Module 1

 

Doing Social Psychology

 

What is Social Psychology?

 

According to your author Social Psychology is “The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another”

 

Social Psychologists ask how other people affect individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

 

For example, you might wonder about how your thoughts and feelings about your roommate/spouse/friend impact your interactions with him/her?

How does his or her behavior towards you affect your own behavior, thoughts and feelings?

 

Focus of Social Psychology

 

We are interested in Individual behaviors within a group or when acting alone. Sociology, for example, might focus or classify people in terms of group factors or roles.

 

Social psychology looks at this behavior and how you are affected by the affiliation with or the presence of others. This focus or definition distinguishes social psychology from other areas of psychology.

 

What variables are of interest to social psychologists?

 

Culture

Religion

Gender

Identity

Community

Perception

 

What is a Hypothesis?

 

A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events or variables

 

What is a theory?

 

It is an integrated set of principles used to explain our observations. We may revise this theory and use the theory to give direction to research.

 

Doing Psychological Research

 

1.      Define a problem – use theory, research, events or personal experiences

2.      Review the literature

3.      Generate Hypothesis

4.      Select a research method

5.      Doing Psychological Research

6.      Collect data

7.      Analyze the data

8.      Report the results

9.      Replicate

10.  Refine theory

 

Research Designs

 

Field Research

Naturalistic

Laboratory

Correlational Studies

Experimental

 

Good News Survey (Tierney, 1987)

 

“People who often ate Frosted Flakes as children had half the cancer rate of those who never ate the cereal”

 

This research is not experimental an only shows a relationship not cause and effect

 

Experimental research searches for cause and effect relationships between variables

 

Independent and Dependent Variables

 

Experimental research:

Control: Manipulating variables

Random assignment: The great equalizer

Ethics (e.g. informed consent)

 

Random Assignment

 

The Key to Random Assignment is the fact that everyone has an equal chance of being assigned to either the control or experimental group.

 

Ethics of research

 

Informed consent obtained from all participants

Truthful disclosure

Protect participant

Insure confidentiality

Debriefs participant

 

You must decide what is and is not ethical?

 

What about deception? When is it appropriate? How do you decide if appropriate?

 

What is the role Mundane Realism?

How far should Experimental Realism go?

 

Informed Consent

 

What would you include?

            Design

            Purpose

            Experimenter and funding source

            Risks of all kinds

            Safeguards

            Role of subjects

            Option to opt out

            Debriefing

 

 

Key Points

 

Can we really generalize between lab and real life?

Can we really control all variables?

Key to science is evidence and testable hypotheses