Principles and applications of social psychology

• Principles and applications of social psychology

  What Is social psychology?


  Study of behaviour in a social context

  Behaviour can be measures, motivations are more a matter of conjecture

  Feelings, thoughts, benefits, attitudes, intentions and goals must be inferred from behaviour

  These can be related to underlying processes e.g. influence of culture or evolution

  Most modern social psych is the scientific study of behaviour

  Scientific study has arguably been proven to be the most important intellectual human discovery
• Neighbours of social psychology

  PSYCHO-ANALYSIS -> unconscious drives driving from Freud e.g. idea of talking to help, cognitive dissonance = psychological discomfort

  ANTHROPOLOGY - study of human culture

  SOCIOLOGY - study of society and social institutions

  HUMANITIES - English lit. (e.g. novels explore human rs), history, human geography

  in reality psychology emerged from a more medical/scientific basis
• Two ideas about what ‘truth’ is

  RATIONALIST - the truth can be discovered by means of logical reasoning and scientific methods

  POSTMODERN - truth is constructed by the people (usually powerful), they are different and society helps build and agree upon them. it can change

  core of scientific method is objective but surrounded by subjective decisions
• The scientific method

  its constant (cntrolled). Manipulation of one variable to observe it’s affect on another

  Extremely powerful tool for thinking about reality

  Formulate a hypothesis

  Operationalise valid, reliable and discrete measure to test hypothesis

  Either disprove or support hypothesis, cannot prove it

  Avoiding confounding variables can be difficult in social psychology due to the complexity of social settings
• Importance of replication

  Single result could be due to chance

  Same result 20x = more confidence

  Important in social psychology where results can differ due to culture

  Studies must be replicated in different cultural contexts
• Non-experimental methods

  richer but more subjective

  help interpret results of experiments

  archival research e.g. data held by governments

  case studies e.g. unusual people

  surgery need to be valid and reliable

  qualitative research
• Stats and social psychology

  Most psychological studies use quantitative

  Social psychology effects are complex -> part of a wider context of variables and effects

  Social psychology studies require large number of N

  Social psychology tends to make more use of correlations
• Social psychology and ethics

  social psychologists observe people in the ‘real world’

  social context = high ecological validity

  limits possibilities for obtaining informed consent and having a debrief

  historically deception has been used -> created atmosphere of suspicion and promoted unnatural behaviour
• Meta-theories

  a theory about theories, or assumptions that guide the development of theories

  psychologists set theories within broader theoretical views about human nature, include:

  BEHAVIOURISM

  COGNITIVE THEORIES

  SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE

  EVOLUTIONARY

  PERSONALITY
• Behaviourism

  look at what they do, dont trust what they say

  people dont know and can’t accurately report own psychology, researcher must rely on observable behaviour in response to external stimuli
• Cog theories

  people act on prejudices and stereotypes

  very influential, especially in America. people use processes of categorisation and stereotyping to try and simplify a complex social world
• Social neuroscience

  knowing how the brain works will tell us everything

  builds on social cog. seeks to locate cog processes within the brain. some want to reduce all behaviour to biological brain processes
• Evolutionary

  we are hunter, gatherers from 20000 years ago living in a strange, new setting

  attempt to explain behaviour as a legacy of behaviour that were useful for fitness in environment of evolutionary adaption thousands of years ago
• Personality

  knowing person‘s personality can predict behaviour

  Behaviour is a matter of of stable personality types e.g. charismatic = good leaders. Measuring an individuals personality profile lets us know all about them
• Critiques of social psychology

  Overly reductionist

  Overly positivist
• overly reductionist

  human beh only unederstood at relevant lvl e.g. grp beh only understood at grp lvl, not reduced to brain function
• overly positivist

  too much emphasis on science, shld be complimented w other research methods.
• defending an empirical approach to psychology

  1. compliment empirical studies w other methods
  2. mult replications -> especially across different cultures. helps overcome subjective expectations
  3. be precise w research measures and definitions of concepts, or doors to subjective interpretation of data opened
  4. be hesitant and understand w conclusions
• history of social psych

  • origins in folk psychology in germany (volkerpsychologie)
  • GUSTAV LE BON (1896) vaguely outlined the inherited grp mind -> idea of national identities
  • FREUD (1921) grp psych. inf of unconscious. crowd stimulates unconscious, act irrationally
  • MEAD (1934) dramaturgical self, we are actors in social world
• rise of experimentation

  WILLHELM WUNDT- introspection.

  TRIPPLETT (1898) 1st soc psych study. fishing reel, done faster in pairs

  FLOYD ALLPORT (1924) argued soc psych had to be exp science if they wanted to be taken seriously as a discipline
• the 1930s

  dev of attitude scales

  refining methods of validity and reliability of scales

  MURCHISON (1935) first handbook of soc psych

  textbooks and journals helped est soc psych in the academy
• famous studies

  SHERIF (1965) robbers cave

  ASCH (1951) line study, conformity

  MILGRAM (1963) shock study, obedience to authority

  ZIMBARDO (1971) social roles (SPE)