Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Psychology
Social Psychology by
Tom Gilovich, Dacher
Keltner, and Richard
Nisbett
Characterizing Social Psychology
Social Psychology - The scientific study of the feelings,
thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations
1. Explaining Behavior
• What social psychologists study:
- how people are influenced by others
- how people make decisions
- inferences we make about others’ attitudes and personalities
- influence of situational variables on behavior
- how we make sense of our world
Characterizing Social Psychology
1. Human Universals
2. Group Living, Language, and
Theory of Mind
14 12
12
Subject Ratings of
10
7
8
Helper
6
3
4
2
0
Low Moderate High
Temperature
Confounding of Variables
Surveys
– investigators use questionnaires or interviews to
gather data about subject’s behavior
Naturalistic Observation
– investigators observe subject behavior without
direct intervention
Case Studies
– in-depth probe of individual subject(s)
Correlation/Descriptive Research
Advantages
– Study phenomena that can’t be studied in a lab
riots
effects of supervisor behavior on employees
effects of job loss on couples’ relationship quality
effects of smoking on physical health
– Very realistic
results can be generalized to other settings
Correlation/Descriptive Research
Disadvantages
– less control over extraneous variables
– difficult to measure behavior as precisely
(compared to lab experiments)
– cannot demonstrate cause and effect
relationships
Ethical Considerations
350
300 r = .95
Final Grade Points
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 50 100 150
Exam Points
Correlation:
350
300 r = .00
Final Grade Points
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 50 100 150
Exam Points
Correlation:
High
r = -.95
Turnover Intentions
Low
Low Job Satisfaction High