Lecture 1: Intro and Critical Psychology

Question 1

Start of Social Psychology

Answer 1

Norman Triplett (1898)
Times recorded for cyclists racing against each other were faster than when they raced alone against the clock
Energising force – arises from competition
Experimental method – exp + control group
40 x 8-17yr boys & girls winding fishing rods
Some over-stimulated by the task and ‘going to pieces’

= SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Question 2

History of Experimental Psychology

Answer 2

Wilhelm Wundt credited with lab based scientific approach
Focused on behaviours and thoughts of individuals who act independently, and in experiments are separated from their environments
BF Skinner promoted behaviourism – breaks down human psychology into constituent parts (e.g. controlling a biological factor in an experiment)
Cognitive revolution attempts to reverse engineer thinking processes – somewhat shaped by technology,
seeks universal processes
WWII – psychologists working on propaganda, obedience, group processes, leadership
Post-WWII – research focuses on the horrors of war, e.g. Milgram’s studies of obedience were a response to the Holocaust
In an effort to establish psychology as science experiments were prioritised over fieldwork – little emphasis on context, or the researcher (written as a neutral third-person)

WWII – psychologists working on propaganda, obedience, group processes, leadership
Post-WWII – research focuses on the horrors of war, e.g. Milgram’s studies of obedience were a response to the Holocaust
In an effort to establish psychology as science experiments were prioritised over fieldwork – little emphasis on context, or the researcher (written as a neutral third-person)

Question 3

Social Psychology as a Science

Answer 3

Methodology = experimentation
Social psychologists study observable social behaviour
Interested in human behaviour including people’s reactions to given situation
Uses scientific method to construct & test theories

Question 4

Classic Study: Impression Formation

Answer 4

Asch (1946) warm-cold experiments (see Tuffin (2009) p. 14)
Undergraduate students divided into 2 groups
One group: seven personality traits describing a hypothetical person
Intelligent, skilful, industrious, warm, cold, determined, practical, cautious
Warm = positive traits = happy, successful, popular, humorous
Cold = negative descriptions = unsociable, unpopular, irritable, ungenerous, humourless and self-centred

Trait centrality

Question 5

Impression Formation

Answer 5

Stigma and interview(er) bias (Derous et al., 2016) - how stigmatizing applicant characteristics affect interviewers’ information processing
“applicants could be recommended to block pictures and/or personal video’s on their social media accounts in order to prevent interviewers’ biased impression”
“interviewers may be recommended to use structured checklists like competency and experience checklists or testimonials during the pre-interview stage”
Process of impression formation is not equal across various group boundaries (e.g. gender, race) (Xie, Flaek & Hehman, 2018)

Question 6

Experimental Approaches

Answer 6

Using experiments to increase our understanding of social phenomena
Great majority of published studies
Premised on variables
Language taken at face value
No theorisation about the role of language
Vs considering the dynamic, active and constructive properties of language
Artificial nature of experiments, and questioning relevance
Subjects
Reductionism
Individualism

Question 7

Philosophy of Science

Answer 7

Ontology: the study of being, of existence

Epistemology: the nature, origin, and limitations of knowledge
Methodology: a system of methods used to investigate, or study

Question 8

Epistemology

Answer 8

Dangerous! Assumptions underpin all disciplines and our own understandings
What can we ‘know’ about something?
Scientific knowledge? Casual relationships = general laws of social behaviour?
Correlational designs – tests of association
Critical approach: ‘local’ knowledge, partial, which occurs ‘between’ people

Question 9

The ‘Crisis’ in Social Psychology

Answer 9

1970s – growing cynicism among psychologists about their own experimental work – was it producing a thin caricature of human behaviour?
Social liberalism (e.g. anti-racism, feminism, LGBT rights) not reflected in psychological research
psychology mainstream as prejudiced
‘The Turn to Language’ – growing interest in language as a behaviour, not an expression of inner thoughts
WERID: “Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic“ (Schulz et al., 2018)

Question 10

Experimental

Answer 10

Positivism – the physical sciences
Ontological: towards a singular truth
Casual claims – relationships between variable
Laboratory studies, the ‘scientific’ method
Data is numerical – striving for significance (p < .05 etc.)

Question 11

Critical

Answer 11

Constructionism – language as an alternative
The plurality of truth and knowledge – no single truth can apply to all people
‘Knowledge’ occurs between people
Data comes from more naturalistic settings and is linguistic (speech, written text… anything??)
Analysis is always interpretative