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Unit three assignment one. (U03A1)

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Introduction

This assignment will be focused on identifying a suitable research topic as well as defining the purpose of the topic and its appropriateness in this class. First, I would like to remind ourselves of some previous major terms so as to ensure a mutual understanding on the use of such terms in this assignment. First, I would start by reviewing the term social psychology which deals with the behaviour of a person in a social surrounding. Secondly, a naturalistic methodology, which involves the study of one’s subjects in their natural environment with minimal interference if any. The last term would be social media. This is a collection of networks and interfaces which allow a virtual interaction among humans at different places. A good example of social media would be Facebook. Though there are several social media, Facebook would be our major focus since most of the research would be carried out here.

Previous works related to my research directly or indirectly will also be considered and discussed briefly in an attempt to understand how the rest of the researchers view social media in relation to social psychology. These previous researches would also be used to relate to my theory and hypothesis. In addition to this, their findings would be really helpful in designing my hypothesis. Since every research is founded on some previous knowledge or a theory, I would find such literature review important in supporting my research topic.

Lastly, the assignment will commence on discussing some of the issues I anticipate to face during my study. These would mainly focus on the challenges I may encounter in the field. However, I intend to solve the issues to my best of knowledge to ensure accuracy of my work is optimum.

Research topic

My research topic is simple. It is formulated on a question which would summarise the entire social psychology. “How much is our confidence?” Is my research topic. I find the topic interesting and my choice was based on several reasons which I found appropriate and in line with the impacts of social media in relation to social psychology.

First, confidence is a necessary ingredient in the everyday life. How much confidence ne has is directly proportional to the choices one makes with some other factors held constant. It takes confidence to quit a bad or poisoning relationship. It takes confidence to express oneself in such a way that they pass across what they really mean. Confidence will always affect one’s choices on everyday life.

Secondly, confidence owes its existence from social psychology. For instance, I would argue that confidence is a behaviour. It is like an inner dictator who determines how one views and values themselves. The more confidence one has, the bolder they are in their actions, decisions and behaviour. Thus, confidence could be used to measure how you respond to your environment hence fitting under a social psychology setting which focuses on behaviour.

At another level, social media will have some influence on the confidence of people. For example, some can learn confidence from others through lessons delivered through social media sites and as a result change their behaviour. At the same time, social media can greatly corrode one’s confidence in the real world whereas they may appear and act ‘confident’ in the virtual world. Thus, linking confidence, behaviour, social media and my research is an appropriate way of exploring social psychology. I would conclude that I find my research topic appropriate.

Research setting

I intend to conduct this research on one social media website, Facebook. My choice of the setting is because Facebook is among the leading social media websites with over a billion participants from all over the world. In addition to this, since I would like to research on all kinds of persons irrespective of age, gender, race and religion, I find Facebook a suitable setting for such. My data collection would be based on tallying similar responses for similar situations. However, di-similar responses will not be ignored. The second phase would include questionnaires to random people on Facebook through a common page whereby I would get a view of how certain reactions make them respond. This method would not be relied on too much since people are prone to lies when it comes to issues about themselves (Wittkower, 2010).

This research setting has the following advantages. First, Facebook has a wide coverage in terms of specimen. This would ensure randomness is maximised hence reducing cases of biasness. Secondly, Facebook is the only place I am guaranteed to find all the types of persons I intend to work with. This ranges from teenagers, celebrities to college persons who are the most affected groups by the social media. In addition to this, Facebook gives my subjects a really large social surrounding and thus the results would be really good since their responses will be influenced by a really large crowd. Lastly, Facebook responses have records. Thus one can come back, login and go through the responses that the subjects have written. In such a way, it is convenient in terms of time.

Facebook as a research setting has its limitations too. For instance, people have the choice not to respond to a response if they don’t feel okay with it. As a result, their reactions would be assumed to be none. At the same time, in such a setting, people are prone to posting some information which is not actually true about themselves. On such a case, the researcher will capture data that it almost irrelevant. Another major limitation associated with Facebook is that how people behave in the virtual world does not always much with their true selves. Some will selectively post only what is good about them. This tendency somehow interferes with the natural behaviour where both good and bad would manifest.

Despite the several limitations of this research setting, its accuracy in terms of capturing general behaviour in a social surrounding is quite high. This is because so many people are used to the virtual world such that it has become part and parcel of their natural lives. For example, what would be despised in Facebook would also be despised in the real world.

Previous theories supporting my topic

Social psychology is a science that revolves around society. On the other hand, social media is an interface that allows interactions of persons in a virtual network. Over the years, social media has evolved and is affecting almost every aspect of our society today. Thus, social psychology tries to understand and anticipate these technological changes in our society. By investigating and understanding how the social media is affecting our daily livelihoods, then we are able as psychologists to comprehend the very essence of social psychology. By understanding the new behaviours by studying them, we are able to adjust such that this virtual world does not make us robots and puppets of the technology.

Previous theories that have helped me formulate my research topic have found out that social media is really getting in between almost every activity. The study shows that a large percent of the human population is extremely dependent on their gadgets such as mobile phones and tablets. On a random, even in real social gathering, one would notice people actually on their gadgets instead of socialising! Every now and then they would look at their gadgets to see if there are new updates.

Other studies have revealed that social media has infected our youth to the extent of forgetting how to actually socialise in the real world. We have more online friends than we have in the real life. In addition to this, some extreme cases reveal that there are friends who interact in social media but are not courageous enough to interact with the same friend in the streets!

My study will be based on behaviour in this virtual world and comparing such findings with the real world behaviours. At the same time, it is aimed at gauging how deep humans are into the virtual world at the expense of the real world.

Issues anticipated in study

The major issue I expect in this study would be sincerity of my subjects (Kirkpatrick, 2010). Not everyone who posts that they are having a lovely Sunday are actually having one. One can simply post such information from the comfort of their blankets. However, I intent to tackle the issue by considering the posts in response to a certain stimuli such as comment by a peer.

Another issue may be the tendency of people to delete bad comments in Facebook. This means that if the comment which may have given some useful information about my study subject is deleted before I get to it, then some useful data would have been lost. The issue however, will be tackled by frequenting the website as much as I can as well as setting a reminder to indicate when my subjects respond.

The last issue I anticipate is the choice of my subject. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to choose a fair representative especially from such a large number of persons (Aydin, 2012). I will ensure that my choices are the best possible representative I can get.

Despite the issues I may come across during my study, I am positive they would be appropriately handles and that the research will be a success.

References

Aydin, S. (2012). A review of research on Facebook as an educational environment. Education Tech Research Dev, 60(6), 1093-1106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11423-012-9260-7

Kirkpatrick, D. (2010). The Facebook effect. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Pezzulo, G. (2008). The challenge of anticipation. Berlin: Springer.

Wittkower, D. (2010). Facebook and philosophy. Chicago: Open Court.