Research Methodology in Social Psychology社会心理学的的研究方法.docVIP

Research Methodology in Social Psychology The Scientific Method Same procedure used in other fields of science. Used to uncover lawful relationships among things. Steps in theScientific Method Observe a social occurrence: such as a behavior, attitude, emotion, cognition, etc. Make a guess as to why that occurrence happened. Design an experiment that will either confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis. Is There Room for Creativity in Scientific Experiments? Scientists look at the environment and try to organize it in a sensible and meaningful way. Artists reorganize the known environment in order to create something new. Social psychology experiments in particular frequently combine the two. Social psychology experiments deal exclusively with people, unlike other sciences. People are intelligent, curious, sophisticated, free-willed—and thus there are inherent challenges in studying them. Designing a Social Psychology Experiment Real world observations must be brought into the laboratory where as many extraneous variables as possible can be controlled. Because people are smart and can outguess the experiment, a cover story often has to be concocted. The artificial aspects of the experiment is the most common criticism. Because the experiment is contrived, how well can it reflect the real world? Comparing Two Different Approaches to Investigating the Same Situation Aronson Mills (1959) hypothesized that people will come to like things for which they have suffered. College women agreed to participate in discussions on the psychology of sex. Participants were randomly assigned into 3 groups: severe initiation, mild initiation, no initiation. (IV) Aronson Mills (1959) Severe initiation—highly embarrassing; had to read aloud a list of highly obscene, vulgar, sexual words. Mild initiation—recite a list of words that were not obscene No initiation The participants then eavesdropped on a really boring conversation about the mating habits of animals. Afterward participant