor out potential third variables
Statistically significant: results gained would occur very rarely by chance alone
The difference must be large enough so that it would occur by chance in less than 5 experiments out of 100
Research Participant Bias
Research participant bias: changes in participants’ behavior caused by the influence of their expectations
e.g. participant is aware of eyewitness memory methodologies, suspects it, and tries to memorize the event
Courtesy bias: in research; a tendency to give “polite” or socially desirable answers
Researcher Bias
Researcher bias: changes in behavior caused by the unintended influence of the researcher
Self-fulfilling prophecy: a prediction that leads people to act in ways to make the prediction come true
To Resolve these biases:
Double-blind experiment: the participants AND the researchers have no idea whether the subjects get real treatment or placebo
Some questions to ask when reviewing a study
- Who is the author?
- Are they funded? Potentially biased? Outside motivations? (political news)
Do the conclusions follow from the data?
Are there extraneous or third variables that could explain the outcomes?
- Did other studies by other people find the same thing? AKA "Convergent Validity"
- Was it published in a peer-reviewed journal?
- Were the statistics accurate? (difficult)
Themes
As we go through the course, watch for the following recurring themes, each one is extremely important to understanding and predicting human behavior:
Compare: people’s innate desire to compare themselves with others
Be Consistent: people’s deep-seated need to have their attitudes & behaviors be consistent
Duplex Mind: the pros and cons to humans having a conscious and a non-conscious mind
The person and the situation will determine the outcome
