PSY 252 MIDTERM EXAM
Social psychology is the study of how people think, react to, and influence one
another.
-The scientific investigation of:
-How people organise, evaluate, and respond to their social experiences (self and
social perception)
-How your attitude and behaviour are affected.
-social relationships (prejudice, aggressiveness, etc.).
Independent variable - ANSWER - the experimental component that a researcher
manipulates.
-the causative variable.
dependent variable - ANSWER the variable being measured, often known as b/c it
may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.
Deception - ANSWER
experimental confederates - ANSWER: "Secret agents"
-individuals who are "in" the experiment.
cover stories – ANSWER false stories about the study and what it is about.
Random assignment - ANSWER The practice of randomly assigning participants to
experimental conditions so that everyone has an equal chance of being in a given
condition. (Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and
random sampling in surveys: random assignment helps us deduce cause and effect,
whereas random sampling allows us to generalise to a population.)
,Institutional review boards are university or government groups that evaluate
proposed research for compliance with APA ethical criteria.
-prevent immoral use of deception.
Informed consent - ANSWER an ethical principle demanding that study subjects be
told enough to allow them to choose whether or not to participate.
debriefing - ANSWER: When deception is utilised, experimenters must explain
after the experiment the objective of the falsehood.
Use of experimental technique for testing hypotheses - ANSWER - Everything is
held constant except the independent variable.
-people treated identically except for the independent variable.
- Standardisation of procedures
ordinary realism is the degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to
daily events.
experimental realism - the extent to which an experiment absorbs and interests its
participants.
Correlational research is the study of naturally occurring connections between
variables.
-correlation proves association, not causation and effect.
-great self-esteem correlate with great success, or does it?
, Hindsight bias - ANSWER -the tendency to overstate, after knowing an outcome,
one's ability to have predicted how things turned out.
-also known as the "I knew it all along" phenomenon.
Cognitive dissonance is the tension that emerges when one is concurrently aware of
two contradictory cognitions.
-ex. Dissonance might emerge when we realise that we have done contrary to our
attitudes or made a judgement favouring one alternative despite reasons to favour
another.
To resolve, we frequently modify our thoughts or generate
excuses/explanations/reasons for our conduct.
$1 vs. $20 insufficient justification experiment - ANSWER - Festinger &
Carlsmith, 1959
-IV: encourage people to lie about a dull assignment; pay one group $1 and the
other group $20.
- Hypothesis: The $1 group should experience higher dissonance.
-It is more difficult to rationalise lying for $1 than for $20.
-$1 is insufficient outward justification; internal justification is required.
-$20 is plenty for external justification.
DV: participants evaluated how fascinating the task was.
-$1 group evaluated assignment as more interesting
-had a difficult time justifying for $1.
-$1 group had insufficient justification for acting inconsistently with their
knowledge that lying is immoral.
Social psychology is the study of how people think, react to, and influence one
another.
-The scientific investigation of:
-How people organise, evaluate, and respond to their social experiences (self and
social perception)
-How your attitude and behaviour are affected.
-social relationships (prejudice, aggressiveness, etc.).
Independent variable - ANSWER - the experimental component that a researcher
manipulates.
-the causative variable.
dependent variable - ANSWER the variable being measured, often known as b/c it
may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.
Deception - ANSWER
experimental confederates - ANSWER: "Secret agents"
-individuals who are "in" the experiment.
cover stories – ANSWER false stories about the study and what it is about.
Random assignment - ANSWER The practice of randomly assigning participants to
experimental conditions so that everyone has an equal chance of being in a given
condition. (Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and
random sampling in surveys: random assignment helps us deduce cause and effect,
whereas random sampling allows us to generalise to a population.)
,Institutional review boards are university or government groups that evaluate
proposed research for compliance with APA ethical criteria.
-prevent immoral use of deception.
Informed consent - ANSWER an ethical principle demanding that study subjects be
told enough to allow them to choose whether or not to participate.
debriefing - ANSWER: When deception is utilised, experimenters must explain
after the experiment the objective of the falsehood.
Use of experimental technique for testing hypotheses - ANSWER - Everything is
held constant except the independent variable.
-people treated identically except for the independent variable.
- Standardisation of procedures
ordinary realism is the degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to
daily events.
experimental realism - the extent to which an experiment absorbs and interests its
participants.
Correlational research is the study of naturally occurring connections between
variables.
-correlation proves association, not causation and effect.
-great self-esteem correlate with great success, or does it?
, Hindsight bias - ANSWER -the tendency to overstate, after knowing an outcome,
one's ability to have predicted how things turned out.
-also known as the "I knew it all along" phenomenon.
Cognitive dissonance is the tension that emerges when one is concurrently aware of
two contradictory cognitions.
-ex. Dissonance might emerge when we realise that we have done contrary to our
attitudes or made a judgement favouring one alternative despite reasons to favour
another.
To resolve, we frequently modify our thoughts or generate
excuses/explanations/reasons for our conduct.
$1 vs. $20 insufficient justification experiment - ANSWER - Festinger &
Carlsmith, 1959
-IV: encourage people to lie about a dull assignment; pay one group $1 and the
other group $20.
- Hypothesis: The $1 group should experience higher dissonance.
-It is more difficult to rationalise lying for $1 than for $20.
-$1 is insufficient outward justification; internal justification is required.
-$20 is plenty for external justification.
DV: participants evaluated how fascinating the task was.
-$1 group evaluated assignment as more interesting
-had a difficult time justifying for $1.
-$1 group had insufficient justification for acting inconsistently with their
knowledge that lying is immoral.
