Chapters 1 and 2

Definition and History of Social Psychology*

Research Methods in Social Psychology

Social Psychology Defined (within psychological tradition)

In my view, one key word in social psychology is the word INFLUENCE. Part of the field deals with "the influences that people have upon the beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of others."

Gordon W. Allport's (1954) definition of social psychology:

an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals is influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others

The term "implied presence" refers to the many activities people carry out because of their position (role) in a complex social structure and because of their membership in a cultural group

Allport's definition based on idea that social psychology is study of social influence

Central task of social psychology from this perspective: to explain the ways in which interaction between people affects the way they think and behave

Term "social influence" encapsulates some of major areas in social psychology, such as: persuasion, attitude change, conformity.

Social psychologists adopting the influence view pose such questions as:

How are people influenced?

Why do people let themselves be influenced?

Do certain factors increase/decrease the effectiveness of social influence?

When we've been influenced by others, is this influence permanent or transitory?

What variables affect whether the effects of influence are permanent or transitory?

How do people come to like one another?

How do people come to develop prejudice? (ETC. ETC. ETC.)

Your book sees social psychology as the scientific study of the way individuals think, feel, desire, and act in social situations.

This definition recognizes that questions asked in social psychology are broader than just social influence

In reality, then, there are three broad domains of social psychology:

social perception

social influence

social interaction

Definitions of The Three Major Areas 

Social perception - how we see other social objects (i.e., people and groups)

Social interaction (includes areas like cooperation and conflict, aggression, helping, interpersonal relationships and many others)

Social influence - Is actually the link between social perception and social interaction.

SOCIAL PERCEPTION <--> SOCIAL INFLUENCE <--> SOCIAL INTERACTION

The three domains are not separate, but are inextricably bound together.

A Few Historical Landmarks

(history, theorists, confidence portion based partly on Malles' http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bfmalle/sp/handouts.html )

1895: Le Bon presents a systematic theory of crowd behavior

1897: Triplett conducts first experiment on a "social facilitation" effect

1908: Ross (a sociologist) and McDougall coincidentally write first textbook(s) of social psychology

1921: Journal of Abnormal Psychology --> Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

1968: Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology --> Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

These titles reveal that social psychology is supposedly interdisciplinary (e.g., representing interface between clinical, personality, and social)

It isn't as interdisciplinary as it should be.

There are examples of where social is again becoming more interdisciplinary (e.g., Journal of Clinical and Social Psychology)

Social psychology was Historically "Experimental"

Two famous studies:

1.Lewin, Lippitt, & White (1939).

Test of three leadership styles. Key features: bringing the real world into the lab, staging of complex but controlled events

2.Sherif (1936). Development of norms when people make judgments under the influence of others (stimulus = autokinetic effect).

The experiments often involved

• intricate enactments of well worked out scripts in the lab

• the cover story often deceived participants, but

• careful to debrief them after experiment was over

Idea was that only by conducting experiments could we really get a handle on the factors affect social perception, influence, and interaction

Major theorists,approaches, and interests

Early on, little theory was available.

Lewin's field theory (1935):

B = f (PE)

Not really a theory, but identifies where important to look (P & E)

Lewin trained many famous social psychologists:

Examples: Festinger, Schachter, Deutsch, Kelley, Thibaut...

Festinger (1954)

One of great theoreticians. Came up with theory of social comparison

His key ideas:

•social power (other people are standards of judgment)

•cognitive-subjectivist (people seek information about self, compare self to others)

•consistency motive (people think about and feel discrepancies between themselves and others, try to resolve them)

Only a few years later (1957), Festinger published his next theory---cognitive dissonance theory

Its key features are:

•individualistic (people's own cognitions are being compared intrapsychically; 'self' rather than external group becomes focus of research)

•cognitive-subjectivist, with a hint of affect (dissonance produces tension)

•consistency motive (people try to reduce the tension)

The theory dominated social psychology from the 50s to the 70s and led directly into the first wave of cognitive social psychology (self-perception theory, attribution theory---which was heavily influenced by Heider).

Fritz Heider:

Incredible mind & key influence on Festinger (we'll come back to him)

"Influence" theorists & researchers

Asch, Milgram (etc.) Examined conformity, obedience in 50's and 60's. Then also looked at persuasion and attitude change. There was a shift in 50s - 70s back to social perception and a more cognitive look at social phenomena. Started recognizing importance of "self" in the social process.

Cognitively underpinned approaches

Self-appraisal was core concern Festinger's theories

More closely examined in Schachter's work on affiliation (1959) and later on the social-cognitive basis of emotion (1962)

This line also influenced attribution theory (explaining others and self)

Research on the self became a major topic

(self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-schema, self-presentation, self-affirmation, self-evaluation maintenance).

Attribution theory: Major Force after WW-II

Fritz Heider: the father

Full-fledged cognitive model:

How people infer causality

Where is the social in this cognitive theory?

Causal explanations may be about social objects---other people and the self.

The "Crisis of Confidence" in Social Psychology

Have we discovered "artifacts" only?

• Hawthorne effect (1920s)

giving coworker's attention

• Rosenthal (1960s)

expectancy effects (e.g., bright/dull rat expts.)

• Orne (1962)

demand characteristics

•Alternative procedures

naturalistic/field observation

role playing

nonreactive measures

Are we being ethical by deceiving participants?

•Milgram's research

APA sets up ethical guidelines (1972)

Who cares what we do, anyway: The relevance crisis

•criticized for being too concerned with relevance (McQuire) vs.

•discipline obsessed with arcane theory and clever experiments without any social relevance (Ring)

•social psychology is historical rather than scientific (Gergen)

(historical = inherently unstable)

 

Are results from social psychological research "meaningful"??

• Yes -- witness the many applications of basic findings in the real-world (health, business, law)

• Yes -- The "effect sizes" do vary, but many of them are as large, or larger than, those found in other fields of psychology

• These effect sizes actually are fairly impressive, given social psychologists' penchant for conducting follow-up studies to the original that are meant to explore either (a) whether the effect can be "reversed" or "knocked down" or (b) demonstrate that the original effect is subject to various moderators, such as gender, culture, or specific situational constraints (which will usually reduce effect sizes)

• For great reviews of consistent or inconsistent effects accumulated throughout the history of social psychological research, consult two sources:

Manstead, A. S. R., & Hewstone, M. (1995). The Blackwell encyclopedia of social psychology. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. (a qualitative summary)

Richard, F. D., Bond, C. F., Jr., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described. Review of General Psychology, 7, 331-336. (a quantitative summary)

Research Methods are continued on the following page..... 

 

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