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Chapter 1 p3- theories and history for social psych - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 1 p3- theories and history for social psych
Theories- Lange said theories should be able to be applied to real world/ (give specifics in terms of broader abstract concepts) and make developments on existing theories
social psych theories- various (integrated) ideas to explain certain social behaviours- can explain broad behaviours or smaller unique characteristics - theories are good to give as hypotheses to test scientifically - theories rely on assumptions, using concepts, and sometimes finding relationships between concepts (better if they’re causal) example social identity theory p21
Terms in book: theories= set of (interrelated concepts/ principles) to explain (phenomena)
metatheory- set of interrelated concepts and principles concerning which theories or types of theory are appropriate
types of theory (reflect different metatheories)
Type of theory 1- behaviourism
Radical behaviourist-( explains observable behaviour in terms of reinforcement schedules without recourse to any unobservable eg cognitive constructs) - basically behaviour becomes (associated) w/ positive results becomes more repeated - more popular= neo behaviourist-(one who attempts to explain observable behaviour in terms of contextual factors and unobservable intervening constructs eg beliefs, feelings and motives) - (that individuals do more than just responding to stimuli but act on beliefs, attitudes, changing conditions and strive towards goals- all about intermediate processes between stimuli and response)- cliffnotes based on Ed Chance Tolman- social links w/ social exchange theory and social modelling or really any behaviour w/ interactions
Cog theories ( explanations of behaviour in terms of way people actively interpret and represent their experience) - debate on if behaviourism was too heavy on people being (passively influenced) by external stimuli- cog helped balance - debated that main fundamental underlying factor of social psych was cog theories- 1950s-60s main factor in social psych from 1970s social cognition became main view in social psych- eg early on at start of cog Kurt Lewin- field theory- peopled cog (representations of social environment give motivational forces that influence behaviour)
Observation of neurological/ biochemical related to social functioning = social neuroscience- stemmed from cog= (exploration of brain activity associated with social cognition and social psych processes and phenomena) - basically as psychology is to do with workings of brain cog must be tied to (electrochemical brain activity) - uses equipment eg fMRI to look at this activity related to social thoughts/ acts- also idea that we’re bio lifeforms and tying neuro/ biochemical aspects to social behaviour has caused observation into (biochemical markers) for social functioning
Evolutionary social psych- (an extension of evolutionary psych that views complex social behaviours as adaptive helping individual, kin and whole species to survive) - evolutionary social psychologists argue lots much of behaviour is due to (ancestral past of species) - over time developed ( cooperation and conflict w/ families, cooperative alliances, human aggression, altruism) helped w/ survival- became worked into genetic makeup- bio can be used to explain lots but can be taken to extreme - scientists found amount of base pairs and genes can’t explain such vast differences in human pop- many behaviours/ functions have to be somewhat down to (context and environment) - where social psych comes in
Individual differences - social psychologists sometimes say social behaviour is ‘enduring others personality differences’- eg charismatic personality= good leader but seen as only partial or possibly (inedequate re-description of social phenomena)- as social acts can be different in varied contexts/ environments and if personality is behaviour that withstands these context changes- we should try an explain personality instead of using it to explain social function- what causes some behaviours to remain unchanged?
