Social psychology�Week II

21/06/22

​

ALHASSAN BABA ZAKARIA

The subject matter of social psychology

• the emphasis and interest of social psychologists is the individual
• The focus is to understand the factors which shape the individuals’ thoughts, feelings and actions
• Societies vary in the level of violence- yet, it is the individuals who engages in it
• Again, societies vary in terms of courtship and marriage- yet, it is the individuals who fall in love and marry

​

​

• Thus, actions are performed by, and thoughts occur in the mind of individuals (Baron et al., 2006)

​

• Whilst the focus of SP. is on individuals, socio-cultural factors that influences the individual behaviour, other factors are not underrated

​

• Therefore, social psychology does not study the individual in isolation.

​

• Rather it seek to understand the many factors or conditions that shape the social thought and behaviour of individuals-

​

• their actions, feelings, beliefs, memories and inferences concerning others (Baron et al., 2006).

​

Factors/variables that shapes individual thoughts and behaviour

• These factors can be grouped under the following:
• I) The behaviour of others: e.g. In a queue, taxi, intimidating boss at work
• II) The characteristics of others: individual’s physical appearance/attractiveness, e.g. Mad person, drunk, physical challenged etc.

​

• III) Biological/genetic factors: e.g. aggressiveness

• IV) Cultural factors: e.g. beliefs in right/wrong, food preference, language are all culturally defined

​

• V) Ecological factors: ie the effects of the environment on our behaviour. Eg. Hot/cold weather, sweet smelling fragrance, bad odour etc

​

• VI) Cognitive processes: the thinking process. Eg. Dinner date

​

END OF WEEK I LESSONS�

THANK YOU

WEEK II�21/6/22

RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: OBSERVATION AND CORRELATION METHODS

�How and why do social psychologists investigate the various aspects of human behaviour?�

• Through a well developed sets of methods
• Knowing the appropriate method to use in the investigation of people’s behaviour is critical
• This will help you to be a good interpreter of results or findings of reports
• It will enable you to either accept or reject results base on facts and not on hear say
• It will help you avoid common mistake in differentiating between methods. Eg. Observation and correlation

The observation method

• Basically, there are three main types of methods employed in social psychological research.
• These are: observation, correlation and experimentation
• According to Baron et al., (2006), a method of research in which behaviour is systematically observed and recorded is….
• Aronson et al. (2007) see it as a technique whereby a researcher observes people behaviour and systematically records measurement or impression of their behaviour

• This observation is done over people as they go about their daily activities in their natural settings (naturalistic observation). Eg. Observe how individuals at car parks when parking their cars
• Ethnography is another observational method

​

• According to Aronson et al., (2007), it is a method by which researchers attempts to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside without imposing any pre-conceived notion they might have.

​

• The aim is to understand the people from their side.

​

• Archival analysis is another observational method: here the researcher examines the accumulated documents, archives of culture (diaries, novels, music, movies, television show, newspaper etc)

​

• Such documents depicts and tell us a great deal about a people and societies values and cultures. Eg. Graphic analysis of Ghanaians perception about Covid -19

​

Correlational method

• Besides psychologists interest in describing behaviour, they are also interested in explaining and predicting behaviour as well.

​

• This is to enable them influence behaviour in a positive way.

​

• This is achieved through correlational method

​

Correlational method defined

• According to Baron and Byrne (2006), correlational method is a method in which two or more variables are systematically observed and measured to determine whether changes in one are accompanied by changes in the other.

​

• It is also defined as a research designed to examine the relationship between two or more occurring natural variables. E.g. Teenage pregnancy & school drop-out, TV viewing & aggressive behaviour rainfall and wearing rain coat etc.

​

​

• In this study, no factor is manipulated to observe its effects on another variable (s), instead, naturally occurring variables are observed to determine whether they occur together.

​

• The strength and direction of relationship between variables is determined by a statistical measure known as correlation co-efficient (r).

​

​

​

• Relationship between two variables range from -1.00 to 1.00

​

• A correlation of (+1) means that the two variables are perfectly related in positive direction, and (-1) means that the variables are perfectly related but in a negative direction.

​

• A correlation of (0) would mean that the two variables are utterly unrelated

• E.g. If correlation of (1) is received in a study that hypothesized that teenage pregnancy is a function of school drop-out: it means that the more people drop-out of school, the more likely they become pregnant.

​

• A correlation result of (-1) will mean that reverse: ie the more school drop-out the less likely they get pregnant

​

• A (0) means that, dropping out of school had nothing to do with pregnancy.

Benefits of the correlation method

• 1. it is a practical method for the study of behaviour in many real life settings

​

• 2. It helps to obtain a large mount of data in a short time

​

• 3. It a method that allows a researcher to include many variables in one research (regression analysis) to check the effect of each variable on the dependent variable

​

END OF LECTURE

THANK YOU!!