Outline and Assess the Use of Experiments in Social Psychology Drawing on the Cognitive Social Perspective and Phenomenological Perspective

This assignment explores the main principles of different methods in social psychology. It will look at the underlying theories or perspectives that organise contemporary social and discursive psychological research

According to our text, social psychology is a science that studies the impact of our

This essay aims to explore and describe some of the key studies within Social Psychology and show why social psychology is still important within the science of psychology today. Social psychology was once described by Allport (as cited in Lindzey & Aronson, 1985, p.5) as, “the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others”. One of the first psychologists to study social psychology was Kurt Lewin. Lewin is considered the “father of social psychology” by many as he took a stand against the dominant behaviourist approach during the 1920’s through his belief that interaction between the individual and their environment is key to affecting behaviour, rather than environment alone. His revolutionary ideas matured into the study of group dynamics, which is widely used by many organisations today (Collin, 2012).

Prompted by this phenomenon, Stanley Milgram investigates this “potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct.” (Milgram 314) Milgram set up an experiment in which he intended “to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.” (Milgram 314) Thereby, observations could be made of how long a person would continue to inflict pain. “To extricate himself from this plight, the subject must make a clear break with authority.” (Milgram 315) The basic premise of the study being to learn how an ordinary person reacts when put under pressure to cause great physical harm to a stranger through a series of simulated electrical shocks. However, the subjects are under the impression that they were participating in a study of memory and learning. This is where Diana Baumrind takes issue with Milgram’s study. She feels that “by volunteering, the subject agrees implicitly to assume a posture of trust and obedience.” (Baumrind 326) Basically, Baumrind feels that the setting of a fairly innocuous sounding experiment in a safe, controlled environment of a lab causes the subject to have a false sense of safety in the experimenter’s experience. Therefore, the experiments are prone to produce skewed results, as well as potential psychological injury to the subject. Later analysis of

There were three questions asked at the start of this paper. What is Social Psychology all about? Why is the study of it so important? Is there truly a purpose or benefit from the findings of the studies? Social Psychology is the study of attitude, behavior, and interactions of individuals within a group setting. You may have heard the saying "for every action, there is a reaction," Social Psychologists observe and interpret behaviors in effort to provide further explanation of cause and effect. It is thru the studies of Social Psychology we can learn how to get into the cause and begin to foresee patterns of reactions. A simple yet sophisticated theory.

Almost all human beings agree that everyone is different and that there is a need to experiment to better understand the differences within the human race. The role of scientific experiments in psychology is an attempt to better understand the mental process of humans and the possible discovery of something in human makeup that has not been noticed by past scientists and psychologists. Experiments can change the permanent thinking of psychologists and scientists. If one psychologist theorized an idea and every other generation agreed with that view, no one voicing an opposition to the idea, then psychologists would get nowhere in understanding the human mind, failing the innate purpose of psychology- to study and answer questions about actions, thoughts, and emotions. Thus, to fulfil the need of psychology, psychologists experiment and refer back to past psychologists for ways to expand.

It was surprising how easily someone could just inflict pain on another human being without so much as a second thought. Milgram even states “Subjects in the experiment frequently even said, “If it were up to me, I would not have administered shocks to the learner” (Milgram 702). By stating this I know the participants did have some remorse they wouldn’t want to shock the learner but they do because of the fact they were told to by an authority figure. In life we are always told to listen and respect our elders and teachers and we see them as our authority figure so if they were to give us a command we would compile. What if the command we were given was something we knew was wrong but since it was from someone who has authority it must make it ok. That’s we think and I know working in the nursing field I see it more than I should because of nurses telling me to do things I’m not allowed to do under my certifications. I find it hard to tell them no, just like the participants of this experiment they knew that if they listened the individual would get hurt but that didn’t matter they were doing what they were told to do. The experiments were wrong morally and were extremely cruel and because they were so unnecessary innocent individuals were put in pain for no

In “The Perils of Obedience”, social psychologist Stanley Milgram reveals the results of an experiment he performed trying to see if one would hurt another in order to obey authority. The experiments involved three subjects: the experimenter (authority), the teacher, and the learner. The experimenter only made sure that the experiment was performed, while the teacher had to read a series of words and the learner, strapped in an electric chair, had to remember the words read to him. If the learner incorrectly responded to the teacher, the learner would be given an electric shock. As the learner starts to give wrong answers the shock level rises.

The Milgram experiment is one of the most controversial psychology experiments of the past century. I was familiar with it prior to accessing the simulation on the elearning site from an ABC television Four Corners episode on the nature of torture. So when I participated in the simulation, I stopped administering the shock at the first sign of distress from the subject at thirty watts. If I was in the actual Milgram experiment I would like to believe that I would have behaved in the same way. Human nature dictates that we believe that only abnormal people are capable of sinister behavior. This belief that internal attributions cause certain behaviours assures us of some stability and security in our day-to-day lives and yet the

Chapter 12 social psychology cover how we affect one another’s behaviors. Culture, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination attitude, and interpersonal attraction are all factors that contribute to behavior in a social setting. Understanding how we influence one another on a social level forces us to look at not only ourselves, but also look at how others affect the world we live in and why it is important to be able to identify these influences and the impact they have on our behaviors good or bad

The books main objective is to answer the question: can an understanding of human behavior be based on the use of scientific methodology? Augustine Brannigan the author of The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology critically traces experiments and social psychology's attempt to forge a scientific understanding of human behavior. Brannigan explains that after fully studying social psychology's past and present, it has failed to live up to its expectations of new and interesting theories. The critical portrays the widespread discontent felt by social psychologists themselves. Brannigan talks about what has gone wrong and why large expectations of social psychology have not been metHe highlights crucial methodological mistakes in social psychological research. For instance, the use of experiments to illustrate

Psychological research may be undertaken on a subset of society; however the importance of the results may have an effect way beyond the group tested. The value of psychological research varies and the same results can be used in different ways by different groups of society.

Social psychology is the understanding of an individual’s behavior in a social context. It is the scientific field that focuses on the nature and causes of that individual’s behavior in social situations. It looks at the human behavior that has been influenced by others and in the social context with which it occurred. Social psychology pays attention to how feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are constructed and how these factors influence our behavior and interactions with others. This paper will examine the principles of social psychology and help us to

Both critical and experimental social psychology form the modern social psychology due to their important historical context. Experimental-social psychology is argued to be derived from the American tradition, and critical-social psychology has been argued to be derived from the European tradition. Although this has formed two distinct approaches in the use of methodology in psychology, there are still on-going debates over psychology as a science or not.

In addition, Mainstream has an elitist ideological position because it focuses on the results of their experiments and generalises to everyone. Nevertheless, the participants that take part on experiments, cannot reflect all people, they are just one part of the population. For this reason, it is important to be careful with experiment's interpretations because scientific knowledge can express facts, but on the other hand, it cannot tell us other issues. This issues can be if it means the same in other cultures or how people feel. Furthermore, the death of a familiar, changes in people's live, like a city or house change, can influenciate the results. Critical psychology should face this situation to ensure that no one group is pressured or marginalised.