David Myers

11e
Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

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Chapter One
Introducing Social Psychology
What’s the point about Cinder Ella?
 Does her self-perception matter?

A sub-discipline of psychology ψ
What is psychology?
What are some other sub-disciplines?


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What Is Social Psychology?

Scientific study of how people think about, influence,

and relate to one another
B = f (p*e)

Social thinking
Social influence
Social relations

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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS . . .

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Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

We Construct Our Social Reality

We react differently because we think differently
 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth football game demonstration
 Objective reality
 Beliefs about others

 Beliefs about ourselves

What really happened in Ferguson MO?

 Did the grand jury make the right decision?
 Perspectives from M. Brown? D. Wilson? Bystanders? Public?

What’s the point here?

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Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but

Sometimes Perilous
Dual processing (Kahneman “Thinking fast & slow”)
 Conscious and deliberate – system II
 Unconscious and automatic – system I

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Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

Social Influences Shape Our Behavior

Locality – give an example
Educational level -give an example
Subscribed media give an example
Culture –same sex marriage ok with you?
Ethnicity

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Personal Attitudes and Dispositions
Internal forces
 Inner attitudes about specific situations
Personality dispositions (individual differences)
 Different people may react differently while facing the same
p
situation B = f ( *e)

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Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted

Evolutionary psychology
 Natural selection predisposes our actions and reactions
 Prejudice happens early at the brain level

 We prefer the familiar things – why?

 Hint: evolution

Social neuroscience
 We are bio-psycho-social organisms

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Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable in

Everyday Life
How to know ourselves better
Implications for human health
Implications for judicial procedures
Influencing behaviors

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Social Psychology and Human
Values
Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology
“personal convictions” give an example of one for a
social psychologist…and how it can influence her work.
Research topics
Types of people
 Do business students differ from ψ students?
Object of social-psychological analysis
 How values form
 Why they change

 How they influence attitudes and actions

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Social Psychology and Human
Values
Not-S0-Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology
Subjective aspects of Science
 Culture –which is better, competition or cooperation?
 Social representations – shared beliefs taken for granted
 Are there any real group differences for race/gender?

Psychological concepts contain hidden values

 Defining the good life
 Professional advice

 Forming concepts
 How could high self-esteem be the same as “defensive”?

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Labeling – some examples
• “terrorist” or a “freedom fighter”
• “welfare” or “aid to the needy”
• nationalism v. patriotism.
• open marriage” or “adultery”
• “Brainwashing”
• “Perversions”

Can you think of others?

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Is Social Psychology Simply
Common Sense?
What did Cullen Murphy and Arthur Schlesinger have in
common?
Paul Lazarsfeld
 “Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than did less-
 educated soldiers.”

Problem with Common Sense

Invoked after we know the facts (post hoc)
Hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)
 Missed or misinterpreted clues of 9/11
 2008 world financial crisis

Caveat: STUDY THE MATERIAL Why?

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Forming and Testing Hypotheses
Theory (falsifiable)
Integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed
events: see Kerlinger:
h

ttp://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch/632/kerlinder%20definitions.ht
m
Hypotheses
 Testable proposition that describes a relationship that may
exist between events
What’s the difference between a “fact” and a “theory?

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations
Location
 Laboratory
 Controlled situation

 Field
 Everyday situations

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations
Method
 Correlational
 Naturally occurring relationships among variables

 Experimental
 Seeks clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one

or more variables while controlling others

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations
Correlation and causation
 Allows us to predict but not tell whether changing one
variable will cause changes in another
 Self esteem <-> high achievement (which causes which?)

 Does IQ and family status play a role?

 Bachman & O’Malley, (1977)

 What happened in the study with 715 Minnesota kids?

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations
Survey research
 Random sample (from a population)
 Unrepresentative samples

 Order of questions

 Response options
 What % of energy from nuclear power?

 One v. three options – “what happened”

 Wording of questions
 “Welfare” v. “assistance to the poor”

 Framing – e.g. “forbid” v. “not allow”

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect
Control: Manipulating variables
 Independent variable
 Experimental factor that a researcher manipulates

 Corr or causation

 Prejudice to obese persons (Snyder & Haugen, ‘94)

 TV violence (Boyatzis et al. ‘95)

 Dependent variable

 Variable being measured; depends on manipulations of the

independent variable
 Can you manipulate or just measure? See: Table 1.1 p 25

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Random Assignment

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and
Effect
Random assignment: The great equalizer
 Process of assigning participants to the conditions of an
experiment such that all persons have the same chance of
being in a given condition
 Eliminates extraneous factors

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Research Methods: How We Do
Social Psychology
Ethics of Experimentation
Mundane realism
Experimental realism
Deception
Demand characteristics
Informed consent
Debriefing

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Generalizing from Laboratory
to Life
We can distinguish between the content of people’s
thinking and acting and the process by which they
think and act

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