Experimentation in social psychology - Essay Example

Typically, social psychology aims to explain human behavior as a resultant of the interaction of an individual's current mental state and the situational context. The ways in which individuals react in different situational context vary based on several factors. These factors include prior learning as well as genetics. This essay will examine the utility of experimentation in the field of social psychology and will focus on the cognitive social and discursive perspectives. In order to delineate the differences between the utility of experimentation in cognitive social psychology and discursive psychological perspective, it is prudent that we offer operational definitions for each discipline and delineate their use of experimentation.

In the case of cognitive social psychology, there are many features that distinguish this perspective from the other perspectives. They include a strong cognitive and social-interpersonal focus as well as the belief in human agency and free will. The general goal of cognitive social psychology is to conduct empirical research with the purpose of advancing the theoretical knowledge pool as it relates to the antecedents as well as the consequences of human behavior within a social construct.

This knowledge should also provide a foundation on which a true understanding of the inextricable link between behavior and the social context can be built and advanced. In general, the ultimate goal of cognitive social psychology research is to impact behavioral changes by establishing an empirically-based testing ground for theoretical ideas. The experimental studies within this field typically originate with a real-life and testable phenomena such as obedience, discrimination and prejudice.

One of the most the most poignant studies within the field is the obedience studies conducted by Stanley Milgram. This study is controversial in that its utilization of deception raised ethical concerns and it was responsible for the establishment of new standards with regards to the treatment of human subjects. Milgram asked each of the student participants to fulfill "teaching" duties in a learning task. The participants were commanded to carry out an authority's orders, and were led to believe they were delivering an electric shock each time the "learner" made a mistake.

In the standard baseline condition, no one quit before 300 volts, and 65% of participants continued to obey the experimenter to the highest level available, 450 volts. Unlike research involving hypothetical authority situations, Milgram's behavioral studies indicated that adults from civilian groups could indeed be induced to comply with noxious demands of authority.Discursive social psychology in contrast to cognitive social psychology examines how people make sense of their world through their mutual engagement with each other.

In so doing, it develops its methodology from the philosophy of language and the utility of common psychological sense in order to understand mainstream topics in both social and cognitive psychology. Essentially, discursive psychology has been utilized to explore the ways in which reality is constructed within the society. The topics of study which prove to be applicable for discursive methods include the study of memory, attribution and attitudes. Most recently discursive psycho