INTRODUCING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Howell Balboa Calma, MSc., RPM.

Department Psychology
College of Arts, Sciences and Education
Introduction
•Requirements Recap
•Opening Stories
–Family Massacre
–War in Mindanao/Cha-cha
–Fraternity Brothers
–Cult
WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?
A. Social influence is at the heart of social psychology.
•Other people can influence our behavior through direct attempts at persuasion or more
indirectly through their presence and the transmission of cultural values.
•Social psychologists take expanded view of social influence to include not just behavior
but thoughts and feelings as well.
•Social psychology is defined as the scientific study of the way that the thoughts,
feelings, and actions of people are influenced by the real or imagined presence of
other people.

•Social psychology is about understanding individual behaviour in a social context.

•Baron, Byrne & Suls (1989) define social psychology as .......

–“the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual
behavior in social situations”. (p. 6).

•It therefore looks at human behaviour as influenced by other people and the social
context in which this occurs.

•Social psychologists therefore deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way
in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain
behaviour/actions and feelings occur.
•Social psychology is to do with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions and
goals are constructed and how such psychological factors, in turn, influence our
interactions with others.
•Topics examined in social psychology include: the self, social cognition, attribution
theory, social influence, group processes, prejudice and discrimination, interpersonal
processes, aggression and prosocial behaviour.
Unpacking the Definition

•Socialpsychology employs the scientific method (i.e., evidence-based inferences from

systematic research)

•Social psychology has an individualized focus

•Social psychology examines both external and internal aspects of our experiences

•Social psychology acknowledges the importance of both objective reality and subjective
perceptions
B. The Power of Social Interpretation.
•Social psychology is distinct from other social sciences because of its emphasis upon
construals—the way people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world.
•Social psychology is also distinct because it is an experimentally based science.
C. How Else Can We Understand Social Influence?
•Journalists, instant experts, and social critics
–Common sense explanations such as those offered by journalists are known as folk
wisdom.
–Folk wisdom may be contradictory and provides no way of determining correctness.
•Philosophy
–Social psychology differs from philosophy because it is empirical.
–Educated guesses, or hypotheses, are tested in well-designed experiments to discern the
situations that would result in one outcome or another.
D. Social Psychology Compared with Personality Psychology
•Personality psychology focuses on individual differences in human behavior (those
aspects of people’s personalities that make them different from other people), while
social psychology focuses more on how the social situation affects people similarly.
•Social psychologists believe that explaining behavior primarily in terms of personality
factors can be superficial because it leads to a serious underestimation of the role played
by social influence. The fact that most people fail to take the situation into account has a
profound impact on how people relate to one another.
E. Social Psychology Compared with Sociology
•Social psychology joins other social science disciplines in its focus on social behavior.
Social psychology differs from these other disciplines in its level of analysis: the
individual in the context of a social situation.
•Sociology is concerned with social class, social structure, and social institutions.
Although sociology and social psychology share areas of interest, sociology, rather than
looking at the individual, is interested in a society or group.
Comparing Disciplines
Theories in Social Psychology
•Motivational Theories
•Learning Theories
•Cognitive Theories
•Decision-Making Theories
•Interdependence Theories
Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology
Sociocultural Perspective
•A sociocultural perspective emphasizes how behavior is influenced by cultural values,
social norms, and social roles.
•Cultures differ in the relative emphasis they give to individualism versus collectivism.

Evolutionary Perspective
•applies the principles of evolution and natural selection to the understanding of human
behavior and social life.
Social learning Perspective
•social behavior is driven by individual’s experiences with rewards and punishments.
Phenomenological Perspective
•behavior determined by interpretation of situation, in turn these interpretations reflect
the person’s goals.
a) Basic principle is we do not respond to the world as it is, but as we perceive it
to be.

Social Cognitive Perspective

•how people attend to, process, store, and recall information about the social world—
attempt to understand the world

Social Psychological Theories Today

•combines and integrates different theoretical traditions.
•“middle-range theories,” or models to explain specific aspects of human behavior, are
emphasized.

History of Social Psychology

Early Influences
•Aristotle believed that humans were naturally sociable, a necessity which allows us to
live together (an individual centred approach), whilst Plato felt that the state controlled
the individual and encouraged social responsibility through social context (a socio-
centred approach).

•Hegel (1770–1831) introduced the concept that society has inevitable links with the
development of the social mind. This led to the idea of a group mind, important in the
study of social psychology.

•Lazarus & Steinthal wrote about Anglo-European influences in 1860.

