Social Psychology
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Compliance refers to any change in behavior that is due to a request or suggestion from another person. The foot-in-the-door technique is a compliance method in which the persuader requests a small favor and then follows up with requesting a larger favor, e. A related trick is the bait and switch. The third major form of social influence is obedience ; this is a change in behavior that is the result of a direct order or command from another person.
Obedience as a form of compliance was dramatically highlighted by the Milgram study , wherein people were ready to administer shocks to a person in distress on a researcher's command. An unusual kind of social influence is the self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true. For example, in the stock market , if it is widely believed that a crash is imminent, investors may lose confidence, sell most of their stock, and thus actually cause the crash.
Similarly, people may expect hostility in others and actually induce this hostility by their own behavior. A group can be defined as two or more individuals that are connected to each another by social relationships. They have a number of emergent qualities that distinguish them from aggregates:. Temporary groups and aggregates share few or none of these features, and do not qualify as true social groups.
People waiting in line to get on a bus, for example, do not constitute a group. Groups are important not only because they offer social support, resources, and a feeling of belonging, but because they supplement an individual's self-concept. To a large extent, humans define themselves by the group memberships which form their social identity.
The shared social identity of individuals within a group influences intergroup behavior, the way in which groups behave towards and perceive each other. These perceptions and behaviors in turn define the social identity of individuals within the interacting groups. The tendency to define oneself by membership in a group may lead to intergroup discrimination, which involves favorable perceptions and behaviors directed towards the in-group, but negative perceptions and behaviors directed towards the out-group.
Groups often moderate and improve decision making , [ citation needed ] and are frequently relied upon for these benefits, such as in committees and juries. A number of group biases, however, can interfere with effective decision making. For example, group polarization, formerly known as the "risky shift," occurs when people polarize their views in a more extreme direction after group discussion.
More problematic is the phenomenon of groupthink. This is a collective thinking defect that is characterized by a premature consensus or an incorrect assumption of consensus, caused by members of a group failing to promote views which are not consistent with the views of other members. Groupthink occurs in a variety of situations, including isolation of a group and the presence of a highly directive leader. Janis offered the Bay of Pigs Invasion as a historical case of groupthink.
Groups also affect performance and productivity. Social facilitation, for example, is a tendency to work harder and faster in the presence of others. Social facilitation increases the dominant response ' s likelihood, which tends to improve performance on simple tasks and reduce it on complex tasks.
Social loafing is common when the task is considered unimportant and individual contributions are not easy to see. Social psychologists study group-related collective phenomena such as the behavior of crowds. An important concept in this area is deindividuation , a reduced state of self-awareness that can be caused by feelings of anonymity. Deindividuation is associated with uninhibited and sometimes dangerous behavior. It is common in crowds and mobs, but it can also be caused by a disguise, a uniform, alcohol, dark environments, or online anonymity [36].
A major area in the study of people's relations to each other is interpersonal attraction. This refers to all forces that lead people to like each other, establish relationships, and in some cases fall in love. Several general principles of attraction have been discovered by social psychologists, but many still continue to experiment and do research to find out more. One of the most important factors in interpersonal attraction is how similar two particular people are. The more similar two people are in general attitudes, backgrounds, environments, worldviews, and other traits, the more probable an attraction is possible.
Physical attractiveness is an important element of romantic relationships, particularly in the early stages characterized by high levels of passion. Later on, similarity and other compatibility factors become more important, and the type of love people experience shifts from passionate to companionate. Robert Sternberg has suggested that there are actually three components of love: According to social exchange theory , relationships are based on rational choice and cost-benefit analysis.
If one partner's costs begin to outweigh his or her benefits, that person may leave the relationship, especially if there are good alternatives available. This theory is similar to the minimax principle proposed by mathematicians and economists despite the fact that human relationships are not zero-sum games. With time, long term relationships tend to become communal rather than simply based on exchange. Social psychology is an empirical science that attempts to answer questions about human behavior by testing hypotheses, both in the laboratory and in the field. Careful attention to sampling, research design, and statistical analysis is important; results are published in peer reviewed journals such as the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Social psychology studies also appear in general science journals such as Psychological Science and Science. 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.
Correlational 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: 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 videocamera, perhaps and record the number and types of aggressive actions displayed.
Social Psychology Key Figures
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.
