Chapter 1

INTRODUCING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

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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.

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As Social Thinking
How we perceive
ourselves and
others
What we believe
Judgements we
make
Our attitudes

As Social
Influence
Culture

As Social
Relations
Prejudice

Pressures to
conform
Persuasion

Aggression

Groups of people

Attraction and
intimacy
Helping

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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.

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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.

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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

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Social Psychologys Central

Ideas/Concepts
PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND DISPOSITION SHAPE
OUR BEHAVIOR.
Attitudes and behavior are shaped by external social
forces.
Ex. Political attitudes and voting, WWII imprisonment
and forgiveness

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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

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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. Emergency situations raises adrenalin, expecting
pain induces the release of endorphins in blood

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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

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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

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The pen is mightier than the

sword.

Actions speak louder than words.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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.

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Research Methods in Social

Psychology
Random Assignment

Random Sampling

The process of assigning participants

to the conditions of an experiment
such that all persons have the same
chance of being in a given condition.

Survey procedure in which every

person in the population being
studied has an equal chance of
inclusion.

helps us infer cause and effect

helps us generalize to a population

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