Collectivist theories - contrast personality and id theories- feel social behaviour is (product of location/ in matrix of social categories and groups that make up society) - behaviour not due to (personality/ individual predisposition but instead internalising group norms that influence behaviour in varied contexts) - William McDougall- ‘group mind’ different to individual behaviour- act, think, process info different
Collectivist theories incorporate top down approach- to explain social function need to look at group/ intergroup dynamics/ social forces- individualist theories where social behaviour is made from singular cog functions or personality is in turn ‘bottom up’
Social psych crisis- reproducibility/ replication crisis that led to greater fixation on (transparent/open scientific practices) lots of metatheories in social psych -how it should be practiced lots of alarms raised- reductionist focuses too much on individual experience/ positivistic- (adherent to forms of science that are distorted/ unrealistic)
Why social psych considered reductionist- explains theories simply in terms of (asocial/ intrapsychic motivations/ internal cognitions) - evolutionary and bio social psych can also be considered reductionist- implications can sometimes have societal consequences eg Fine 2010 reinforced some gender stereotypes w/ research- group social functions is especially reductionist- explains in terms of internal psych processes, personality and interpersonal relations can miss out key factors eg prejudice
Positivism- (non critical acceptance of science as only way to arrive at true knowledge- science as religion)- social science called too positivistic- can never provide truly objective view when studying ourselves - and by viewing humans as variables dehumanises/ miss out on subjective but useful info- so has been alternatives to traditional social psych- examples p26- but all look at humans as a whole who’ve developed historically- research methods include lots of self reflection- subjectivity wanted
Most deal with positivism not by disregarding scientific method but by using best scientific methods of theory and research/operationalising definitions such as concepts to make them critical- they also try and acknowledge ppts as people with own background that can influence behaviour and take note of any reductionism, subjectivity, level of exp in study- also study language-(possibly most important way humans think, plan,action and manipulate world around them)
History- Anglo European influence of Volkerpsychologie-( early precursor to social psych looked at collective mind - mid- late 19th century)- look at us as individuals but also group cog- Early social psych Textst- the Bunge 1903 and Orano 1901- not English authors not really recognised in UK/ US- earlier Baldwin 1897/1901 published about social morality regarding child development- Gabriel Tarde also adopted bottoms up theory/ debated with Durkheim that social behaviour due to human psych less so formation of rules in society
Experimentation- around 1890s-1910s focus on tying social psych to more general disciplines in general psych being taught in unis in US- quickly took Germany’s title of main psych area- Allport later published book in 1924 about using scientific method for social psych- became very popular- first exp Triplett- social facilitation- would you ride a bike faster when pacing (timing) yourself or competing compared to individually
Later historical techniques- attitude scaling- lot of this work done by sociologists- often contribute to social psych field - even a sociological social psych- many said social psych is a lot down to attitude scaling/ group studies- very popular in field Kurt Lewin one of most famous for doing this in early phase- how leadership is in smaller groups- example p31- also great interest in industrial psych and how management and workers psych state is important in addition to environment/ popular textbooks- examples p30 - after WW2- legacy and lots of English speakers- social psych grew a lot in US- more recently more focus on European perspectives as well as US ones
Famous experiments- examples p31- cover topics in 1950s such as:norm formation- helping define what’s involved in social psych/ how resources relate to intergroup conflict/ cognitive dissonance- small reward can influence attitude more than larger reward/ Milgram- how authority can influence/ intergroup discrimination and Zimbardo- uni prison- deindividuation and extremity of roles
Research programmes- Lewin very famous in (looking at networks- who is who then looking at who influences who)- research programmes also had very big influence after WW2 - one group looked cross culturally at authoritarianism in US/ other group looked at how propaganda can influence- later on cog approach dominated in social field -looking into relations based on economic theory social exchange- brought social psych beyond close relations/ looking into human ideas of causality (attribution theory)/ looking at thought processes in emergency
Research journals - been many since 1960s examples p32- got more scientific and cognitive by 70s/80s- but journal crisis- too many publishing- hard to know what to read- good judges is quality
Social psych in Europe- was created there but US dominated from pre WW2 period onwards- eg Jews in Germany expunged- after WW2 continent in shambles after war- US gave money for social psych education/ practice- part help for science/ part shielding from communism- European social psychologists were linked to US not eachother- (outpost) of US research- by around 1960s social psych in UK was largely built on US research
After WW2- slowly building up social psych in Europe again- Europe had lots of in country fighting in world wars so more focussed on studying group relations than US where last infighting was civil war- so possibly bit more focussed on individuals- social psych needed not to be linked as heavily to US- more communication amongst eachother Eric Rinde helped get 30 Europeans and 30 Americans to collab on study - also conferences to discuss (structure to European social psych)-p33