Social Psychology

Tries to answer the following questions:

What is the connection between thoughts, beliefs, and actions?

What influences our beliefs and attitudes?

How does social conflict arise and how can we reduce it?

Social Psychology --- The scientific study of how people

think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social Psychological Research

Experimental Research -- Researchers actively manipulate a factor (independent variable) while tightly controlling all other known influences in order to uncover cause and effect relationships. Most often done in laboratory setting.

Field Research -- Research done in natural, real-life settings. Very difficult to achieve the same controls as in a laboratory.

Correlational Research - The study of naturally occurring relationships among variables. Statistically examines cooccurances of two or more variables.

Example: Height and Weight are positively correlated

Cloud Cover and Sunshine are negatively correlated

Cautions in interpreting Correlations:

Correlation does not imply causation

Zero correlations means only that there is not a

significant linear relationship. Other relationships may

still exist between variables with a Zero correlation.

Common terms important in Social Psychology

Independent variable: What a researcher manipulates or changes within an experiment

Dependent variable: What a researcher measures

Random Assignment: the process by which all participants in a study have an equal chance of being in any particular experimental manipulation.

Mundane Realism: The degree to which an laboratory experimental setting resembles the "real world"

Demand characteristics: Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected. Researchers attempt to minimize demand characteristics as much as possible.

Informed consent: An ethical principle requiring that research participants be provided with enough information concerning an experiment which will allow them to make an informed decision about their participation in the study.

Hypothesis -- A testable proposition that describes a possible relationship between events