Week 1: Introduction to Social Psychology
 Course outline and requirements
 What is social psychology?
 Examples of social psychological phenomena
 Definitions; Key features
 Compared to other scientific disciplines
 Important themes
 Goals for the course
 Doing social psychology
 Hypotheses and variables
 Methods for testing hypotheses
 Correlational research
 Experimental research
 Social Psychology pre-test
 Did you know it all along?
 The common sense criticism
 Problems with this criticism
Companion Web Site
 www.pearsoned.ca/baron4_ca
 Contains:
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Chapter objectives
Essay questions
Multiple choice questions
Destinations (links)
Examples of Social Psychological Phenomena
1. Kitty Genovese murder
 the bystander effect
2. Assigning responsibility for joint projects
 the egocentric bias
3. Closing the sale
 compliance strategies used by professionals
Textbook Definitions of Social Psychology
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1. The scientific study of social behavior
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2. The attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others (Allport, 1935).
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3. Focuses on the ways in which individuals are affected by the persons
around them, and the basic cognitive processes that determine people’s
social behavior and feelings.
 4. The scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and
causes of individual behavior and thought in social
situations......seeks to understand how we think about and
interact with others (Baron, Byrne, & Watson, 2000).
Key Features of Definitions
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1. Social behavior and thought
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2. Identifying causes
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3. Role of cognitive processes
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4. Scientific method
**The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one
another.**
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: COURSE OUTLINE
 Introduction to Social Psychology
 1. Introduction
 Social Thinking
 2. Attitudes and behavior
 3. Social perception; attribution
 4. Social cognition
 5. The self and identity
 Social Influence
 6. Group processes
 7. Conformity and obedience
 8. Compliance
 Social Relations
 9. Prejudice: disliking others
 10. Aggression: hurting others
 11. Prosocial behavior: helping others
 12. Relationships: liking and loving others
Social Psychology in the Context of Other
Disciplines
 1. Sociology
 2. Personality psychology
 3. Levels of analysis
Important Themes in Social
Psychology
 1. The power of the situation
 2. The subjective “construction” of reality
 the impact of a situation depends upon
personal and subjective meaning
 3. Interplay of motivational and cognitive factors
 motivational – wishes, desires, hopes
 cognitive – the way our minds work
 4. Applicable to important social issues
Goals of the course
 1. Introduction to a knowledge base
 2. Introduction to a perspective
 a way of thinking about social behavior
 3. Social behavior can be explored in a
systematic, scientific manner
 4. Reasons for study:
 practical implications
 personal interest
Hypotheses and variables
 Hypothesis:
 Statement about how two or more variables are thought to
relate to one another
 In a causal hypothesis, a statement about how one variable is
expected to affect a second variable
 E.g., Increases in exposure to media violence leads to
increases in aggression
 Independent Variable:
 The presumed cause (in a causal hypothesis)
 Dependent Variable:
 The presumed effect (in a causal hypothesis)
Experimental vs. Correlational Studies
Experimental
Correlational
Independent Variable:
Manipulated
Measured
Dependent Variable:
Measured
Measured
Correlational Research
 can reveal whether changes on one variable
co-occur with changes on a second variable
 e.g., correlational study relating class attendance
to G.P.A.
 Strength of relationship indexed by the
Pearson correlation coefficient (r = -1.0 to r =
1.0)
% of time student
attends class
100
G.P.A.
11.5
95
10.8
80
8.6
70
9.1
65
7.2
55
5.3
limitation: Can’t reveal whether changes on one
variable cause changes on the second variable
Correlations and Cause
 The three possible causal
interpretations:
 1. Causation
X Y
 2. Reverse Causation Y  X
 3. Third Variable
Y
Z
X
Experimental Research
 can reveal whether changes on one
variable (the IV) lead to changes
changes on a second variable (the DV)
 can identify cause and effect
 2 key features:
1. Manipulation of IV
2. Random assignment to conditions
Social Psychology and Common Sense
 The “common sense” criticism
 e.g., “day after day social scientists go into the world
and discover that people’s behavior is pretty much
what you’d expect”
 e.g., Historians’ criticisms of social scientists’ studies
of WWII soldiers.
 Problems with the common-sense
criticism:
 1. Common wisdom is unclear, ambiguous,
contradictory
 2. Common wisdom is often inaccurate
 3. Hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along effect)
Experiment Demonstrating the Hindsight
Effect (Fischhoff, 1975)
 Participants were presented with factual
questions such as:
Which magazine had the highest circulation in 1970?
Time ____
Playboy ____
 Condition 1 – before told answer, estimate the
likelihood that you have answered the question correctly
 Condition 2 – after told answer, estimate the likelihood
that you would have answered correctly if you had not
been told the answer.