PSYB10H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: External Validity, Construals, Internal Validity
Introduction to Social Psychology
WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?
- ¨Social psychology
- The study of social processes
- ¤How the presence of others affects the way we think, feel, & behave
- ¤Social situations can be real or imagined
- ¨Goal: Explaining and predicting behavior
¨Sample social psychology research questions
¤How are people influenced by the presence of others?
¤How do people explain the behaviors of others?
¤How do people make sense of their own behavior?
COMPARING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCE
● ¨Social psychology
○ ¤Focuses on how social situations can influence the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of an individual
■ situations across people
● ¨Personality psychology
○ closest cousin to social psychology
○ ¤Focuses on how differences between individuals influence thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors
■ interested in stability within a person
● ¤Sociology
○ Focuses on behavior of communities and groups, not individuals
○ e.g. divorce rates over a time
■ what influences divorce rates?
● e.g. economic instability?
○ social psychologists → more individual level
POWER OF SITUATION
- strong situation that drives behaviour!
- ¨Situations can often determine behavior despite individual differences
- ¨Nazi Germany
- Were Nazi soldiers somehow unusual, or were most of them normal
people who found themselves in unusual situations?
- e.g. Milgram’’s study of obedience!
MILGRAM’S EXPERIMENT
Experimental set-up
- ¤Experiment described as a “study of learning”
- ¤Participants instructed to shock another participant for any wrong answers
- The other participant is a confederate who never receives any real
shocks
¤Shock level increased for each wrong answer
- Shock levels ranged from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 volts (danger: severe
shock)
¤During the experiment, the confederate begins to scream in pain and demand that
the experiment end
- Later, the confederate stops making any sounds, indicating he may be
possibly injured or dead
¤The experimenter, wearing a white lab coat, instructs the participant to continue
with the experiment
POLL
- ¤What percentage of participants continued shocking the “learner” until the
study was over?
- nA: about 1%
- nB: about 25%
- nC: about 50%
- nD: more than 50%
-
¨Despite potential severe harm to another person, 62.5 percent of participants
completed the experiment
¤Participants were of different ages and social classes
¤Same effects were found for women and men
¨Classic example of the power of the situation
- Participants didn’t enjoy harming another person, yet behaved in accord with
the situation
SEMINARIANS AS SAMARITANS
- ¨No help when in a hurry
- ¤In one experiment (Darley & Batson, 1973), almost 90 percent of
seminary students didn’t provide help to someone in need when they
were in a rush
- ¤But over 60 percent did help when they were not in a rush
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
- ¨Fundamental attribution error
- ¤Tendency to overestimate the role of personality and to underestimate
the role of situations when explaining other people’s behavior
- BECAUSE we underappreciated the role of the situation, we over attribute to
the person = FAE
CHANNEL FACTORS
- ¨Often the influences of situational factors aren’t fully recognized
- ¨Channel factors
- ¤Small situational factors can have large influences on behavior by
guiding behavior in a particular direction
-
- How do situations influence behavior? Often via construal: an active
interpretation of the situation
*** you put the fly where u want people to aim to pee!
- lol better to clean
THE ROLE OF CONSTRUALS
- construal
- ¤Interpretation and inferences made about a stimulus or situation
- ¨Interpretation is an active process
- ¤Interpretations are subjective, not objective
- ¤Interpretations may misrepresent the truth
***For instance, our interpretation if someone bumps into us
¨Construals can govern behavior
- How we interpret a situation will influence how we act in that situation
- People are more likely to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma game
when the game is presented as a “community game” than as a “Wall
Street game”
Document Summary
How the presence of others affects the way we think, feel, & behave. Social situations can be real or imagined. Focuses on how social situations can influence the thoughts, feelings, Social psychology and behaviors of an individual. Focuses on how differences between individuals influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interested in stability within a person. Focuses on behavior of communities and groups, not individuals. Situations can often determine behavior despite individual differences. Experiment described as a study of learning . Participants instructed to shock another participant for any wrong answers. The other participant is a confederate who never receives any real shocks. Shock levels ranged from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 volts (danger: severe shock) During the experiment, the confederate begins to scream in pain and demand that the experiment end. Later, the confederate stops making any sounds, indicating he may be possibly injured or dead.
