PSYCH 350 1st EditionExam # 1 Study Guide Lectures: 1-6Introduction to Social Psychology- Definition of social psycho The scientific study of how people think, influence, and relate to one another within a social context- Definition of “the scientific study”o A way of asking and answering questions about social psychology - Definition of “think about, influence, relate”o Focus on individual & interaction with the social environment - Components of social psych, includingo Social cognition How we think about social world o Social influence How the social world affects the individualo Social relations How groups interact to one another- Definition of “social context”o Individual within his/her social world - Brief history of social psycho 1880s – 1920s Bicycle study o 1930s – 1950s Psychoanalysis- Unconscious forces & desires  Behaviorism- Study of mind Interactionism- Theory that there are 2 entities, mind and body, each of which have an effect on each othero 1960s – mid-1970s Stanford prison experimento Mid-1970s – 1990s Researchers approached social psych with multiple methodso Currently More interdisciplinary approach  Social neuroscience  Behavioral genetics  Evolutionary psychology  Behavioral economics- Related disciplineso Sociology Group vs. individualo Cognitive psych Mental processes vs. mental processes + social environnement o Personality Stable differences vs. commonalities within situations- Is social psych just common sense?o Hindsight bias Tendency to believe that you “knew it all along” after you know the result  Makes us think that social psych is study of obvious & can lead to overconfidence in our understandingo Construal The way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world not always objective Research Methods- Definition of empiricismo Knowledge gained through observation and experimentation - Developing ideaso Theory A set of principle that explain and predict outcomeso Hypothesis Testable and refutableo Operational Definition Specific procedure for manipulating or measuring a variable - Process of studying a social psychological research questiono Theoryhypothesis/predictionresearchconfirmationconfidence increased OR disconfirmationconfirmation decreasedrefine OR reject- Descriptive researcho Observational studies o Archival studies o Survey- Correlational researcho Research measures the relationships between variables not manipulated by the researcher The third-variable problem - zxy The directionality problem - xy Positive correlations- Values of two variables change in the same direction - General trend= slope down to right  Negative correlations- Values of two variables change in opposite direction - General trend=slope down and to the right- Experimental researcho Operational definition Specific procedure for manipulating or measuring a variable o Independent variable (IV) Variable that is manipulatedo Dependent variable (DV) Variable that is measuredo Random assignment Assigning participants to experimental conditions so that each participant has anequal chance of being in any conditiono Control group Group of participants that does not receive the experimental manipulation- Internal validityo Making sure that nothing besides the IV can affect the DV- External validityo The extent to which research results can be generalized beyond the current situation and people - Statistical significanceo Difference that is unlikely to have occurred by chance- Subjectivity in social psychologyo values- Naturalistic fallacyo What is “natural” is good - Ethical issueso Ethics The rules concerning conduct in researcho Institutional Review Board (IRB) Treatment of animals  Rights of humans  Responsibility of researcher o Informed consent Agreement of a participant to take part in an experiment  Acknowledgement that they understand the nature of their participant  And have been informed about the nature of the researcho Deception Used in research when participants are misinformed or misled about the studys methods and purposeso Debriefing Informs the participants about the true nature of the experiment after its