SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

HALIMA S. QURESHI
LECTURER
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 1
DEFINITION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

 Social psychology as the systematic

study of the nature and causes of
human social behavior.
 Influence
 Persuasion
 Actions
 Everyday Examples

 Groups influence
 Leadership and Innovation

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 2

RELATION TO OTHER FIELDS

 Sociology and Psychology

 Sociology is the scientific study of human society.
 It examines social institutions (family, religion, politics), stratification
within society (class structure, race and ethnicity, gender roles), basic
social processes (socialization, deviance, social control), and the
structure of social units (groups, networks, formal organizations,
bureaucracies).
 Psychology is the scientific study of the individual and of individual
behavior.

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 3

RELATION TO OTHER FIELDS

 Social psychology bridges sociology and psychology.

 sociological tradition ---surveys and observational techniques
to gather data. (self-presentation, leadership, conformity etc.)
 psychological tradition -- laboratory experimental
methodology
 Social Psychology is a young science, first social psychology
texts did not appear until approximately 1900.

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 4

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

A sub-discipline of psychology
 What is psychology?
 What are some other sub-disciplines?

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 5

WHAT IS SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY?

Scientific study of how people think about,

influence, and relate to one another
 Social thinking
 Social influence
 Social relations

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 6

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS . . .

7
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS

 We Construct Our Social Reality

 We react differently because we think differently
 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth football game demonstration
 Objective reality
 Beliefs about others
 Beliefs about ourselves

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 8

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS

 Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but Sometimes Perilous

 intuitions shape fears, impressions, relationships
 Dual processing (Kahneman “Thinking fast & slow”)
 Conscious and deliberate – system II
 Unconscious and automatic – system I

 automatic pilot
 misread our own minds, mispredict our own feelings, mispredict
our own future

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 9

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS

 Social Influences Shape Our Behavior

 Locality – give an example
 Educational level -give an example
 Subscribed media give an example
 Culture
 Ethnicity

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 10

 Personal Attitudes and Dispositions
 Internal forces
 Inner attitudes about specific situations

 Personality dispositions (individual differences)

 Different people may react differently while facing the same situation

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 11

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS

 Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted

 Evolutionary psychology
 Natural selection predisposes our actions and reactions
 Prejudice happens early at the brain level
 We prefer the familiar things – why?
 Hint: evolution

 Social neuroscience
 We are bio-psycho-social organisms
 Stress hormones affect how we feel and act, testosterone decreases trust, dose of
oxytocin increases it, Social support strengthens the disease-fighting immune system.

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 12

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG IDEAS

 Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable in Everyday

Life
 How to know ourselves better
 Implications for human health
 Implications for judicial procedures
 Influencing behaviors

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 13

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND
HUMAN VALUES

 Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology

 “personal convictions” give an example of one for a social psychologist…and
how it can influence her work.
 Research topics
 Types of people
 Do business students differ from ψ students?

 Object of social-psychological analysis

 How values form
 Why they change
 How they influence attitudes and actions
HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 14
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND
HUMAN VALUES

 Not-So-Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology

 Subjective aspects of Science
 Culture –which is better, competition or cooperation?
 Social representations – shared beliefs taken for granted
 Are there any real group differences for race/gender?

 Psychological concepts contain hidden values

 Defining the good life – Maslow’s personal values
 Professional advice -- advice giver’s personal values.
 Forming concepts
HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 15
 How could high self-esteem be the same as “defensive”?
 Labeling – some examples
• “terrorist” or a “freedom fighter”
• “welfare” or “aid to the needy”
• nationalism v. patriotism.
• open marriage” or “adultery”
• “Brainwashing”

Can you think of others?

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 16

IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SIMPLY COMMON
SENSE?

 Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that it is

trivial because it documents the obvious; second, that it is dangerous
because its findings could be used to manipulate people.
 Paul Lazarsfeld
 “Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than did less-

educated soldiers.”
 Problem with Common Sense
 Invoked after we know the facts (post hoc)
 Hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)

17
HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Forming and Testing Hypotheses

 Theory (falsifiable)
 Integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events

 Hypotheses
 Testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between
events
 What’s the difference between a “fact” and a “theory?

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 18

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Scientific research is a systematic, controlled, empirical, and critical investigation of hypothetical

propositions about the presumed relations among natural phenomena
 Theory: a set of interrelated constructs (concepts), definitions, and propositions that present a
systematic view of phenomena by specifying relations among variables, with the purpose of
explaining and predicting the phenomena.
 Hypothesis: a tentative proposition about the relation between two or more phenomena or variables. 
 Concept: Expresses an abstraction, e.g., "achievement."
 Construct: a concept which is invented or adopted for a special scientific purpose, e.g.,
"intelligence."
 Constitutive definition: defines a construct with other constructs, e.g. "weight" by saying that it is
"heaviness."
 Operational definition: assigns meaning to a construct or a variable by specifying the activities or
"operations" necessary to measure it.
19

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations

 Location
 Laboratory
 Controlled situation

 Field
 Everyday situations

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 20

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations

 Method
 Correlational
 Naturally occurring relationships among variables

 Experimental
 Seeks clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more variables
while controlling others

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 21

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations

 Correlation and causation
 Allows us to predict but not tell whether changing one variable will cause
changes in another
 Self esteem <-> high achievement (which causes which?)
 Does IQ and family status play a role?

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 22

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Correlation Research: Detecting Natural Associations

 Survey research
 Random sample (from a population)
 Unrepresentative samples
 Order of questions
 Response options
 What % of energy from nuclear power?

 Wording of questions
 “Welfare” v. “assistance to the poor”

 Framing – e.g. “forbid” v. “not allow”

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 23

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect

 Control: Manipulating variables
 Independent variable
 Experimental factor that a researcher manipulates

 Corr or causation
 Prejudice to obese persons (Snyder & Haugen, ‘94)
 TV violence (Boyatzis et al. ‘95)

 Dependent variable
 Variable being measured; depends on manipulations of the independent variable
 Can you manipulate or just measure? See: Table 1.1 p 25

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 24

 Random Assignment

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 25

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and

Effect
 Random assignment: The great equalizer
 Process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment
such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given
condition
 Eliminates extraneous factors

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 26

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW WE DO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

 Ethics of Experimentation
 Mundane realism -- describes the degree to which the materials and procedures
involved in an experiment are similar to events that occur in the real world.
 Experimental realism -- the extent to which participants experience the
experimental situation as intended.
 Deception
 Demand characteristics -- cues that might indicate the study aims to participants.
 Informed consent
 Debriefing

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 27

 Quiz #1: 4th Oct, 2022

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 28

GROUP PROJECT

 Written Report (Assignment)

 Topics:
 Pro-social Behavior
 Social Influence
 Improving self-concept

HALIMA S. QURESHI | LECTURER | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST 29