Chapter 1

INTRODUCING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter1 What is Social Psychology?

The scientific study of how people think about, influence

and relate to each other.

When compared to sociology, it focuses more on

individuals and does more on experimentation.

When compared with personality psychology, it focuses

less on individual differences and more on how individuals
view and affect one another.
Chapter1

As Social Thinking As Social Influence As Social Relations

How we perceive Culture Prejudice

ourselves and others
What we believe Pressures to conform Aggression

Judgements we Persuasion Attraction and

make intimacy
Our attitudes Groups of people Helping
Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
WE CONSTRUCT OUR SOCIAL REALITY.

How we view the world and ourselves matter. We view the

world objectively but we view it with our beliefs and values.

Ex. How we view a couples break up.

Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
OUR SOCIAL INTUITIONS ARE OFTEN POWERFUL BUT
SOMETIMES PERILOUS.

Intuitions and unconscious processing of information can

be powerful and perilous.

Ex. Possible romantic relationships, assessing applicants,

mode of transportation.
Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
SOCIAL INFLUENCES SHAPE OUR BEHAVIOR.

Attitudes and behavior are shaped by external social

forces.

Ex. Nazi turn innocent Germans into accomplices, 2011

earthquake and tsunami in Japan generated sympathy,
same sex relationships
Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND DISPOSITION SHAPE OUR
BEHAVIOR.

Attitudes and personality influence behavior.

Ex. Political attitudes and voting, WWII imprisonment and

forgiveness
Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS BIOLOGICALLY ROOTED.

Humans are biopsychosocial organisms. It is not just the

social and internal context that affects behavior but also
the different biological structures of humans.

Ex. Emergency situations raises adrenalin, expecting pain

induces the release of endorphins in blood
Chapter1 Social Psychologys Central
Ideas/Concepts
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYS PRINCIPLES ARE APPLICABLE IN
EVERYDAY LIFE.

Social psychology is all about a persons beliefs, attitudes

and relationships. It is about life itself.

Ex. How we make friends, how we manage conflict and

find mutual agreement
Chapter1 Human Values Influence Social
Psychology

Evident when
- We choose research topics (identity theory, aggression
etc.)
- Types of people attracted to various disciplines (liberal
people studying social psychology etc.)
- Values as the object of analysis
Chapter1 Human Values Influence Social
Psychology
Not easily evident when
- When we consider that researchers are often unchallenged because
they belong in the same culture - a set of enduring behaviors, traditions,
ideas and attitudes shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one
generation to the next
- When we interpret the world thru social representations societys
widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and ideologies, which help us
make sense of the world.
- When we make value judgements statements by social psychologists
which are treated as factual explanations but are ridden with values
Chapter1 Examples of Value Judgements

Defining the Good Life

- Ideas influence our idea of how to best live.

Maslow defined his self actualization using people he

chose as samples (Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt
etc.) which ultimately defined his concept based on a
set of characteristics of those individuals.

Things would be different if he chose a different set of

people (Ex. Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great,
Jose Rizal)
Chapter1 Examples of Value Judgements

Professional Advice
- Psychological advice from professionals
often contain personal values, which
cannot be used to answer questions about
moral obligation, purpose and direction,
and the meaning of life.
Chapter1 Examples of Value Judgements

Forming Concepts
- Personal values often seep into well researched concepts. Two
psychologists maybe interpreting the same material but may come up with
different descriptions.
Chapter1 Examples of Value Judgements

Labeling
- Value judgements can also be present in everyday language

Whether we view wartime civilian deaths as the loss of innocent lives or as collateral
damage affects our acceptance of such.

When they exalt their country and people, it is nationalism; when we do it, it is patriotism.

When we consider unmarried couples having sex as pre marital and immoral or as part
of romance reflects our views on relationships.
Chapter1 Is Social Psychology Simply Common
Sense?
Does it document the obvious? Is it dangerous
because it can be used to manipulate people?
Common sense seems usually correct after the
results.
We usually do not expect things to happen until it
does, and then we see clearly what transpired
before the event and feel unsurprised
Hindsight the tendency to exaggerate after learning an
outcome, ones ability to have foreseen how something turned out.
Chapter1

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Actions speak louder than words.

Chapter1 Activity Time!
Find several people to tell the first statement. Ask them to explain it first
then ask them to say whether they find it surprising or not surprising.
Try to take note of what they say. Do the same for the second statement
with same number of people.

1. Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most
attracted to people whose traits are different from our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old
saying Opposites attract.

2. Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most
attracted to people whose traits are similar to our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old
saying Birds of the same feather flock together.
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Correlational Research
The study of the naturally occurring relationships among variables.
PROS
Often involves important variables in the natural setting
Enables psychologists to predict behavior
CONS
Ambiguous interpretation of cause and effect
Does not tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in
another

Knowing that two variables change together (correlate) enables us to predict one
when we know the other, but correlation does not specify cause and effect.
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Correlational Research
Surveys, a tool in correlational research, can be affected by four
influences
Unrepresentative samples
Order of questions
Response options
Wording of questions
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Correlational Research
Framing - the way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence
peoples decisions and expressed opinions.
Can also be applied in research and everyday situations that we make
decisions on.

Example:
To 9 in 10 college students, a condom seems effective if its protection against the AIDS
virus has a 95 percent success rate. Told that it has a 5 percent failure rate, only 4
in 10 students say they find it effective (Linville et al., 1992)
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Experimental Research
Studies that seek clues to causeeffect relationships by manipulating
one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others
(holding them constant).
PROS
Can explore cause and effect by controlling variables and by random
assignment
CONS
Some important variables cannot be studied with experiments
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Experimental Research
Independent variable - the experimental factor that a researcher
manipulates.
Dependent variable - the variable being measured, so called because
it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.

Example:
The more violent television children watch, the more aggressive they tend to be. Do children
learn and re enact what they see on the screen?

Chris Boyatzis and colleagues (1995) showed some elementary schoolchildren, but not others, an
episode of the most popularand violent childrens television program of the 1990s, Power
Rangers. Immediately after viewing the episode, the viewers committed seven times as many
aggressive acts per 2-minute interval as the nonviewers.
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Random Assignment Random Sampling

The process of assigning participants Survey procedure in which every
to the conditions of an experiment person in the population being
such that all persons have the same studied has an equal chance of
chance of being in a given condition. inclusion.

helps us infer cause and effect helps us generalize to a population

Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Ethics in research demand that we do the following

Informed consent - An ethical principle requiring that research
participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they
wish to participate.
Chapter1 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Ethics in research demand that we do the following

Debriefing - the postexperimental explanation of a study to its
participants. Debriefing usually discloses any deception and often
queries participants regarding their understandings and feelings.