Current issues in social psychology
What is social psychology: The scientific investigation of how the thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined,
or implied presence of others. How we are influenced by other people.
Human behaviour
Overt (e.g., driving, fighting) and more subtle (e.g., nonverbal behaviour e.g.,
eye contact)
Meaning attached to behaviour a matter of perspective. In some models,
behaviour might be an indication of your attitude and in other models, it might
be considered as separate constructs of behaviour.
Social psychologists’ study Social Behaviour
Social behaviour: Feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions and goals
and the Underlying processes -> cognitive processes -> neuro-chemical
processes in the brain.
Social psychology trends:
Historically
Folk psychology (latter part 1800s) focused on idea of collective mind
It was interpretated as:
1.) Societal way of thinking
2.) group mind (e.g., people in crowd’s vs on their own)
Tarde (1898) – bottom-up approach, consideration of the individual.
Durkheim – how people act in accordance with social laws determined by
society
Allport (1924) – experimental social psychology (that social psych would only
do well if scientists used an experimental approach)
During the second world war, Jewish academics were being prosecuted. In US
– leaders in field. After this there was a reestablishment of European
education. Social psych was due to the war that occurred. Us tend to focus on
individuals and Europeans focus on groups and group behaviour.
,Political drivers (fascism in Europe)
European centres re-established (cold war)
European focus on groups and intergroup behaviour
Two main strands of social psychology:
Psychological – individual
Sociological- grouped (as whole)
Still disciplinary disputes on same grounds:
Shove (2010) – Beyond ABC (environmental impacts) (Attitudes, Behaviour,
Choice)
She looked at Models and concepts of social change restrictive
Focused on individuals and behavioural choices
Ignored context (ignore social impact). So, when Policy makers draw on social
psych, they choose what they want and eventually have no guidance on policy
,She focuses on transition management: systems and practices are reproduced
and how these changed over time of contextual issues.
Shove also thinks that psychologists and sociologists can’t work together
because their approaches are quite different. This resulted in a response paper
by a social psychologist.
Does not consider societal transformation - maintains status quo
Whitmarsh, O’Neill and Lorenz Oni (2010) –
Produced a response beyond ABC’S. they said they’re oversimplifying the social
psych literature and the betrayal wars are the character of social psychology.
Consider both environmental cues and social processes to change.
Overly simplistic portrayal of social psychological models
Separating of disciplinary perspectives unhelpful (sociologist and psychologists
CAN work together)
Sociological approach is not useful for practical solutions
Individuals should be part of the solution alongside policy and social change.
Methodological issues:
What factors might cause something to occur
Hypothesis can be based on theory or observation.
Theory- (e.g., if you are predicting behaviour then manipulating attitudes can
change behaviour)
Observation- e.g., the example that cyclists ride faster when racing / when
paced with someone else rather than riding on their own- observation is based
on social phenomena or events
Empirical tests can falsify hypothesis, but they can predict them- when you
confirm predictions, your confidence increases but when you reconfirm your
predictions your confidence decreases.
A good theory should be falsifiable- it should be possible to set up empirical
tests to prove the theory and if it’s not then it’s just an idea.
Methodological pluralism is important- the use of variety of methods to
examine the same point which allows you to increase confidence in your
, findings. It minimizes the possibility that findings are down to the method that
you chose to investigate something in the particular study that you conducted.
Social psychological methods:
They are largely experimental – where an IV is manipulated examining the
impact on dv.
Lab studies are low in external validity- they are less like real life- they reduce
the complex nature of reality so if you keep processes to study those more in
depth (higher internal validity), they are then high in control so you can be
surer of why you are seeing the effects that you are studying.
Lab studies monitor any confounding effects that may impact the processes
that you’re interested including randomly assigning participants to conditions
so that groups you are comparing are similar in terms of key characteristics so
that any personality differences being observed are also confounded by
something else e.g., gender. (e.g., if one group was predominantly males it
would be hard to differ)
Many studies are now online, meaning demand characteristics are minimized
by no contact and the obviousness of the purpose of the study. People might
act in accordance with the researcher’s demand.
Data cleaning is also done where researchers ask many and several questions
to participants to gain a confidence in their research.
Field experiments:
You can manipulate the IV in the real world and we have much less controls of
our variables and random assignments is difficult. It is much harder to control
what information people receive.
Difficult to observe without influence prone to experimental bias. If you are
observing people, they want to know why and when you tell them why it
creates a bias because they respond how they want you to respond.
Behavioural spill over- finding behaviour in another domain than the one we
were looking for its in.
