Lecture 1: Intro CHAP 1+9
● The power of Social Context:
○ Are you affected by what you see?
■ EX: how do media portrayals affect us?
● Our thoughts?
● Our feelings?
● Our behavior?
● Social Psych and Common Sense:
○ The knew it all along phenomenon
○ How do we distinguish common sense facts and common sense myths?
○ Idea that we’re affected by the stimulus around us and how our brain interprets
that
■ The brain's interpretation is based on our history, our learning and our
conditioning
■ Everyone is raised in the same common env, if we’re from the same place
but it doesn’t mean that we’re all going to see the same situations in the
same way
● History of Social Psychology:
○ Infancy Period: 1880s-1920s
■ Founders of social psych include:
● McDougall, Ross, and Gordon and Frank Allport
○ Social Psych Principles: 1930s-1950s
■ Behavior is a function of the interaction between a person and the
environment
■ What we do depends to a large extent on how we perceive and interpret
the world around us.
■ Social Psych theories should b applied to important, practical issues
■ DAMNNN hitler was a big influence on social psych because social
psychologists were really interested in how evil works and how people can
conform to something we really shouldn’t
○ Confidence and Crisis: 1960s-1970s
■ Milgram (1960)- obedience 2 authority
■ Crisis and Debate:
● Lab Experiments
● Unethical practices?
● Limited generalizability?
○ An Era of Pluralism: 1970s-1990s
, ■ “Crisis” led to a stronger discipline: more rigorous testing
■ Adoption of pluralism:
● Multiple methods of investigation
● “Hot and cold” perspectives
○ If its this then this would happen
○ What you’re primed for is important
● Multicultural perspectives
SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF RESEARCH
● Beginning the Research Process
○ 1. Ask questions
○ 2. Search the Literature
○ 3. Formulate Hypothesis
● Hypotheses and Theories
○ Theory:
■ Is an organized set of principles used to explain an observed phenomena
○ Hypothesis:
■ An explicit, testable prediction about the conditions under which an event
will occur
● Basic and Applied Research:
○ What are the goals of basic research?
■ Basic research is looking at to understand or increase understanding about
human behaviour
■ Often no designed to test specific hypotheses from a specific theory
○ What are the goals of applied research?
■ How something works in the real world and contribute to a solution 4
social problems
■ Ex: how can we persuade ppl to physically distance?
● Conceptual Variables and Operational Definitions
○ Conceptual variables are ABSTRACT
■ An example could be: doing research on happiness but how are you going
to measure that?
■ So we need to operationalize our abstract ideas to see how we can measure
them
○ Construct validity:
■ Used to evaluate the manipulation and measurement of variables
, ■ Do electric shocks really measure aggression?
■ Validity is the idea that we are measuring what we are supposed to be
measuring
○ Measuring variables:
■ Self-reports:
● Element of self-deception when asking people about things
● Element of looking good to society or to you
● Context can get us:
○ Based on the way you word the question:
○ Failure rate vs succession rate
■ Observations:
● Interrater reliability
○ The idea that it measures the same thing/ gets the same
score over and over again
○ But interrater reliability is getting multiple people to score
whatever ur measuring,
■ Have to train people who are measuring so they can
accurately measure the same thing
● Was that a playful push or an aggressive shove?
TYPES OF RESEARCH AGAIN
● Descriptive research
○ Just describing what you see and how variables interact w each other
○ No experimental manipulation, can only see if the variables are linked to each
other
○ No causation, because we didn't personally set up an experiment
○ EX: observational research, archival research and surveys
● Correlational Research
○ Idea of variables moving in a tangent together
○ How similar are two variables?
○ How well does one variable predict another variable?
○ Correlation Coefficient
■ Positive correlation: up and up
■ Negative correlation: one goes up the other goes down
■ No correlation
○ EX: violent video games cause more aggression?
■ Maybe aggressive people like to play violent video games
■ Maybe you have a more dysfunctional family life that causes you to be
more aggressive and play more violent games
● The power of Social Context:
○ Are you affected by what you see?
