PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Critical Thinking, Internal Validity, Operational Definition
Document Summary
Social psych = identifies the cause of the social behaviors and thoughts observed. Exposed to infinite amount of info in environment and cannot fake all of it in: main themes in social psychology. Defining social psychology what it is not. A comparison of social psychology, personality psychology and sociology. Social psychology = focuses on the individual in his/her environment. Sociologists = use mainly observational research methods to examines social behavior at the societal level. Personality psychology = focus on traits and characteristics of the individual w/o considering social environment of individual. Found deception rare prior to 1950s increased dramatically bw 19502 19702: decrease in 1980s, researchers have to obtain informed consent before conducting experiment having informed consent is not sufficient to ensure study is ethical. Experimental research: asks does variable x cause variable y: allows researchers to determine causal influence of one variable over time, researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and examines independent and dependent variables.
