Social Psychology:
A Working Definition-1. Social psychology is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social institutions.
2. It is scientific in nature because it adopts the values and methods used in other fields of science.
3. Social psychologist adopt the scientific method because "common sense" provides an unreliable guide to social behavior, and because human thought is influenced by many potential sources of bias.
4. Social psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals and seeks to understand the causes of social behavior and thought.
5. Important causes of social behavior and thought include the behavior and characteristics of other persons, cognitive processes, aspects of the physical environment, culture and biological and genetic factors.
Social Psychology in the New Millennium: New Interests, New Methods
1. A major theme in modern social psychology is the growing influence of a cognitive perspective. This perspective suggests that how people act in various social situations in strongly determined by their thoughts about these situations and other persons.
2. Another major theme of social psychology is the growing interest in application- applying the knowledge and findings of social psychology to many practical problems.
3. Social psychology currently adopts a multicultural perspective. This perspective recognizes the importance of cultural factors in social behavior and social thought, and notes that research findings obtained in one culture do not necessarily generalize to other cultures.
4. There is growing recognition, in modern social psychology, of the potential role of biological and genetic factors in social behavior and social thought.
Research Methods In Social Psychology
1. In Systematic Observation, behavior is carefully observed and recorded. In naturalistic observation, such observations are made in settings where the behavior naturally occurs.
2. In the Survey Method, large number of persons respond to questions about their attitudes and behavior.
3. In the Correlational Method in the research, two or more variables are measured to determine whether they are related to one another in any way.
4. The existence of even strong correlations between variables does not indicate that they are casually related to one another.
5. In order to determine whether the results of a research project are real or due to chance, social psychologists use inferential statistics.
6. If the likelihood is small that research results occurred by chance (less than 5 times in 100), results are described as significant.
7. In order to assess the direction and magnitude of the effects of independent variables across different studies, social psychologists use a statistical technique known as meta analysis.
8. Theories are frameworks for explaining various events or processes. They play a key role in social psychological research.
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