Social Psychology. Daniel W. Barrett

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       Creative: Researchers need to be inventive and flexible when developing ways to explore social phenomena and test ideas;

       Dynamic: It is progressive and forward looking, continually asking new questions while building upon what has been learned;

       Honest: Scientists share what we know and how we know it, allowing others to understand the methods and techniques used to make our discoveries; and

       Self-correcting: Scientists sometimes make mistakes and, through rigorous investigation, research replication, and with a fervent desire to find the truth, we and/or other scientists will uncover and correct those mistakes.

      In the pages of this text, you will encounter many rich and varied examples of scientists at work. Not only will you learn about the results of their research, but you’ll also get to witness how they discovered them as well as some of the mistakes made along the way. So rid yourself of the notion that science is always correct or that “facts” never change. Having said that, virtually all of the findings that will be presented in this text are based on rigorous, peer-reviewed research in which we can have confidence. Results that are controversial or tenuous or theories that are highly speculative will be identified as such.

      Social psychological science—like any science—has three goals: description, explanation, and prediction. First we describe social behavior. Social psychologists are natural born people watchers, sometimes obsessively so. We record what we see, whether it be in a coffee shop, a parking lot, a classroom, or a laboratory. But observing what they did is simply a starting point for tackling the more interesting question of why. Social psychologists conduct research to understand why people thought, felt, or behaved as they did, including what characteristics of the person and the situation produced what we have observed. Good explanations are the crux of good science. Finally, social psychologists try to predict what will happen in the future, both in subsequent studies and, perhaps more importantly, in the real world. This chapter’s Doing Research section introduces you to how social psychologists perform these.

      Doing Research: An Introduction To Research Methods

      Research Matters: Beyond Lay Theories

      As noted in the main text, all individuals create what may be called lay theories about why people do what they do. Like scientists, laypersons often informally “test” their theories while acting on and in the world (Kelly, 1963). For instance, a college male may believe that pointing out how beautiful his potential boss’s legs are beneath her short skirt is a good strategy for securing an offer during a job interview and may act on this. Once he recognizes the indignant facial expression and her finger pointing toward the door, he will likely reconsider his strategy and revise his lay theory of interpersonal influence. Scientists too test our theories about human behavior, but we do so in a much more systematic fashion (and with more tact!). We don’t rely on one or even a handful of cases but instead gather large amounts of data from many people in carefully selected circumstances before drawing conclusions (Sansone, Morf, & Panter, 2004).

      Okay, social psychologists like to observe, explain, and predict human social behavior, and we do so by moving past lay theories and into the realm of rigorous research. How do we do it? What methods do we use? Throughout this text I will describe the most commonly used research methods, from the tried-and-true paper-and-pencil laboratory experiments to cutting edge, high tech procedures like functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI; see Chapter 2). Rather than trying to cover the huge range of research terms, methods, and challenges in one chapter (which may seem a bit arduous or tedious), I will instead spread them across chapters, introducing these in the context of actual social psychological research. For now, let us look at the importance of well-crafted questions, the need for testable hypotheses, and the role of theory in science.

      Questions Matter: Good Questions and Good Hypotheses

      What makes for a good social psychological question? The primary criterion is the extent to which the question is answerable using social psychological methods. In other words, a good question is an empirical question—one that can be tackled by systematically collecting and analyzing data. Take a question commonly asked in philosophy classes: “Are humans inherently evil or good?” While a profound and intriguing question, it is not one that can be answered by studying people and gathering data about their thoughts, feelings, or behavior. However, by narrowing it down we can transform it into a question worthy of social psychology. First, pick a behavior that you would say that, when people enact it, they are doing “good” (go ahead and choose one). Perhaps you consider recycling to be a good behavior and want to know why more people don’t recycle. Next you need to identify something about the recycling process that may be a factor in whether or not people recycle. For instance, you could ask what kinds of message appeals are effective in increasing recycling.

      The next step is to turn your question into a scientific hypothesis or a prediction about the nature of social phenomena. Oftentimes hypotheses take the form of propositions about how two factors are related to one another. In this case, you might hypothesize that messages that tell people what they should do (which is to recycle) will work better than messages that tell people what they shouldn’t do (which is to stop throwing recyclable materials into trash cans). Once a testable hypothesis has been formed, the study can be designed and conducted. In the next section, we move to the important role of theories in social psychology.

      Hypothesis: Prediction about the nature of social phenomena, oftentimes in the form of a proposition about how two factors are related to one another

      Theory Matters: What Are Theories For?

      Specific, testable, hypotheses are crucial to the collection of meaningful data. However, their very applicability to a small set of related experiments limits our ability to understand patterns of data that extend to other experiments and observations. Social psychologists seek broader explanations that allow us to connect and make sense of a number of isolated experiments and observations. A theory is a set of interrelated statements that explains and predicts patterns of observable events (Crano & Brewer, 1973) (see Figure 1.6). For instance, evolutionary theory does not explain why a particular woman is attracted to a particular man but rather why women in general tend to prefer certain characteristics in male partners. In our recycling example, a hypothesis would be used to predict the outcome of an experiment using a specific set of messages, but a theory would link this experiment with other experiments that used different yet related sets of messages, thereby facilitating a more general understanding of the kinds of messages that are likely to be effective. By providing a general framework for understanding and integrating known facts, a theory helps guide future research.

      Social psychologists utilize many different research methods to test our hypotheses (yet another advantage to working in our field!). Which one we choose depends on the phenomena we want to study and what hypotheses we wish to test. For instance, Bargh et al. (1996) hypothesized that exposure to certain words would lead people to walk slowly. Another example is a researcher who hypothesized that the amount of time teens spend playing violent video games is associated with aggressive behavior (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Anderson et al., 2010). These two variables—game playing and aggression—are postulated to be related to each other in some way.

      Figure 1.6 The Role of Theory in Social Psychology

      Two kinds of relationships between variables are possible. The first type of relationship exists when the variables change at the same time but may not cause each other to change. For instance, as the average temperature decreases in North America during fall, it increases in South America. This relationship is called a correlation. Two variables are correlated when a change in one variable is associated with a change in the other variable. Simply because two variables change at the same time does not