social psychology notes
Social psychology
Social psychology – Lecture 3 – 5/2/2013
Research methods
Selection of participants
Representative sample
Sampling method
Representative sample
The sample is the group of people the researcher has chosen to examine
The population is the group of people the researcher wishes to understand
The sample should be similar to the population you wish to understand – the sample taken from a small bit of country
Sampling method
A random sample enables each person in the population to have an equal chance of inclusion in the study – all have an equal chance.
A way of doing this is random number sampling eg number sampling using a phone book however this is only applicable to those that have phone numbers, want to take part
Therefore sampling can never be perfect.
Problems
Caveat – Most samples are psychology students who are predominantly white, wealthy and female.
All weird – Henrich, heine and norenzeyan (2010) ‘the weirdest people in the world’ suggested that participants are mainly western educated, industrialised, rich and democratic.
Internet – usually the main draw of this for participants is that they earn money - Brinbaum (2004) ‘human research and data collection via the internet’ – usually individuals that take part are experienced at doing these studies, may second guess the studies Gosling (2004) ‘should we trust web based studies?’
Experimental studies
Research manipulates a situation in order to observe the outcome of the manipulation
There is usually random assignment of subjects to experimental conditions, large pool of subjects and are obtained through random sampling. Eg cutting cards, random numbers, flipping a coin.
Deals with information regarding how one factor causes changes in another. Hopefully the results should be dependent on what they experience and not the groups they were assigned into. Demand characteristics – cues that the participant reacts to.
Covers field experiments and lab
Social psychology – Lecture 3 – 5/2/2013
Research methods
Selection of participants
Representative sample
Sampling method
Representative sample
The sample is the group of people the researcher has chosen to examine
The population is the group of people the researcher wishes to understand
The sample should be similar to the population you wish to understand – the sample taken from a small bit of country
Sampling method
A random sample enables each person in the population to have an equal chance of inclusion in the study – all have an equal chance.
A way of doing this is random number sampling eg number sampling using a phone book however this is only applicable to those that have phone numbers, want to take part
Therefore sampling can never be perfect.
Problems
Caveat – Most samples are psychology students who are predominantly white, wealthy and female.
All weird – Henrich, heine and norenzeyan (2010) ‘the weirdest people in the world’ suggested that participants are mainly western educated, industrialised, rich and democratic.
Internet – usually the main draw of this for participants is that they earn money - Brinbaum (2004) ‘human research and data collection via the internet’ – usually individuals that take part are experienced at doing these studies, may second guess the studies Gosling (2004) ‘should we trust web based studies?’
Experimental studies
Research manipulates a situation in order to observe the outcome of the manipulation
There is usually random assignment of subjects to experimental conditions, large pool of subjects and are obtained through random sampling. Eg cutting cards, random numbers, flipping a coin.
Deals with information regarding how one factor causes changes in another. Hopefully the results should be dependent on what they experience and not the groups they were assigned into. Demand characteristics – cues that the participant reacts to.
Covers field experiments and lab