The Diffusion of Mental States in Social Settings - Essay Example

Social Psychology Social Psychology Social psychology means studying the behavior (feelings and thoughts) of people that is influenced by the environment. These influences can come from imagination, actual events or by the presence of other people. The presence of other people is not mandatory because people get influenced even when there is no one around. Therefore, social influence can come from watching television, listening to radio, music or through internal belief systems. Hence social psychology is studying diffusion of mental states in social settings. Social psychology delves into the reasons behind the behaviors. It look for reasons why an individual behaves in a specific way that is unlike others’. Hence, it focuses only on the part of nurturing in the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate. Thoughts, beliefs and their resulting actions are built through psychological factors and they form a persons character and personality. It also defines how a person interacts with others. A fusion of psychology and sociology is crucial for this study. Attitude, persuasion, social cognition, self-concept, are the intrapersonal phenomena that influence socio-psychological behavior. While social influence, group dynamics, relations with others, and interpersonal attractions, form the interpersonal phenomena. Social psychology is an empirical field of study. It seeks the answers about human behavior through hypothesis testing. This testing is performed in the field as well as in the laboratory. Sampling, statistical analysis and research design are crucial for social psychological research. Just with any other psychological field the results are published in peer-reviewed journals. From a realistic perspective social psychology is similar to three other disciplines; organizational psychology, sociality and personality psychology (Plous, 2014). Counseling psychology and clinical practice are similar to social psychology however, social work is not (Plous, 2014). Social psychology is different from personality psychology as it emphasizes more on the situational influences of behavior. Its focus is not on individual differences between people (Plous, 2014). It also does not focus on the behavior of an individual within an organization, hence it is different from organizational psychology. Sociology is different from social psychology because it focuses on behaviors, thoughts and feelings that affect individual or smaller groups rather than societies and communities. Social psychologists use scientific method to understand how humans perceive and influence others and social events (Taylor et al. 2006). The experimental methods in social psychology involve the researcher changing a variable and measuring its effect on another variable. For instance two groups of adults watching violent and nonviolent movies and later observing their resulting level of aggression during social interaction. The experiments are usually performed in controlled environment. Another technique is the correlation methods that examine the statistical association between two variables that occur naturally. For instance the correlation can be found between the numbers of children who play violent video games with the number of violent incidents at school. Similarly observational methods are used that are purely descriptive and include observational techniques such as naturalistic, contrived, participant and archival. Observational methods are usually less frequent in social psychology however they are used when first analyzing the phenomenon. Social psychological researchers prefer control experimentation. Because it is almost a requirement to manipulate one or more independent variables to examine its effect on the dependent variable. Experiments are quite useful in this field of study because they propose internal validity. Extraneous variables or confounding is minimum; this indicates an accurate causal relationship. The small samples of controlled experiments show external validity. It means that it is difficult to generalize those results over a larger population. Hence there is normally a trade-off between internal validity and external validity. Either they can go for an experimental control and have an accurate result or go for a generalize results that is applicable to a larger population. Survey research is most frequently used because it tends to take a sample from a larger population. These survey results are used for external validity. This technique uses several forms of random sampling; to take a sample that is an accurate representative of a desired population. This is a descriptive or correlational style of research as an experimental control over the variables is almost nonexistent in it. There are upcoming statistical models like structural equation modeling that can test for potential causal relationships in survey data. Regardless of the research method in a meeting the hypothesis using those results is imperative, because it is only through this test they can confirm or reject their hypothesis. The researchers use probability and statistics suggest results. An error of 5% is acceptable due to chance. Replications become important as they ensure the validity of results due to experiments, and not because of chance or due to the nature of a sample. Just with any other research method the pressure to publish the results or the bias of the researcher is always there (Simmons et al. 2011). It presents a hazard to the field of social psychology. False positive results are the usual side effect of such erroneous causes. The Milgram experiment is probably the most famous experiment in social psychology. The objective here was to understand how far people can go in obeying an authority figure. The experiment was conducted after the Holocaust of World War II to understand why and how Nazi soldiers obeyed the orders of their generals. The conclusion of the experiment showed that the majority of American citizens were capable of following orders from an authority figure despite the fact that carrying out those orders would cause harm to another person. The experiment was conducted at the Yale University by the psychologist, Stanley Milgram. The participants of this experiment were asked to perform acts that fight with their conscience. The research was first published in 1963 article In the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. There were three subjects in this experiment. One participant was running the experiment, one was the subject of the experiment and the third was a snitch or a confederate that pretended to be the volunteer to keep the objectivity of the experiment intact. These participants were filling in the roles of an experimenter, which was the authority figure, the ‘teacher’ was supposed to obey the instructions of the experimenter, and the third person was the learner (Stanley, 1963). The subject and the actor both were given slips of paper that determined their roles (Stanley, 1963). The subject was oblivion that both slips had “teacher” written on them so as to make sure that the subject always gets the role of the teacher (Stanley, 1963). The actor or the person pretending in the experiment claims to have been given the slip which reads “learner”. After this the teacher and learner are sent to separate rooms where they communicate but cannot see each other. The arrangement of experiment was the teacher was initially given a real electric shock to let him/her know the impact. It was to make the teacher realize that the shock that the learner would receive during the experiment (Stanley, 1963). The teacher was given a list of words that he/she was supposed to teach the ‘student’. The teacher would read out the first word from the list and the related four possible choices (Stanley, 1963). The learner was asked to press a button indicating the response. In case the answer is incorrect teacher is supposed to give the learner a shock. The voltage would increase by 15 V for every wrong answer (Stanley, 1963). In case of a correct answer the teacher would proceed with the word list. The subject was under the impression that for every wrong answer the learner was getting electric shocks. In reality however, there were no electric shocks (Stanley, 1963). Later the confederate would break from the subject and set the tape recorder (Stanley, 1963). The sounds in the tape recorder would play the sounds of electric shock generator and prerecorded sounds for every shock level. After increasing the voltage levels the actor gives the impression of banging on the wall for help (Stanley, 1963). After this act of banging on the wall and later explaining about heart condition, all responses would halt. The significance of this experiment explains the crucial aspect of human psychology. Such studies can help understand why humans behave in certain ways. The debate about the Holocaust is very tragic and certainly causes pain and suffering to the survivors even after decades. However, the question remains why ordinary soldiers followed orders they knew were unjust and meant to inflict pain and torture to innocent people. It is for this reason social psychology becomes much more important to understand. And research is one way to help get answers. It has already been discussed that the frequency of false positive in social psychology research is a serious problem. Recent research suggests that despite empirical psychologist normally endorse for lower rates of false positives ( Read More