social psychology - the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by other people
evolutionary perspective - - theorizes that humans have deep-rooted physical and psychological
dispositions that aid survival and reproduction
- interested in how humans are...
SOP 3004 - exam 1
social psychology - the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by other people
evolutionary perspective - - theorizes that humans have deep-rooted physical and psychological
dispositions that aid survival and reproduction
- interested in how humans are alike, regardless of culture
- also predicts and appreciates differences between people
control - - experiments can take place in a setting where the researcher can control many
potential third variables
- can make sure that the experimental setting is exactly the same for every participant, so that the only
thing that differs is the manipulation (IV)
as scientists, social psychologists have two tasks - describe (observe) & explain (theories)
the scientific method - - observation
- generate hypotheses about why
- develop a testable hypothesis
- design a study/experiment
surveys tell us that - two variables are related/correlated/associated with each other
correlation - two or more variables co-occur together
positive correlation - both variables occur in the same direction
negative correlation - as one variable increases, the other decreases
,directional problem - there is a relationship between two variables, but it cannot be determined
which variable may have caused changes in the other variable
third variable problem - there could be some other variable we didn't think of that causes both of
the other variables
experiments can uncover __________ relations between variables - causal
aronson and mills (1959) study - - 63 college women in a study on "discussing sex"
- pre-study "screening"
- experimentally manipulated initiation severity
- randomly assigned
- group 1: no test (control group)
- group 2: mild initiation test (recitation of neutral words and text)
- group 3: difficult initiation test (recitation of obscene words and text)
independent variable (IV) - the variable that is systematically manipulated; typically involves more
than one condition; this is the variable that you think will cause differences in behavior
dependent variable (DV) - the variable that is measured because you think it is affected by
("dependent on") the experimental conditions; the effect of the independent variable
key features of an experiment - control, random assignment, experimental realism
random assignment - - participants are put into conditions through randomization
- each person has an equal chance of being in any condition
- any third variables not controlled in the experiment are equally distributed across conditions
, experimental realism - - maintaining control is important so that participants take the experiment
seriously and don't alter their behavior
- to achieve this, it is sometimes necessary to disguise the purpose of the study through cover
stories/deception
challenges of research - - controlling confounding third variables
- achieving experimental realism
- problems with surgery methods (ex: social desirability bias)
- not everything is easily tested through an experiment
- a lot of existing research has used WEIRD participants
theories - scientific explanations that connect and organize existing observations
sociocultural perspective - - theorizes that larger social groups exert a lot of influence on social
behavior of an individual
social norms - rules about appropriate behavior; influenced by culture
culture - a set of beliefs, customs, habits, and language shared by people living in a particular time
and place
natural selection - process in which characteristics that aid in survival are passed onto offspring
adaptions - characteristics well-suited to particular environments; lead to survival and
procreation; leads to probabilistic changes in a population
3 principles of natural selection and sexual selection - variation, heritability, differential
survival/reproductive success
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