7125 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Stanford Prison Experiment, Folk Psychology, Henri Tajfel
21 Jun 2018
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What is social psychology?
- Scientific investigation of how thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influences
by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others
- Draws from cognitive psychology, individual psychology, social anthropology, sociology,
sociolingistics, language and communication
A brief history of social psychology
- Folk psychology (1800s)
- Collective mind
- Crowd psychology/group mind
oGustav le bon (1895)
- William mcdougall (1908)
- First social psychological experiment
oTriplett (1897) – social facilitation
oTrain harder when other people present (cyclists went faster)
- Research in social psychology grew dramatically post WW2 – motivation to explain atrocities
committed
- Allport (1954) – he nature of prejudice
- Sheriff and sheriff (1953) – summer camp studies
- Adorno and colleagues (1950) – authoritarian personality
- Asch (1956) – conformity
- Milgram (1963) – obedience
- Zimbardo and colleagues (1971) – Stanford prison experiment
- Tajfel and colleagues (1971) – minimal group experiments
- Late 1960s – early 1970s – ‘crisis in social psychology’
o2 major criticisms of social psychology
Overly reductionist
Reducing behaviour to the individual level, ignoring social context
oIe looking at stereotyping all about cognition
oReduced to individuals – ignoring social contexts
o
Overly positivistic
Non critical acceptance of science and its methods
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Is the scientific method and especially the experiment suitable for
social psychology
Too focused on experiments where results were not that
generalisable
oResponse to crisis
Rise of social cognition and information processing (cognitive revolution)
Critical social psychology
Social constructionism
Levels of explanation
oLevels of explanation
Doise, 1986
Intrapersonal (within person)
Interpersonal and situational (how individuals might interact with
eachother and the situation)
Positional (interpersonal and external social context)
Ideological (broader social context)
- Social psychology today
oIntergroup behaviour
oSocial cognition
oSocial neuroscience and evolutionary theory
oApplied social psychology
oNew topics: social media, electronic communication, mass immigration
- Research methods in social psychology
oIs social psychology the study of the obvious?
oHindsight bias: tendency to exaggerate, after learning and outcome, ones ability to
have foreseen what would happen
oScientific method
oTheories: set of principles that explain and predict observed events
oHypotheses: testable prediction regarding relationship between variables, often
derived from a theory
oExperimental method
Manipulate one or more variables (IV) and look at effect on other variable
(DV)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Scientific investigation of how thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influences by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. Draws from cognitive psychology, individual psychology, social anthropology, sociology, sociolingistics, language and communication. Crowd psychology/group mind: gustav le bon (1895) First social psychological experiment: triplett (1897) social facilitation, train harder when other people present (cyclists went faster) Research in social psychology grew dramatically post ww2 motivation to explain atrocities committed. Sheriff and sheriff (1953) summer camp studies. Zimbardo and colleagues (1971) stanford prison experiment. Tajfel and colleagues (1971) minimal group experiments. Late 1960s early 1970s crisis in social psychology": 2 major criticisms of social psychology. Reducing behaviour to the individual level, ignoring social context: ie looking at stereotyping all about cognition, reduced to individuals ignoring social contexts o. Non critical acceptance of science and its methods. Is the scientific method and especially the experiment suitable for social psychology.
