ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

The Nature of Social Psychology

Tom Farsides:

29/09/03

Tom Farsides:

29/09/03

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

The goals of the lecture series

NOT• To cover everything in text.

Chapters 1 through 11 must be read and learnt. Any part of Chapters 1 through 11 may be examined.

TO• Illustrate active engagement with the material.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Lecture structure

Why bother to study social psychology?

What social psychology is.

Methods in social psychology

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Why bother with social psychology?

1. To get better grades.

2. To avoid the pitfalls of specialisation.

3. Because all human science is social psychological, e.g., Orne’s (1971) demand characteristics.

4. Because it will make you a better person and will contribute to a better society.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Creating or studying phenomena?

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Improving you, your grades and your society

• Get in the habit of ‘manipulating’ the material you encounter.

• Start by choosing one or more things you really want to change about (i) yourself, and (ii) society.

• For everything you encounter on this course, ask yourself, “what use is this to me in promoting my personal and social goals?”

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Section 2: What social psychology is

“The scientific study of the reciprocal influence of the individual and his or her social context”

Manstead & Hewstone (1995, p. 588)

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Example topics within social psychology

Helping behaviour (altruism)

Aggression Attitudes Attraction (e.g., friendship, love) Interdependence Intergroup relations Prejudice and discrimination Social identity and the self Social influence (e.g., conformity, minority influence) Stereotyping

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Let’s take a closer look at what the individual parts of the definition

mean...

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

“…the scientific study of…”(i.e., Uses ‘the scientific method’)

• Empirical

• Systematic study

• Search for general principles

• Positive criticism (self-testing)

• Social and rational (non-subjective)

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

“…the individual…”

Psychology is interested in two ‘ABCs’ of the individual.

The individual focus distinguishes psychology from related empirical disciplines. e.g., pharmacology e.g., sociology.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

“...in their social context…”

Distinguishes social psychology as a sub-discipline.

“Social context” may be actual, perceived, and/or conceived.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Section 3: The scientific method in psychology

Scientific psychology

• Generates literature-aware, empirically testable, and replicable research hypotheses.

• Employs a variety of methods to repeatedly test them.

• Communicates and interrogates results.

• Strives for ever-better theoretical precision and coverage.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Key terms and concepts in scientific psychology

• Theories• Hypotheses• Conceptual variables and operational variables• Construct validity• Manipulation checks• Convergent and discriminant validity• Reliability (internal, test-retest, inter-rater)• Triangulation• Replicability • External validity• Generalisation• Utility

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Correlational research

Correlation assesses the linear relationship between two variables.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

The correlation coefficient

Shows the strength and valence of a linear relationship between two continuous variables.

Ranges from -1, through 0, to +1.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Correlation and causation

Correlation does not allow us to ‘locate’ cause and effect.

If A correlates with B, there are three causal possibilities.

1. A (amount of violent TV watched) causes B (aggressive tendencies),

2. B (aggressive tendencies) causes A (amount of violent TV watched), or

3. Some other variable, C (extent of family troubles) causes both A (amount of violent TV watched) and B (aggressive tendencies).

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Experiments

Experiments allow us to infer cause-and-effect relationships because of the two essential characteristics of experiments:

control of the experimental procedures, and

random assignment of participants to conditions

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Independent variables

An independent variable is one that the experimenter manipulates to examine its effect on participants.

They have two or more conditions (or levels).

An experiment will have one or more independent variables.

A ‘subject variable’... ...is a preexisting difference among participants ...may be used as an independent variable.

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Dependent variables

A dependent variable is an operationally defined measurement employed to see if is affected by the different conditions or levels of the independent variable.

There can be one or more dependent variables (DV) for each independent variable (IV).

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Control in experiments

To ensure that any changes in the dependent variables are caused by differences in the levels of the independent variables.

Experimental group(s) receives treatment.

Control group Otherwise identical, but doesn’t receive treatment.

Any differences attributable to controlled difference (i.v.).

Potential extraneous or confounding variables ‘controlled for’ (e.g., held constant).

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Random Sampling

Random Allocation

What does it involve?

Everyone from a population has an equal chance of being a participant in the study

Each participant has an equal chance of being in any of the conditions

What is the biggest advantage of using this procedure?

Representative samples, enabling confident generalization of the results.

Unlikely that the conditions differ in terms of pre-existing differences among the participants, enabling confident determination of whether the independent variable(s) cause an effect on the dependent variable(s)

Random Sampling compared to Random Allocation

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Societies of psychologists

The British Psychological Society (BPS) Our national organisation Low cost student membership (£13) Many sub-sections, e.g., social psychology, student Cheap journals, e.g., BJSP for £10.50 (student rate) Benefits include receiving ‘The Psychologist’ (newsletter) See http://www.bps.org/index.cfm

Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Largest organisation of personality & social psychologist in world Low cost student membership ($25) Benefits include receiving PSPB, PSPR, and ‘Dialogue’ (newsletter) See http://www.spsp.org/

ATP 1: Social Psychology 1: The nature of social psychology

Important web pages

Social Psychology Network Best social psychology site on the www. http://www.wesleyan.edu/spn/

My site Pages of specific interest to Sussex psychology students, e.g.,

social psychology, study skills, etc. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/ssfd0/home.html (Capital U, digit 0)

Psychabilities Supplementary resource to core text of Brehm et al. (2002) http://college.hmco.com/psychology/brehm/social_psychology/

5e/students/