Chapter 1 - Lecture notes 1 PDF

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Chapter 1 Learning Objectives 1.

Define social psychology. Scientific study of how people affect and are affected by others

2.

Name the early influences and key ideas that had a lasting influence on the field.

3.

Describe the ABC triad of social psychology.

4.

Explain how social psychology relates to other fields of study.

5.

Assess the different methods of data collection in social psychology.

Chapter Important Points 1-1 1897- Norman Triplett, Indiana University Professor; study with competition machine; showing the presence of another person enhances performance 1880’s- Max Ringeimann, French Professor; study with pulling rope that showed as group size increases, individual effort decreases 1908- 2 books with Social Psychology in title; William McDougall and Edward Ross 1924- Floyd Allport another book published 1954- Gordon Allport observation that attitudes were the most distinctive and indispensable concept in American S.P. Stanley Milgram- When people are given orders by someone with what appears to be legitimate authority, many will follow the orders even if it means harming others. Kurt Lewin’s formula that behavior is a function of the person and the situation 1950s-1960s- Psychology was divided between 2 camps 1. Behaviorism- Behaviorists were opposed to talking about the mind, thoughts, emotions, and other inner processes; focuses on observable actions that could be studied experimentally 2. Freudian Psychoanalysis- elaborate interpretations of individual experiences 1970s-1980s- Social Psychology found its way using scientific approaches to measure behavior, thoughts, feelings, and other inner states -

Study of simple cognitive processes evolved to the study of social cognition

1990s- growing openness to biology, apply the idea of evolution to understanding human social behavior 1-2 ABC Triad- AFFECT, BEHAVIOR, COGNITION 1. Affect- how people feel inside a. How people feel about themselves (Self-esteem) b. How they feel about others (Prejudice) c. How they feel about various issues (Attitudes) 2. Behavior- what people do a. Their actions b. What they engage in 3. Cognition- what people think about a. Think about themselves (self-concept)

b. Think about others (forming impressions) c. Think about various problems/issues Social Psychology emphasizes on how a small change in an immediate circumstance can produce substantial changes in behavior. 1-4 -What separates philosophy from psychology is psychology’s herby reliance on the scientific method -Philosophers deal with problems by thinking carefully and systematically about them -Psychologists address the same problems by systematically collecting data 1-6 -Correlation Coefficient denoted by r. 11=perfect positive correlation, 21=perfect negative correlation, 0=two variables are not linearly related; small r5+1, medium r5+3, large r5+5

Chapter One Quiz Questions 1. The earliest social psychological experiments were conducted in the late 1800s by researchers such as Max Ringelmann and Norman Triplett. What was the topic of these early studies?  Presence of others on individual performance 2. According to Gordon Allport, what was the most central concept in social psychology?  Attitudes 3. According to Kurt Lewin’s formula, behavior is a function of what two variables?  Person and situation 4. In the 1950s and 1960s, psychology was divided between what two camps?  Behaviorist and psychoanalytical camps 5. Unconscious forces are to reinforcement histories as ______is to ______  psychoanalysis; behaviorism 6. What research methodology do most social psychologists use?  Experimental studies 7. What are the components of the ABC triad?  Affect, Behavior, Cognition 8. What is the primary approach that social psychologists use to uncover the truth about human social behavior?  Scientific method 9. A social psychologist is usually interested in studying the ___________  Individual 10. Social psychology has most heavily borrowed methodological tools from what other psychology branch?  Cognitive 11. A researcher is interested in studying how the annual divorce rate changes as a function of the unemployment rate. This researcher is probably a(n) ________  Sociologist 12. “Abnormal” behavior is to “normal” behavior as __________ psychology is to ____________psychology.  clinical; social 13. Who said that he spent his entire life studying social psychology because he had a “basic curiosity about people”?  Edward E. Jones 14. What term when translated means “love of wisdom”?  Philosophy 15. What is the main factor that separates philosophy from psychology?  The methods used to study problems 16. Which of the following researchers would be classified as a “basic researcher”?  Dr. Brain studies memory processes.