“Volkerpsychologie” emerged, which focused on the idea of a collective
mind. It emphasised the notion that personality develops because of cultural and
community influences, especially through language, which
is both a social product of the community as well as a means of encouraging particular
social thought in the individual. Therefore Wundt (1900–1920) encouraged the
methodological study of language and its influence on the social being.
Journal Development
•1950s – Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

•1963 – Journal of Personality, British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

•1965– Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social

Psychology
•1971 – Journal of Applied Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology

•1975 – Social Psychology Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

•1982 – Social Cognition

•1984 – Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Early Experiments
•There is some disagreement about the first true experiment, but the following are
certainly among some of the most important.

–Triplett (1898) applied the experimental method to investigate the performance of

cyclists and schoolchildren on how the presence of others influences overall performance
– thus how individual’s are affected and behave in the social context.

–By 1935 the study of social norms had developed, looking at how individuals behave
according to the rules of society. This was conducted by Sherif (1935).

–Lewin et al. then began experimental research into leadership and group processes by
1939, looking at effective work ethics under different styles of leadership.
Social Psychology Key Figures
•Allport (1920) – social facilitation

•Bandura et al (1963) – social learning theory

•Festinger et al. (1950) – cognitive dissonance

•Tajfel et al. (1971) – minimal group paradigm and social identity theory

•Weiner (1986) – attribution theory

•Milgram (1963) – shock experiment

•Haney, Banks, Zimbardo (1973) – prison study

Some key names in Social Psychology
Some key names/developments in Social Psychology
Insight into social interaction
8 Principles of Social Behavior
Two fundamental principles:

People construct their own reality

People are influenced & influence others

Three motivational principles:

Strive for mastery
Strive for connectedness
 Value “me & mine”

Three processing principles:

Conservatism
Accessibility
Superficiality Vs Depth
THE POWER OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE
A. Fundamental Attribution Error
•Social psychologists face barrier to convincing people that their behavior is greatly
influenced by the environment.
•People tend to explain behavior entirely in terms of personality traits and thus
underestimate the power of social influence. This is called the fundamental attribution
error.
B. Underestimating the Power of Social Influence
•The fundamental attribution error can lead to a false sense of security—we assume
problematic behavior could never happen to us and thus we do not guard against its
occurrence.
•In a demonstration of the fundamental attribution error, Ross and Samuels (1993) found
that college students’ personalities, as rated by the resident assistants in their dormitories,
did not determine how cooperative or competitive they were in a laboratory game. The
name of the game—whether it was called the Wall Street Game or the Community
Game—did, however, make a tremendous difference

•YOUR SUBTOPIC GOES HERE

C. The Subjectivity of the Social Situation
•If the social situation has profound effects on human behavior, how do we define the
social situation?
•Behaviorism is a school of psychology maintaining that, to understand human
behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment (how
positive and negative events in the environment are associated with specific
behaviors). Behaviorists tried to define social situations objectively, focusing on the
reinforcements received in response to behavior.
•Because behaviorism does not deal with cognition, thinking, and feeling, this approach
has proven inadequate for a complete understanding of the social world. We have learned
that it is important to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the people in it, to see
how they construe the world around them.

iv. This emphasis on construal has its roots in Gestalt psychology, a school of
psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an
object appears in people’s minds, rather than the objective, physical attributes of
the object.
v. Kurt Lewin, the founding father of modern experimental social psychology, was
the first to apply Gestalt principles from the study of the perception of objects to social
perception.
Research in Social Psychology
Research Methods
•scientific methodology and minimizing bias are emphasized.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Mmm... The Scientific Method...

Hypothesize
Operationalize
Measure
Evaluate
Revise/Replicate/Report
Generating Hypotheses
•Good hypotheses involve testable predictions about relationships between variables

Consider each of the following:

(1) “Childhood experiences cause adult behaviors”

(2) “Television shows reinforce gender stereotypes”
(3) “Old men are more likely to experience loneliness”
(4) “Health is positively associated with religiosity”
(5) “Charitable donations of money will be increased if accompanied by a request letter
that repeatedly uses the addressee’s first name”
Why do we insist on testability?
Consider the following idea:

“Prejudice is caused by invisible bigoted demons who control our thoughts

and are undetectable!”

Is it possible that this is true?

How would we verify or refute it?
Operational Definitions
•How will the variables be measured/manipulated?

•Precision of definition is important!

H4: “Health is positively associated with religiosity”

How do we define and measure “health”?

Do we mean physical health, psychological, or both?
What beliefs/practices indicate “religiosity”?

•Ethical considerations? Practicality and cost?

