Social Psychology

• “an 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, 1954)

Journals

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB) • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (JESP) • Psych Bull, Psych Review, PSPR, AESP

Societies

• Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) • Society of Experimental Social Psychologists (SESP) • www.socialpsychology.org

History

• Why learn about the history of SP? • What determines what topics are studied or no longer studied?

Brief history of Social Psychology

• Greek philosophers • Psychology begins in 1800s • 1864 Cattaneo uses “social psych” for group emergence • 1871 mentioned in Linder’s textbook • 1876 Ringlemann study • 1898 Triplett study

• First textbooks—1908 (McDougall, Ross) • Floyd Allport’s text in 1924 • Experiments are king—The psychology of groups is the psychology of the individuals • Journal of Abnormal Psych becomes J of Ab Psych and Social Psych in 1921

More history

• vs. behaviorism and psychoanalysis • WW2 and Nazis – Gestalt psych – Practical applications • Kurt Lewin • GI Bill, boom time for social psychologists • First handbook 1954 • Leon Festinger—experimental revolution

• 1947 SPSP starts, 1965—JPSP and JESP • 50s/60s—group dynamics wanes. Individuals and attitudes become more prominent • 70’s cognitive revolution – Paper and pencil are king!

– Gergen, social psych as history – McGuire—need more diverse methods – IRBs, better data analysis techniques

• 80’s new topics like love and relationships, evolutionary psychology, the self • 1980 JPSP split into 3 parts • EJSP and JASP 1971 • PSPB 1975

• 90’s decade of the brain – Evolutionary psych – Social neuroscience • 00’s influence of culture – Multidisciplinary – Nonconscious approaches – Internet

00’s and beyond

• Broadening 5 ways • “You can never have too many social psychologists.”

Broadening topics

• Positive psychology • Evil, terrorism • Motivated social cognition • Emotion • Unconscious, automaticity • Construals, socially shared cognition • Religion • Intergroup relations, prejudice • Funding issues

Broadening the discipline

• Social neuroscience • Emphasis on culture and how it evolves • Spatial analyses • Links to other areas (business, law, health…) • More multidisciplinary research

Broadening perspectives

• Evolutionary psychology • Social identity theory • Terror management theory • Dynamical systems

Broadening methods

• Advanced statistics, going beyond ANOVA • Computer simulation • Internet data collection • Qualitative items • But fewer behavioral measures—15% of JPSP articles had in 2006 vs. 80% in 1976

Broadening globally

• Influencing and being influenced by other social psychologies (European = more sociological) • Growth! 2800 to >7000 members of SPSP in less than 20 yrs from all over world

Controversies and resolutions

• Social psych continues to respond to zeitgeist • Construal vs. behaviorism • Basic vs. applied • Person vs. situation • Evolution vs. culture • Still going on: IAT, free will, how to give psych away, replication wars

Analysis from leaders in the field

• Don’t build enough • Shouldn’t only build • Need more activism • Too narrow • Need more links to other fields/ cultures • Blame it on social cognition • Need bigger theories (cog, evo, soc ident) • Too negative and problem-focused • Not enough emphasis on time

SP and internal conflicts

• 2001 Karen Ruggiero UT-Austin/Harvard made up data • 2011 Bem ESP studies • 2011 Diederik Stapel fraud in at least 54 papers • 2011/2 Simonsohn accuses Dirk Smeesters of fraud • 2011+ Open Science Framework gains in popularity, talk of badges, QRPs, false positives • 2012 Doyen et al and Harris et al fail to replicate Bargh classic “old people” study • 2012/3 Bargh responds, fights ensue, more replication issues for priming studies • 2015 LaCour case

Replications

• Many Labs replication project (Klein et al. 2014) • Why is replication important?

• What does it mean if an effect doesn’t replicate? • What did they find? Which effects were over vs. under estimated according to the authors? • Figure 1, Figure 2

• Was variability due to sample differences?

• Why might the priming effects have been underestimated? • Blog by Michael Ramscar • • So is there a replication crisis for priming studies or not? Is replication useful? Return to Gergen, 1973

Other criticisms

• Ellsworth – What are her main critiques/suggestions? • How can we address these issues as a discipline?

McGuire’s (1973) koan

• We put too much emphasis on testing hypos, not enough on generating them • We need to get away from simple, linear models • We need to remember that data come from people • We need to put together more data archives and do more longitudinal studies • We should use ANOVAs less and other techniques that let us deal with messier data more.

• See the advantages of decreased funding (get more personal with your research, think about it more) • It’s okay that some of these recommendations conflict with each other.

WEIRD people

• Henrich et al.

– Sears, 1986 http://pages.ucsd.edu/~tkousser/Sears%20Colle ge%20Sophomores.pdf

• Are our samples a problem? Are they more for some areas than others?

• Why do we have this problem?

• How much can we generalize our results?

• How do our American samples compare?

– To small scale societies – To nonwestern societies – To other Western societies – To people not as often sampled in the US • Why is psychology so American-focused?

• What are the implications of WEIRD samples for our results and theories? • Are there domains that should be more or less universal? • Are Henrich et al. guilty of some of what they condemn?

Responses to article

• A problem – Weird samples are the worst – Even animals are weird – Weird experiments – Weird situations – Weird brains

• Not so much – Student samples appropriate for some topics – Levels differ more than relationships – The internet is less weird – Our weirdness is artifact of the fact that we’re the ones studying it – The world is becoming weirder – Cross-cultural differences are often a result of methodological/communication differences

What should we do about WEIRD samples?

• Explicitly discuss generalizability of findings • Don’t overgeneralize • Give info on demographics • Make data available online • Give people credit for using nonstudent samples • Build more diverse participant pools

Theories (Van Lange, 2013)

• “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory.” Kurt Lewin • What is a theory?

• What are the purposes of theories? • When are theories useful?

What makes a

good

theory?

• • • •

Truth Abstraction Progress Applicability

In social psychology…

• Are we too theory focused or not enough?

• What are “levels” of theories and what level should we be theorizing at?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of theory-based research?

• Theory-driven research vs. HARKing (Kerr, 1998)

Theory example

• How does this theory fare on – Truth – Abstraction – Progress – Applicability?

• What are the assumptions of this theory?

Public Skepticism

• Is it a problem? If so, why is it?

• 6 myths – Psych is common sense – Psych doesn’t use scientific methods – Can’t generalize b/c everyone is unique – Psych doesn’t yield replicable results – Psych can’t make precise predictions – Psych not useful to society

Why are people skeptical?

• We do some bad stuff. • Our public face isn’t necessarily scientific • See psych as another helping profession • Hindsight bias in findings • Think they are experts too • Look for biological explanations • Explain results they don’t like as nonscientific (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979) • Don’t see value in basic research

What should we do differently?

• Communicate better w/ the public • Don’t look down on “popularizers” • Explain why it’s not just obvious • Use evidence-based practice • Organizations should promote more