In some laboratory experiments, subjects watch stills or moving pictures, listen to tape recordings, or directly observe or interact with another person. Statistical field studies of industrial work groups have sought the conditions for greatest production effectiveness and job satisfaction. For other uses, see Social psychology disambiguation. This spotlight can shine on only one object at a time, but it can switch rapidly from one object to another and process the information out of awareness. Response to social stimulation in the group. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. Much of the key research in social psychology developed following World War II, when people became interested in the behavior of individuals when grouped together and in social situations.
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 correlational 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. David Sears, have criticized social psychological research for relying too heavily on studies conducted on university undergraduates in academic settings.
Regardless of which method has been chosen to be used, the results are of high importance. Results need to be used to evaluate the hypothesis of the research that is done. These results should either confirm or reject the original hypothesis that was predicted. There are two different types of testing social psychologists use in order to test their results. False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's own confirmation bias , are a hazard in the field. 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 e. 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. This group examines the proposed research to make sure that no harm is likely to be done to the participants, and that the study's benefits outweigh any possible risks or discomforts to people taking part in the study.
Furthermore, a process of informed consent is often used to make sure that volunteers know what will happen in the experiment [ clarification needed ] and understand that they are allowed to quit the experiment at any time.
Social psychology
A debriefing is typically done at the experiment's conclusion in order to reveal any deceptions used and generally make sure that the participants are unharmed by the procedures. Social psychology has recently found itself at the center of a " replication crisis " due to some research findings proving difficult to replicate.
Replication failures are not unique to social psychology and are found in all fields of science. However, several factors have combined to put social psychology at the center of the current controversy. Firstly, questionable research practices QRP have been identified as common in the field. Such practices, while not necessarily intentionally fraudulent, involve converting undesired statistical outcomes into desired outcomes via the manipulation of statistical analyses, sample size or data management, typically to convert non-significant findings into significant ones.
Secondly, social psychology has found itself at the center of several recent scandals involving outright fraudulent research. Most notably the admitted data fabrication by Diederik Stapel [45] as well as allegations against others. However, most scholars acknowledge that fraud is, perhaps, the lesser contribution to replication crises. Third, several effects in social psychology have been found to be difficult to replicate even before the current replication crisis. For example, the scientific journal Judgment and Decision Making has published several studies over the years that fail to provide support for the unconscious thought theory.
Replications appear particularly difficult when research trials are pre-registered and conducted by research groups not highly invested in the theory under questioning. These three elements together have resulted in renewed attention for replication supported by Daniel Kahneman. Scrutiny of many effects have shown that several core beliefs are hard to replicate. A recent special edition of the journal Social Psychology focused on replication studies and a number of previously held beliefs were found to be difficult to replicate.
It is important to note that this replication crisis does not mean that social psychology is unscientific. An innate capacity for language, for example, makes it possible to learn a local language. Culture consists of patterns of behaviour and ways of organizing experience; it develops over the course of history as new elements are introduced from a variety of sources, only some of which are retained. Many aspects of social behaviour can be partly accounted for in terms of their history. In some laboratory experiments, subjects watch stills or moving pictures, listen to tape recordings, or directly observe or interact with another person.
Subjects may be asked to reveal their social perception of such persons on rating scales, to give free descriptions of them, or to respond evaluatively in other ways. Although such studies can produce results that do not correspond to those in real-life settings, they can provide useful information on the perception of personality, social roles, emotions, and interpersonal attitudes or responses during ongoing social interaction. Research has been directed to how social perception is affected by cultural stereotypes e. The work has found practical application in the assessment of employees and of candidates for positions.
There also has been research on the ways in which perception of objects and people is affected by social factors such as culture and group membership. It has been shown, for example, how coins, colours, and other physical cues are categorized differently by people as a result of their group membership and of the categories provided by language.
Other studies have shown the effect of group pressures on perception. The different verbal and nonverbal signals used in conversation have been studied, and the functions of such factors as gaze, gesture, and tone of voice are analyzed in social-interaction studies. Social interaction is thus seen to consist of closely related sequences of nonverbal signals and verbal utterances.
Gaze has been found to perform several important functions.
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Laboratory and field studies have examined helping behaviour, imitation , friendship formation, and social interaction in psychotherapy. Among the theoretical models developed to describe the nature of social behaviour, the stimulus—response model in which every social act is seen as a response to the preceding act of another individual has been generally found helpful but incomplete.
