Introduction to Social Psych

2 axioms of psych
1. social influence is pervasive
2. people construct their own reality
3 MOTIVATIONAL PRINCIPLES
1. 1. People strive for MASTERY
2. 2. People seek connectedness
3. 3. People value ME and MINE
3 OPERATING PRINCIPLES
1. 1) SUPERFICIALITY VS DEPTH
2. 2. CONSERVATISM
3. 3. ACCESSIBILITY
TYPES OF RESEARCH
1. CORRELATIONAL
  1. a. observational
    1. FESTINGER ET AL - THE CULT: SEEKERS
      1. Cult believed aliens would eventually come and destroy world
      2. leader of cult could communicate w/ aliens
      3. when date came for supposed alien invasion nothing happened
        belief REMAINED - leader successfully "convinced" aliens to stop invasion
  2. b. archival
    1. looking at past research to try and come up with hypothsis
      1. Nisbett & co found felony-related murders vs argument-related murders
        smaller cities and more south had more arguments - culture of honour
  3. c. survey
    1. self-reported data
      1. HOW TO AVOID THESE PBS?
        Tell them its important to be honest
        1970s Bogus Pipeline Technique? :P
        Covert measures eg IAT
    2. PROBLEMS WITH SURVEY
      1. wording pbs
      2. order effects
      3. context effects
        "institute of SOCIAL research" vs. "institute of PERSONALITY research"
      4. response options
      5. social desirability bias
  4. PROBLEMS
    1. not causation - only correlation!
    2. directionality problem - which one is affecting which?
    3. 3rd variable problem
  5. FIELD STUDY
    1. horn honking and temperature
    2. people honk more when its hot!
2. EXPERIMENTAL
  1. IV and DV
  2. random assignment
  3. control group for comparison
  4. manipulation of IV
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY :)
HUFFINGTON POST: SEXUAL ACTIVITY BY SMARTPHONE BRAND
1. between iPhone, Android & Blackberry
2. found iPhone users to have most sexual partners
3. does this mean iPhone users are more sexual?
  1. NO! other factors eg diff in income, personality diffs etc
HEAT & AGGRESSION
1. baseball players more aggressive on hotter days
  1. more likely to hit batter with their pitch!
RESEARCH PROCESS
1. 1. Form a question
2. 2. Search literature
3. 3. Form a hypothesis
4. 4. Create operational definition
5. 5. Collect and analyse data
6. 6. Propose/revise theory
WEB-BASED EXPERIMENTS
1. GOOD: collect lots of data and from wide range of ppl
2. BAD: likely to repeat p/s, ppl may not take seriously, read items carelessly, skip q.s
OBSERVATIONAL/NATURAL METHODS
1. GOOD: eco validity, easy to conduct, good for longitudinal studies
2. BAD: presence of observer influence behaviour, observer biases
3. good to have inter-rater reliability
SELF-REPORT/SURVEY METHODS
1. GOOD: collect data from many, ask q.s for range of topics
2. BAD: question wording. response options, inaccurate responses
EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
1. RANDOM ASSIGNMENT
2. CONTROL
INTERNAL VALIDITY
1. Degree to which IV is only variable that affects DV
2. reduce demand characteristics to increase this
3. use deception
4. provide good cover story
5. high quality control condition
6. minimize experimenter expectancy effects
7. design studies with high sense of realism!
EXTERNAL VALIDITY
1. degree to which SAME RESULTS can be obtained if study were to be replicated & generalizability
2. design studies high in mundane realism
3. use random/representative sample
4. make participation convenient
5. conduct replications in diff settings
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
1. descriptive
  1. using diagram/flow chart
2. thematic
  1. look for themes in data (IPA)
3. discursive
  1. consider why ppl phrase things the way they do
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
1. review of research by research ethics board
2. provide informed consent
3. protect confidentiality
4. provide debriefing
CULTURAL IMPACT ON RESEARCH
1. impact of language
  1. Americans - monkey + banana
  2. Chiense - money + panda
  3. lang may affect accessibility of diff types of thought

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Introduction to Social Psych

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	Created by Helen Li over 10 years ago