17. A testable prediction about the conditions under which an event will occur is called a ______  Hypothesis 18. Which of the following is an operational definition of racial prejudice?  The number of negative traits the person selects from a list of traits when doing the list for his or her own race versus another race. 19. With random assignment, each participant ________  has an equal chance of being exposed to each level of the independent variable 20. Which of the following correlations shows the strongest relationship between the variables?  The correlation between time spent partying and grades among college students is r 5 2.80. 21. What concept allows science to be self-correcting over time?  Replication 22. Most social psychological studies use participants from which continent?  North America 23. What type of participants do most social psychologists use in their studies?  College students 24. Compared to the general population, college students _________  have less crystallized self-concepts 25. Tom Sawyer needs to get the fence painted before he can head off for a fun summer day. If he wants to get it painted quickly, Norman Triplett would advise him to ___  Find a couple of people to work side by side 26. Tom finds more than a dozen friends to paint his fence and they set to work. Upon inspecting the progress, Tom finds that they don't seem to be working especially hard and that their work is shoddy. How would Max Ringelmann interpret this?  In general, the larger the number of painters, the less the effort each individual painter will put into the work 27. After the news broke of the systematic abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the military-run prison in Iraq, some asked how it could possibly happen. What would Stanley Milgram say?  When people are given orders by someone with what appears to be legitimate authority, many will follow the orders even if it means harming others. 28. You visit a friend, who attends another university, on the weekend that your university and his, both long spirited rivals, are playing football against each other. The other team wins and you and your friend sit back in his apartment to watch what he describes as the "post-game show," in which students light couches on fire in the middle of the street. A social psychologist would likely look first to the __  Situation itself 29. One of the assignments for your social psychology class is to develop an experiment addressing a social psychology topic of particular interest to you. You know from your text that an experiment involves _  the systematic testing of a theory

30. You are selected to chair a committee of a charitable organization with which you are involved. As you and the committee discuss potential activities, you notice there are some consistent themes, including the rather large number of activities that are possible, how much time the selected activity will take, what other resources the activity will require, and the extent to which participation in the activity will yield positive attention and press coverage for your organization. You consider the discussion from a social psychological point of view and recognize that the discussion most reflects the influence of _____.  Economics 31. Stuck at home due to a massive storm that has shut down the university and surrounding areas, you binge watch a cooking competition in which the contestants are put through a number of challenges, while the show's host, a well-known chef, screams at, berates, and otherwise verbally abuses and demeans the contestants. The host defends his behavior by explaining that he is just acting in accordance with what is done in any professional kitchen and that if the contestants want to be chefs, they should understand this. You consider his comments from a social psychological point of view and recognize that they are most influenced by the field of __  Anthropology 32. Shortly after starting a residency in psychology, friends start asking you all sorts of questions, even after you clarify that your interest is specifically in social psychology. For example, a friend of yours tells you about a recent crime in which two 12-yearold girls tried to kill a friend. Your friend wonders how they were raised, whether their parents were abusive, and what could have been done differently that might have given them a better moral compass. You explain that this question is best addressed by a _____ psychologist.  Developmental 33. Upon learning that you are a psychology major, a friend of yours immediately begins asking for study tips, noting that when he takes a test, he cannot seem to remember anything. This issue is best addressed by the subfield of _____ psychology.  Cognitive 34. Philosophy is to _____ as social psychology is to _____.  carefully thinking through problems; systematically collecting data 35. You and a friend are arguing about what type of sex education is acceptable and appropriate in public schools. Your friend states that only the abstinence-only approach is acceptable, since other approaches encourage sexual activity. You counter that research has shown that abstinence-only education does not reduce risky sexual behaviors and does not delay initiation of sexual activity. The research you cite is best described as _____ research.  Applied 36. You have decided to conduct research on how religiosity is related to the persuasiveness of messages promoting environmental regulations to climate change. Your next step is to ____

 State a testable hypothesis 37. You are engaging in a spirited discussion with your uncle about gender roles and have explained to him the results of recent research. He responds by dismissively telling you, "that's only a theory." You sigh and emphasize that in science, a theory is _____  composed of logically linked constructs 38. You are working on a research project using applicants for public assistance programs as your subjects. You are examining the relationship between a participant's socioeconomic history and attitudes toward mandatory drug testing. You create a series of questions that assesses an individual's socioeconomic status not just now, but also what it during childhood, adolescence, and each decade of adulthood (as applicable). In doing so, you have developed a(n) ___  Operational definition 39. When reviewing research on political orientation (conservative, liberal, etc.) you review the instrument most often used to assess it. As you look at the instrument, you notice that many of the issues it asks about have long since been resolved and you wonder whether the instrument really measures political orientation, especially for young adults. You are questioning the instrument's _____.  Validity 40. You want to learn more about what it is like to conduct research and decide to participate in a research study to learn more. You come to a research facility where you are given paperwork that gives you information about the study procedures. You recognize that you have been given a(n) _____ form.  Consent 41. You are working on a research project on the relationship between having close gay or lesbian friends or family members and attitudes towards marriage equality. Because you cannot randomly assign individuals to the condition of having or not having gay or lesbian close friends or family, you recognize that your research will be _____.  Quasi-experimental 42. You want to study the relationship between frustration and the amount of money people are willing to donate to various types of causes. You manipulate frustration by having people play a "marble popper" game in which marble trajectory can be randomly changed. You have three levels that determine frustration: no random changes in the trajectory; random changes in trajectory on 25% of shots; and random changes in trajectory on 75% of shots. Subjects are randomly assigned to groups and you are quite confident that any differences observed in willingness to donate will be associated with the amount of frustration you induced. In other words, you are confident in the _____ of your research.  Internal validity 43. You have reviewed research on the use of graphic images to persuade people that they should not text while driving. The research is typically conducted with college students and other adults who are licensed drivers, but you are interested in

whether the findings will hold with 14- through 16-year-olds who are in the process of learning to drive. You are concerned about _____.  External validity 44. You are interested in knowing the attitudes of college students regarding student loans and their ability to repay them. If you want to be able to generalize your results to the entire student body at your university, you would be best served by randomly sampling from students who ____  Are currently enrolled

