SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology

• Assumptions: That other people influence our behaviour.

1. Individuals and groups affect behavior (you act differently with your friends than you do with your parents)

2.Culture and Society affects behavior (women have to walk behind men in some cultures ect.)

Social Psychology Words

• Prejudice– A bad opinion of another person without knowing

them, based on what they look like.

• Obedience– To follow orders given by another person

• Conformity– To act the same as other people. For example,

dressing the same, listening to the same music etc.

Strengths of Social Psychology

• Attempts to use real life situations when studying behavior.

EX: Field study with “men only” and “women only” signs on doors.

Strengths of Social Psychology

• It makes contributions about understanding social behavior (high degree of usefulness).

• It can explain and even offer solutions to problems in the real world.

• EX: Milgram experiment and obedience

Weakness of Social Psychology

• Ethics -- when do we know that we are crossing a line?

• It is difficult to study social behavior without negatively affecting the participants in the study

• EX: Milgram study

Weakness of Social Psychology

• Generalizability of findings.• Often the samples used are very restricted• EX: Milgram study: sample??

Research Methods: Strengths & Weaknesses

Quasi experiments• They are conducted in a natural environment.• The independent variable is not manipulated by researchers; it

occurs naturally.Strengths:• There is a very low chance of demand characteristics and

experimenter bias occurring.• The natural environment and lack of manipulation means that

everything is natural and realistic, therefore there is high ecological validity.

• They are useful in situations where it would be unethical for the experiment to manipulate a variable.

Weaknesses:• The experiment has no control over any variables.• It is very difficult to replicate so reliability is difficult to check.• They can be very time-consuming.

Field experiments

• They are conducted in a natural environment.• The independent variable is manipulated by researchers.Strengths:• There is higher realism as the environment is natural.• Behaviour is more likely to be natural, therefore the ecological

validity is also high.Weaknesses:• There is less control over extraneous variables (e.g. weather

conditions).• It is difficult to replicate them completely.• They may be time-consuming and costly.

Laboratory experiments

• They are conducted in a laboratory.• The independent variable is manipulated by researchers.Strengths:• There is tight control over variables.• Cause and effect (causal relationship) is easily identifiable.• They are usually replicable.• They are usually less time-consuming and less costly.• Scientific equipment is used.Weaknesses:• The artificial environment means there is low realism.• Demand characteristics and experimenter bias may occur.• There is usually low ecological validity as it is an unrealistic

setting.• A laboratory means limited space; you can’t fit a big sample

into a laboratory at once.