■ EX: how do media portrayals affect us?
● Our thoughts?
● Our feelings?
● Our behavior?
● Social Psych and Common Sense:
○ The knew it all along phenomenon
○ How do we distinguish common sense facts and common sense myths?
○ Idea that we’re affected by the stimulus around us and how our brain interprets
that
■ The brain's interpretation is based on our history, our learning and our
conditioning
■ Everyone is raised in the same common env, if we’re from the same place
but it doesn’t mean that we’re all going to see the same situations in the
same way
● History of Social Psychology:
○ Infancy Period: 1880s-1920s
■ Founders of social psych include:
● McDougall, Ross, and Gordon and Frank Allport
○ Social Psych Principles: 1930s-1950s
■ Behavior is a function of the interaction between a person and the
environment
■ What we do depends to a large extent on how we perceive and interpret
the world around us.
■ Social Psych theories should b applied to important, practical issues
■ DAMNNN hitler was a big influence on social psych because social
psychologists were really interested in how evil works and how people can
conform to something we really shouldn’t
○ Confidence and Crisis: 1960s-1970s
■ Milgram (1960)- obedience 2 authority
■ Crisis and Debate:
● Lab Experiments
● Unethical practices?
● Limited generalizability?
○ An Era of Pluralism: 1970s-1990s
, ■ “Crisis” led to a stronger discipline: more rigorous testing
■ Adoption of pluralism:
● Multiple methods of investigation
● “Hot and cold” perspectives
○ If its this then this would happen
○ What you’re primed for is important
● Multicultural perspectives
SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF RESEARCH
● Beginning the Research Process
○ 1. Ask questions
○ 2. Search the Literature
○ 3. Formulate Hypothesis
● Hypotheses and Theories
○ Theory:
■ Is an organized set of principles used to explain an observed phenomena
○ Hypothesis:
■ An explicit, testable prediction about the conditions under which an event
will occur
● Basic and Applied Research:
○ What are the goals of basic research?
■ Basic research is looking at to understand or increase understanding about
human behaviour
■ Often no designed to test specific hypotheses from a specific theory
○ What are the goals of applied research?
■ How something works in the real world and contribute to a solution 4
social problems
■ Ex: how can we persuade ppl to physically distance?
● Conceptual Variables and Operational Definitions
○ Conceptual variables are ABSTRACT
■ An example could be: doing research on happiness but how are you going
to measure that?
■ So we need to operationalize our abstract ideas to see how we can measure
them
○ Construct validity:
■ Used to evaluate the manipulation and measurement of variables
, ■ Do electric shocks really measure aggression?
■ Validity is the idea that we are measuring what we are supposed to be
measuring
○ Measuring variables:
■ Self-reports:
● Element of self-deception when asking people about things
● Element of looking good to society or to you
● Context can get us:
○ Based on the way you word the question:
○ Failure rate vs succession rate
■ Observations:
● Interrater reliability
○ The idea that it measures the same thing/ gets the same
score over and over again
○ But interrater reliability is getting multiple people to score
whatever ur measuring,
■ Have to train people who are measuring so they can
accurately measure the same thing
● Was that a playful push or an aggressive shove?
TYPES OF RESEARCH AGAIN
● Descriptive research
○ Just describing what you see and how variables interact w each other
○ No experimental manipulation, can only see if the variables are linked to each
other
○ No causation, because we didn't personally set up an experiment
○ EX: observational research, archival research and surveys
● Correlational Research
○ Idea of variables moving in a tangent together
○ How similar are two variables?
○ How well does one variable predict another variable?
○ Correlation Coefficient
■ Positive correlation: up and up
■ Negative correlation: one goes up the other goes down
■ No correlation
○ EX: violent video games cause more aggression?
■ Maybe aggressive people like to play violent video games
■ Maybe you have a more dysfunctional family life that causes you to be
more aggressive and play more violent games