Survey research:
This is a questionnaire or structured interview. This can be difficult because
people may respond how you want them to. Responses are also quite
What is social psychology: The scientific investigation of how the thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined,
or implied presence of others. How we are influenced by other people.
Human behaviour
Overt (e.g., driving, fighting) and more subtle (e.g., nonverbal behaviour e.g.,
eye contact)
Meaning attached to behaviour a matter of perspective. In some models,
behaviour might be an indication of your attitude and in other models, it might
be considered as separate constructs of behaviour.
Social psychologists’ study Social Behaviour
Social behaviour: Feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, intentions and goals
and the Underlying processes -> cognitive processes -> neuro-chemical
processes in the brain.
Social psychology trends:
Historically
Folk psychology (latter part 1800s) focused on idea of collective mind
It was interpretated as:
1.) Societal way of thinking
2.) group mind (e.g., people in crowd’s vs on their own)
Tarde (1898) – bottom-up approach, consideration of the individual.
Durkheim – how people act in accordance with social laws determined by
society
Allport (1924) – experimental social psychology (that social psych would only
do well if scientists used an experimental approach)
During the second world war, Jewish academics were being prosecuted. In US
– leaders in field. After this there was a reestablishment of European
education. Social psych was due to the war that occurred. Us tend to focus on
individuals and Europeans focus on groups and group behaviour.
,Political drivers (fascism in Europe)
European centres re-established (cold war)
European focus on groups and intergroup behaviour
Two main strands of social psychology:
Psychological – individual
Sociological- grouped (as whole)
Still disciplinary disputes on same grounds:
Shove (2010) – Beyond ABC (environmental impacts) (Attitudes, Behaviour,
Choice)
She looked at Models and concepts of social change restrictive
Focused on individuals and behavioural choices
Ignored context (ignore social impact). So, when Policy makers draw on social
psych, they choose what they want and eventually have no guidance on policy
,She focuses on transition management: systems and practices are reproduced
and how these changed over time of contextual issues.
Shove also thinks that psychologists and sociologists can’t work together
because their approaches are quite different. This resulted in a response paper
by a social psychologist.
Does not consider societal transformation - maintains status quo
Whitmarsh, O’Neill and Lorenz Oni (2010) –
Produced a response beyond ABC’S. they said they’re oversimplifying the social
psych literature and the betrayal wars are the character of social psychology.
Consider both environmental cues and social processes to change.
Overly simplistic portrayal of social psychological models
Separating of disciplinary perspectives unhelpful (sociologist and psychologists
CAN work together)
Sociological approach is not useful for practical solutions
Individuals should be part of the solution alongside policy and social change.
Methodological issues:
What factors might cause something to occur
Hypothesis can be based on theory or observation.
Theory- (e.g., if you are predicting behaviour then manipulating attitudes can
change behaviour)
Observation- e.g., the example that cyclists ride faster when racing / when
paced with someone else rather than riding on their own- observation is based
on social phenomena or events
Empirical tests can falsify hypothesis, but they can predict them- when you
confirm predictions, your confidence increases but when you reconfirm your
predictions your confidence decreases.
A good theory should be falsifiable- it should be possible to set up empirical
tests to prove the theory and if it’s not then it’s just an idea.
Methodological pluralism is important- the use of variety of methods to
examine the same point which allows you to increase confidence in your
, findings. It minimizes the possibility that findings are down to the method that
you chose to investigate something in the particular study that you conducted.
Social psychological methods:
They are largely experimental – where an IV is manipulated examining the
impact on dv.
Lab studies are low in external validity- they are less like real life- they reduce
the complex nature of reality so if you keep processes to study those more in
depth (higher internal validity), they are then high in control so you can be
surer of why you are seeing the effects that you are studying.
Lab studies monitor any confounding effects that may impact the processes
that you’re interested including randomly assigning participants to conditions
so that groups you are comparing are similar in terms of key characteristics so
that any personality differences being observed are also confounded by
something else e.g., gender. (e.g., if one group was predominantly males it
would be hard to differ)
Many studies are now online, meaning demand characteristics are minimized
by no contact and the obviousness of the purpose of the study. People might
act in accordance with the researcher’s demand.
Data cleaning is also done where researchers ask many and several questions
to participants to gain a confidence in their research.
Field experiments:
You can manipulate the IV in the real world and we have much less controls of
our variables and random assignments is difficult. It is much harder to control
what information people receive.
Difficult to observe without influence prone to experimental bias. If you are
observing people, they want to know why and when you tell them why it
creates a bias because they respond how they want you to respond.
Behavioural spill over- finding behaviour in another domain than the one we
were looking for its in.
Survey research:
This is a questionnaire or structured interview. This can be difficult because
people may respond how you want them to. Responses are also quite
