PY 372
EXAM 1
Chapter 1: Introducing Social Psychology
Social Psychology: the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the
actual or imagined presence of others
Lewin’s Equation: B = f (P,E)
Behavior is a function of the person and the environment (social PY focuses on the “E”)
Text refers to this as a power of the person and power of the situation
Criticism and Myth of Social PY
Is social psychology simply common sense?
Problems w/ common sense
o Tendency to accept info as true (without careful inspection)
o Typically accept ideas as true when they seem true
o Info stated ambiguously and generally is typically considered true and insightful
Barnum effect: tendency to be impressed by this general feedback
Horoscopes
Cultural stereotypes are often stated abstractly
o Ex. “women are so emotional”
o Motivation obscures reality
Choose to believe/disbelieve based on what they want to believe
Ex. “good things happen to good people”
o Sometimes outright wrong (and lacks common sense)
o 150 years ago common sense said women shouldn’t be allowed to vote
Problems with common sense
1. Not critically analyzed; need to test ideas
2. Not stated with specified conditions
a. Hindsight bias
i. Aka: the “I knew it all along” phenomenon
1. The tendency to exaggerate, AFTER learning an outcome, one’s ability to
foreseen how something turned out
ii. Sporting events
3. Stated ambiguously
a. Horoscopes and psychics
4. Sometimes outright wrong and stupid
5. 150 years ago common sense told us that women shouldn’t vote, etc.
Related disciplines
Sociology: the scientific study of human societies and the groups that form such societies
o Similarities: studies phenomena that are often of interest to social psychologists
o Differences: sociologists focus on group-level behavior; social psychologists study individuals
within groups
Sociology vs. Social Psychology
o Example: aggression
Sociology: Why is the level of violent crime higher in the US than in Canada (group-
level analysis)
, Social Psychology: Does watching greater amounts of violent television cause
individuals to become more violent? (individual-level)
Personality Psychology: focuses on how individuals differ on certain stable traits
o Similarities: both focus on the individual
o Differences: personality psychology explains behavior in terms of stable personal influences:
social psychology (generally) explains behavior in terms of situational context
Social PY vs. Psychology
o Ex. aggression
Personality: investigates why some individuals are more aggressive than others (e.g. a
bad attitude)
Social psychology: investigates features of a situation that may lead most people to
aggress against others (e.g. hot weather, being insulted)
Social Psychology studies how behavior is a function of both the person and the environment
Social Psychology shares commonalities with sociology and personality psychology but also have
distinct differences
Social psychologist theories and concepts often seem like common sense notions
But, the difference between social psychology and common sense is that we use the scientific method
to test ideas
RESEARCH METHODS
To be considered a science, a discipline must have 3 features:
Systematic observation (vs. casual observation)
Public verification (e.g. claims of seeing Bigfoot are not scientific because they are not verifiable)
Solvable problems (e.g. whether God exists is not an empirical question) // explores questions that
can be answered via observation
Social Psychology as a science
We study beliefs and ideas about the world systematically
o Theory: an integrated set of statements that describes, predicts, or explains behavior //
statement that describes, predicts, and explains behavior
Ex. venting frustration makes on feel better
o Hypothesis: specific, testable, and disconfirmable statement about the behavior we want to
study OR the theory we want to test; follows theory
Ex. Writing an angry letter to one’s boss will result in a positive mood
o Test: support or disconfirm
o Constructs
o Operationalization
Moving from a theory to a testable hypothesis: Venting frustration will make people feel well.
o Construct: the conceptual representation of behaviors; the phenomenon around which
research is based // moves us to hypothesis
Venting frustration and feeling well
o Operationalization: defines a construct in terms of the way it is measured or manipulated (i.e.
makes the construct concrete)
Writing an angry letter to the boss and experiencing positive mood
o Construct validity: the extent to which the measured variables in research successfully
represent the constructs of theoretical interest
EXAM 1
Chapter 1: Introducing Social Psychology
Social Psychology: the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the
actual or imagined presence of others
Lewin’s Equation: B = f (P,E)
Behavior is a function of the person and the environment (social PY focuses on the “E”)
Text refers to this as a power of the person and power of the situation
Criticism and Myth of Social PY
Is social psychology simply common sense?
Problems w/ common sense
o Tendency to accept info as true (without careful inspection)
o Typically accept ideas as true when they seem true
o Info stated ambiguously and generally is typically considered true and insightful
Barnum effect: tendency to be impressed by this general feedback
Horoscopes
Cultural stereotypes are often stated abstractly
o Ex. “women are so emotional”
o Motivation obscures reality
Choose to believe/disbelieve based on what they want to believe
Ex. “good things happen to good people”
o Sometimes outright wrong (and lacks common sense)
o 150 years ago common sense said women shouldn’t be allowed to vote
Problems with common sense
1. Not critically analyzed; need to test ideas
2. Not stated with specified conditions
a. Hindsight bias
i. Aka: the “I knew it all along” phenomenon
1. The tendency to exaggerate, AFTER learning an outcome, one’s ability to
foreseen how something turned out
ii. Sporting events
3. Stated ambiguously
a. Horoscopes and psychics
4. Sometimes outright wrong and stupid
5. 150 years ago common sense told us that women shouldn’t vote, etc.
Related disciplines
Sociology: the scientific study of human societies and the groups that form such societies
o Similarities: studies phenomena that are often of interest to social psychologists
o Differences: sociologists focus on group-level behavior; social psychologists study individuals
within groups
Sociology vs. Social Psychology
o Example: aggression
Sociology: Why is the level of violent crime higher in the US than in Canada (group-
level analysis)
, Social Psychology: Does watching greater amounts of violent television cause
individuals to become more violent? (individual-level)
Personality Psychology: focuses on how individuals differ on certain stable traits
o Similarities: both focus on the individual
o Differences: personality psychology explains behavior in terms of stable personal influences:
social psychology (generally) explains behavior in terms of situational context
Social PY vs. Psychology
o Ex. aggression
Personality: investigates why some individuals are more aggressive than others (e.g. a
bad attitude)
Social psychology: investigates features of a situation that may lead most people to
aggress against others (e.g. hot weather, being insulted)
Social Psychology studies how behavior is a function of both the person and the environment
Social Psychology shares commonalities with sociology and personality psychology but also have
distinct differences
Social psychologist theories and concepts often seem like common sense notions
But, the difference between social psychology and common sense is that we use the scientific method
to test ideas
RESEARCH METHODS
To be considered a science, a discipline must have 3 features:
Systematic observation (vs. casual observation)
Public verification (e.g. claims of seeing Bigfoot are not scientific because they are not verifiable)
Solvable problems (e.g. whether God exists is not an empirical question) // explores questions that
can be answered via observation
Social Psychology as a science
We study beliefs and ideas about the world systematically
o Theory: an integrated set of statements that describes, predicts, or explains behavior //
statement that describes, predicts, and explains behavior
Ex. venting frustration makes on feel better
o Hypothesis: specific, testable, and disconfirmable statement about the behavior we want to
study OR the theory we want to test; follows theory
Ex. Writing an angry letter to one’s boss will result in a positive mood
o Test: support or disconfirm
o Constructs
o Operationalization
Moving from a theory to a testable hypothesis: Venting frustration will make people feel well.
o Construct: the conceptual representation of behaviors; the phenomenon around which
research is based // moves us to hypothesis
Venting frustration and feeling well
o Operationalization: defines a construct in terms of the way it is measured or manipulated (i.e.
makes the construct concrete)
Writing an angry letter to the boss and experiencing positive mood
o Construct validity: the extent to which the measured variables in research successfully
represent the constructs of theoretical interest