Linguistic models that view social behaviour as being governed by principles analogous to the rules of a game or specifically to the grammar of a language have also attracted adherents. Others see social behaviour as a kind of motor skill that is goal-directed and modified by feedback or learning , while other models have been based on the theory of games , which emphasizes the pursuit and exchange of rewards and has led to experiments based on laboratory games.
All small social groups do not function according to the same principles, and, indeed, modes of social activity vary for particular kinds of groups e. Earlier research was concerned with whether small groups did better than individuals at various tasks e. In the method known as sociometry , members nominate others e.
Others have studied the effects of democratic and authoritarian leadership in groups and have greatly extended this work in industrial settings. In research on how people respond to group norms e. The emergence and functioning of informal group hierarchies , the playing of social roles e. Experiments have been done on processes of group problem solving and decision making , the social conditions that produce the best results, and the tendency for groups to make risky decisions.
Statistical field studies of industrial work groups have sought the conditions for greatest production effectiveness and job satisfaction. Such organizations as businesses and armies have been studied by social surveys, statistical field studies, field experiments, and laboratory experiments on replicas of their social hierarchies and communication networks.
Although they yield the most direct evidence, field experiments present difficulties, since the leaders and members of such organizations may effectively resist the intervention of experimenters. Clearly, efforts to try out democratic methods in a dictatorship are likely to be severely punished. Investigators can study the effects of role conflict resulting from conflicting demands e. Researchers also have studied the sources of power and how it can be used and resisted.
They consider the effectiveness of different organizational structures, studying variations in size, span of control, and the amount of power delegation and consultation. In factories, social psychologists study the effects of technology and the design of alternative work-flow systems. They investigate methods of bringing about organizational change e. Ways of looking at working organizations have changed considerably since Classical organization theory was criticized for its emphasis on social hierarchy , economic motivation , division of labour , and rigid and impersonal social relations.
Later investigators emphasized the importance of flexibly organized groups, leadership skills, and job satisfaction based on less tangible rewards than salary alone. It is evident that there are individual differences in social behaviour; thus, people traditionally have been distinguished in terms of such personality traits as extroversion or dominance see personality.
Some personality tests are used to predict how an individual is likely to behave in laboratory discussion groups, but usually the predictive efficiency is very small. Whether or not an individual becomes a leader of a group, for example, is found to depend very little on what such personality tests measure and more on his skills in handling the group task compared with the skills of others. Indeed, the same person may be a leader in some groups and a follower in others. Similar considerations apply to other aspects of social behaviour, such as conformity, persuasibility, and dependency.
Although people usually perceive others as being consistent in exhibiting personality traits, the evidence indicates that each individual may behave very differently, depending on the social circumstances. The process by which personality is formed as the result of social influences is called socialization. Early research methods employed case studies of individuals and of individual societies e. Later research has made statistical comparisons of numbers of persons or of different societies; differences in child-rearing methods from one society to another, for example, have been shown to be related to the subsequent behaviour of the infants when they become adults.
Psychologically oriented researchers place a great deal of emphasis on the immediate social situation, and the interaction between person and situation variables. Their research tends to be highly empirical and is often centered round lab experiments.
History of Social Psychology
Psychologists who study social psychology are interested in such topics as attitudes, social cognition, cognitive dissonance, social influence, and interpersonal behavior. Read more about Sociological Social Psychology. The discipline of social psychology began in the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century. The first published study in this area was an experiment by Norman Triplett on the phenomenon of social facilitation. They were instrumental in developing the field as something separate from the behavioral and psychoanalytic schools that were dominant during that time, and social psychology has always maintained the legacy of their interests in perception and cognition.
Attitudes and a variety of small group phenomena were the most commonly studied topics in this era. After the war, researchers became interested in a variety of social problems, including gender issues and racial prejudice. In the s, there was growing interest in a variety of new topics, such as cognitive dissonance, bystander intervention, and aggression. By the s, however, social psychology in America had reached a crisis.
There was heated debate over the ethics of laboratory experimentation, whether or not attitudes really predicted behavior, and how much science could be done in a cultural context Gergen This was also the time when a radical situationist approach challenged the relevance of self and personality in psychology. During the years immediately following World War II, there was frequent collaboration between psychologists and sociologists Sewell However, the two disciplines have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent years, with sociologists focusing on macro variables such as social structure to a much greater extent.
Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology remain an important counterpart to psychological research in this area. Social psychology reached maturity in both theory and method during the s and s. Careful ethical standards now regulate research, and greater pluralism and multicultural perspectives have emerged.
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.