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In this lesson, we will learn more about social psychology, what it has in common with other fields of study, and what types of careers are available in social psychology. Try it risk-free for 30 days. An error occurred trying to load this video. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support.
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Introduction to Social Psychology: Social Psychology and its Applications in Environmental Efforts. What is Altruism in Social Psychology? Social Influence in Psychology: The 7 Major Themes of Social Psychology. Group Behavior in Social Psychology: The Clinical Psychology Movement: What is Compliance in Psychology? Definition, Purpose, and Goals. Hugo Munsterberg's Contributions to Psychology. What Is Industrial Organizational Psychology? Life Span Developmental Psychology: Human Growth and Development: History and Systems of Psychology.
Unlimited access to all video lessons Lesson Transcripts Tech support. Social psychology is concerned with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are cognitively constructed and how these mental representations, in turn, influence our interactions with others. Numerous studies have shown that people can form strong positive and negative attitudes toward neutral objects that are in some way linked to emotionally charged stimuli. Some work in corporate America, helping companies choose the best employees and create the most productive work environments. For example, one could correlate the amount of violent television children watch at home with the number of violent incidents the children participate in at school.
Social Psychology and Other Fields As you can probably tell, social psychology covers a lot of ground! Try it risk-free No obligation, cancel anytime. Want to learn more? Select a subject to preview related courses: Careers in Social Psychology So, we know what social psychology is, but what do social psychologists do for a living? As you can see, there are a lot of options for social psychologists!
Lesson Summary Social psychology is the study of how people act, think, and feel in the context of society. Learning Outcomes After watching this lesson, you should be able to: Define psychology and social psychology Compare and contrast social psychology with anthropology, sociology, and personality psychology Name some careers for social psychologists. Unlock Your Education See for yourself why 30 million people use Study. Become a Member Already a member?
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Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are .. A recent special edition of the journal Social Psychology focused on replication studies and a number of previously held beliefs were found to be. Social psychology is about understanding individual behavior in a social context. Social psychologists therefore deal with the factors that lead us to behave in Texts focusing on social psychology first emerged at the start of the 20th century.
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Unlimited access to all video lessons Lesson Transcripts Tech support. See all other plans. Streaming videos that cover every part of the exam, to help you get your best grade or score Download videos with ease Full transcripts of each lesson Unlimited practice tests —so you're completely confident on test day Mobile app —study anywhere 1-on-1 support from instructors.
See all other plans See the Teacher's Edition. Don't worry, we'll email you right away with all the details You are free to cancel online, anytime, with just a few simple clicks And if you have any questions, you can reach out anytime. First Name Name is required. Last Name Name is required. Phone Number Don't worry. We won't call unless you want us to. Modern researchers are interested in a variety of phenomena, but attribution, social cognition, and self-concept are perhaps the greatest areas of growth.
Social psychologists have also maintained their applied interests, with contributions in health and environmental psychology, as well as the psychology of the legal system.
Social psychology is the study of how social conditions affect human beings. Scholars in this field are generally either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis. Despite their similarity, the disciplines tend to differ in their respective goals, approaches, methods, and terminology. They also favor separate academic journals and professional societies. Read more about History of Social Psychology. In its simplest form, experimentation is a method of determining the presence or absence of a causal relationship between two variables by systematically manipulating one variable called the independent variable and assessing its effect on another variable called the dependent variable.
Some scholars have questioned the utility of experimentation, noting that the experiments which researchers design sometimes do not resemble the circumstances that people encounter in their everyday lives. However, experimentation is the only research method that allows one to definitively establish the existence of a causal relationship between two or more variables. Read more about Social Psychology Experiments.
Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate, social situations. Experimental methods involve the researcher altering a variable in the environment and measuring the effect on another variable. An example would be allowing two groups of children to play violent or nonviolent videogames, and then observing their subsequent level of aggression during free-play period.
A valid experiment is controlled and uses random assignment. Co-relational methods examine the statistical association between two naturally occurring variables. For example, one could correlate the amount of violent television children watch at home with the number of violent incidents the children participate in at school.
Note that this study would not prove that violent TV causes aggression in children. It is quite possible that aggressive children choose to watch more violent TV programs. Observational methods are purely descriptive and include naturalistic observation, contrived observation, participant observation, and archival analysis. These are less common in social psychology but are sometimes used when first investigating a phenomenon. An example would be to unobtrusively observe children on a playground with a video camera, perhaps and record the number and types of aggressive actions displayed.
Whenever possible, social psychologists rely on controlled experimentation. Controlled experiments require the manipulation of one or more independent variables in order to examine the effect on a dependent variable. Experiments are useful in social psychology because they are high in internal validity, meaning that they are free from the influence of confounding or extraneous variables, and so are more likely to accurately indicate a causal relationship. However, the small samples used in controlled experiments are typically low in external validity, or the degree to which the results can be generalized to the larger population.
There is usually a trade-off between experimental control internal validity and being able to generalize to the population external validity. Because it is usually impossible to test everyone, research tends to be conducted on a sample of persons from the wider population. Social psychologists frequently use survey research when they are interested in results that are high in external validity.
Surveys use various forms of random sampling to obtain a sample of respondents that are representative of a population. This type of research is usually descriptive or co-relational because there is no experimental control over variables. However, new statistical methods, like structural equation modeling, are being used to test for potential causal relationships in this type of data.
Regardless of which method is used, it is important to evaluate the research hypothesis in the light of the results, either confirming or rejecting the original prediction. Replications are important to ensure that the result is valid and not due to chance or some feature of a particular sample. Read more about Social Psychology Research Methods. The goal of social psychology is to understand cognition and behavior as they naturally occur in a social context, but the very act of observing people can influence and alter their behavior.
For this reason, many social psychology experiments utilize deception to conceal or distort certain aspects of the study. Deception may include false cover stories, false participants known as confederates or stooges , false feedback given to the participants, and so on. The practice of deception has been challenged by some psychologists who maintain that deception under any circumstances is unethical, and that other research strategies such as role-playing should be used instead.
Unfortunately, research has shown that role-playing studies do not produce the same results as deception studies and this has cast doubt on their validity. To protect the rights and well-being of research participants, and at the same time discover meaningful results and insights into human behavior, virtually all social psychology research must pass an ethical review process. At most colleges and universities, this is conducted by an ethics committee or institutional review board.