Measuring Our Variables
•We will examine a sample of people from a population of similar others
•Sample size is often denoted by N (total number of participants), while subsample sizes
are denoted by n
How psychologists study social behavior?
Descriptive Methods
•Self-Report
•Observational Research
•Archival Research
•Psychological Test
•Qualitative Methodology
–Case Report
–Ethnography
Observational and Ethnographic Research
•Involves observing and recording of “naturally occurring” behaviors

•Problems:
–Observer effects
–Confirmation bias (“Remember the hits, forget the misses”)
–Rarity of behaviors of interest
Archival Research
•Involves coding and/or analysis of available data sources

•Problems:
–Important variables not recorded?
–Time consuming
–“History is written by the winners”
Case Studies
•In-depth study of individual events or people

•Most common in clinical settings; allows analysis of rare behaviors

•Generalizing findings can be difficult

Survey Research
•Uses questionnaires and/or interviews

•Often allows large samples (lots of data)

•Problems:
–Non-representative sampling
Survey Research
•Uses questionnaires or interviews

•Often allows large samples (lots of data!)

•Problems:
–Non-representative sampling
–Poor question design
–Untruthful responses

•Poor question design

Psychological tests
•(1) Basic concerns
–(a) Reliability—consistency of scores
–(b) Validity—measure what it purports to measure

Correlation and Experimentation

Correlational versus Experimental Designs
•There are two basic research designs: correlational and experimental.
Correlational Research
•Observes the relationship between two or more variables
Advantages of Correlational Designs
•Enable researchers to study problems in which intervention is impossible or unethical
•Efficient: allow researchers to collect more information and test more relationships
Disadvantages of Correlational Designs
•Do not provide clear-cut evidence of cause-and-effect
–reverse-causality problem
–third-variable problem
Experimental Research
•The researcher creates two or more conditions that differ from each other in clearly
specified ways.
•Individuals are randomly assigned to conditions.
•Their reactions are measured.
Variables in Experiments
•The independent variable is the presumed cause and is manipulated by the researcher.
•The dependent variable is the effect that is measured.
Variables in Experiments
•The operational definition of a variable is the specific procedure or operations used to
manipulate or measure it.
Table 1-1
Field versus Laboratory Settings
•Field research examines behavior in its natural habitat
•Laboratory research is done in an artificial situation.
Advantages of Laboratory Research
•maximizes internal validity
•more convenient and less costly than field research
Advantages of Field Research
•Maximizes external validity
•Allows researchers to study powerful situations that cannot be studied in the lab.
•Minimizes suspicion by participants
Table 1-2
Biases in Research
Bias in Research
•Two kinds of bias are troublesome in social psychology: experimenter bias and subject
bias
Experimenter Bias
•Subtle cues from the researchers may influence participants’ behavior.
•Solutions
–“blind” research assistants
–Standardize research procedures
Subject Bias
•The mere fact of knowing that one is being studied may alter one’s behavior.
•Solutions
–unobtrusive measures
–don’t tell participants the goals or hypotheses
Biases in Research Samples
•College students are over-represented due to convenience.
•Males are over-represented in older research.
•Ethnic minority groups are under-represented.
Replication
•No one study is ever perfect, so results should be replicated
•Conceptual replications should be conducted in addition to exact replications.
Ethical Considerations in Social Psychological Research
Three Important Ethical Principles
•Informed Consent
•Debriefing
•Minimal Risk
Research Ethics
•American Psychological Association ethical guidelines for research
•Institutional Review Boards.
Research With Human Subjects
•Do potential benefits outweigh potential risks?

•Confidentiality of data

•Non-coercive: Voluntary participation and freedom to withdraw from research

•Informed
consent and temporary deception
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS

•Social psychological insights have been applied to a variety of practical problems in

contemporary society such as prejudice reduction, the curbing of violence, and
persuading people to live healthier lives.
•Social psychology is an empirical science. Social psychologists attempt to find answers
to key questions about social influence by designing and conducting research rather than
by relying on common sense or the wisdom of the ages.

•While social psychologists are often motivated by simple curiosity to study social
behavior, they are also frequently motivated by the desire to help resolve social problems
such as increasing conservation of natural resources, increasing the practice of safe sex,
understanding the relationship between viewing television violence and aggressive
behavior, developing effective negotiation strategies for the reduction of international
conflict, finding ways to reduce racial prejudice, and helping people adjust to life
changes.
•Social psychologists helped the government change an ad campaign to promote safe sex
that was based on increasing fear of contracting AIDS, noting that fear promotes denial
and flies in the face of the need to preserve self-esteem.