Chapter 1 Vocab  

Valid- refers to whether a measure actually measures what it purports to measure Reliable- measure that gives consistent results

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Social Psychology- study of how people affect and are affected by others Behaviorism- approach that seeks to explain one's actions in terms of learning principles Freudian psychoanalysis- approach that seeks to explain one's actions by looking at deep unconscious forces Anthropology- study of human culture—the shared values, beliefs, and practices of a group of people Economics- study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods, services, and money History- study of past events Political Science- study of organizations and institutions, especially governments Sociology- study of human societies and the groups that form those societies Psychology- study of human actions Biological psychology (physiological psychology, neuroscience)- study of what happens in the brain, nervous system, and other aspects of the body Clinical psychology- branch of study that focuses on mental illnesses and how to treat them; exchanging ideas and stimulating insights Cognitive psychology- study of thought processes, such as how memory works and what people notice; borrowed heavily from cognitive psychology, especially methods for measuring cognitive processes Developmental psychology- study of how people change from conception and birth to old age and death; D.P. borrowed from S.P. I ex. What age children begin to show pattern of social behavior Personality psychology- branch of study that focuses on important differences between individuals S.P. have come to recognize the importance of inner process and P.P. have come to recognize the importance of circumstances and situations Philosophy- pursuit of knowledge about fundamental matters Applied research- study that focuses on solving particular practical problems Hypothesis- idea about the possible nature of reality; a prediction tested in an experiment Theories- constructs that are unobservable yet linked together in some logical way Confederate- assistant pretending to be another participant in a study Random assignment- procedure whereby each study participant has an equal chance of being in each treatment group Institutional Review Board (IRB)- committee that makes sure that a research study conducted in university settings is ethical Consent form- document that a participant receives before agreeing to participate in a study Confounding- result occurs when the tow effects of variables cannot be separated Field experiment- study conducted in a real-world setting External validity- findings from a study can be generalized to this extent Correlation- relationship or association between two variables Correlation coefficient (r) – the statistical relationship or association between two variables

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Meta-analysis- review of literature that combines the statistical results from all studies conducted on a topic Population- number of total people under consideration Replication- repetition of a study to see if the effect is reliable Operational Definition- observable operations, procedures, and measurements that are based on IV and DV Construct Validity of the Effect- extent to which the DV is a valid representation of the theoretical stimulus Construct Validity of the Cause- extent to which the IV is a valid representation of the theoretical stimulus Demand Characteristics- any clues in a study that suggest to participants what the researcher’s hypothesis is Deception Studies- research studies that withhold information from participants or intentionally mislead them about the purpose of the study Quasi-Experiment- study where the researcher can manipulate an IV but can’t randomly assign participants to conditions Internal Validity- the extent to which changes in the IV caused changes in the DV Confounded- occurs when the two effects of variables can’t be separated Stimulus Sampling- using more than one exemplar of a stimulus Reactance- an unpleasant emotional response that people often experience when someone is trying to restrict their freedom Experimental Realism- the extent to which study participants get so caught up in the procedures that they forget they are in an experiment Mundane Realism- refers to whether the setting of an experiment physically resembles the real world External Validity- the extent to which the findings from a study can be generalized to other people, other settings, and other time periods Meta-Analysis- a quantitative literature review that combines the statistical results from all studies conducted on a topic Validity- refers to whether a measure actually measures what it purports to measure Reliability- measure that gives consistent results Applied Research- research that focuses on solving particular practical problems Correlational Approach- a nonexperimental method in which the researcher merely observes whether variables are associated or related Basic Research- research that focuses on a general understanding of basic principles that can be applied to many different problems Within-Subjects Design- participants are exposed to all levels of the IV Between-Subjects Design- participants are exposed to only one level of the IV Debriefing- an oral or written statement participants receive at the end of a psychological study; it serves two main purposes 1. To fully inform participants about the study and answer any questions they have, 2. To reduce or eliminate any stress or harm the participant experienced by being in the study

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Margin of error- a statistic measure of the amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results Philosophy- “love of wisdom” the pursuit of knowledge about fundamental matters such as life, death, meaning, reality, and truth

Chapter 1 Professor Notes Chapter 1 provides a working definition of social psychology, and tries to convince you that social psychology is a worthwhile topic of study. You should note that the definition of social psychology is relatively broad. The definition used by the authors (and one that fits with other mainstream definitions of the field) is: “the branch of psychology that seeks an understanding of how people affect and are affected by others” (p. 5). From this definition you can see how large the task is that social psychologists have set for th...