Experimental Psychology PSY 433

1. Experimental PsychologyPSY 433 Chapter 13 Social Psychology (Cont.)

2. Dependent Variables • Questionnaires measuring belief, attitude, preference (liking). • Rating scales • Behavioral measures: • Aggression measured by shock given. • Attraction measured by how long a man talks to a woman, smiles at her, whether he asks her out. • Converging measures are better.

3. Independent Variables • Characteristics of a social situation or of people (demographic variables). • Factors believed to affect behavior are manipulated: • Persuasiveness – manipulate number or type of arguments used. • Aggression – manipulate temperature in a room to test whether heat affects behavior. • Conformity – manipulate number of people who agree or disagree.

4. Experimenter Bias • Subtle influences that experimenters may unknowingly exert on their outcomes. • Tone of voice and emphasis may change across conditions. • Expectancies may affect subject behavior. • Blind and Double-blind procedures are not always possible. • Replication guards against both experimenter bias and outright fraud.

5. Amy Cuddy & Power Posing • http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/01/amy_cuddy_s_power_pose_research_is_the_latest_example_of_scientific_overreach.html • Power posing is said to resultin both psychological anphysiological changes. • Efforts to replicate her studieshave been unsuccessful.

6. Demand Characteristics • Are subjects acting normally in an experiment, or are they just doing what they think they are expected to do? • Did Milgram’s subjects give shock because the experimental context demanded it? • Placebo effect occurs when subjects are told they are taking medication and show effects because of their expectation. • All experiments communicate an expectation explicitly and implicitly.

7. Orne’s Experiments • Orne sought an experiment so meaningless than subjects would refuse to do it: • 2000 sheets with random digits that subjects were to add up – impossible yet no one refused. • Told to tear up the sheets, subjects persisted for hours, saying there must be a good reason • Orne and Evans (1965) examined demand characteristics in a hypnosis study. • Is behavior due to hypnosis or demand characteristics?

8. Hypnosis Demos • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmgptd8bXfA • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn171z-CPLs

9. Orne’s Results Hypnosis is not necessarily responsible for the behavior. Demand characteristics are sufficient to explain the behavior.

10. The Bystander Studies • Several incidents pre-1970 got researchers interested in another area of social influence: • The mere presence of other people • The bystander effect -- the more people who observe a crisis, the less likely any one of them is to help the victim. • Is this true in every situation?

11. Outside of a Small Circle of Friends • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bSqSdto5g

12. Kitty Genovese (1964)

13. Darley and Latane (1968) • Over an intercom, subjects discussed problems in college life with 1, 2, or 5 others. • IV: Number of bystanders (0, 1, or 4) • DV: whether subject responded & elapsed sec • The more bystanders, the less likely subjects were to respond and the longer it took when they did respond • Note: typo in Kantowitz Table 13-2.

14. Darley & Latane’s Results

15. Diffusion of Responsibility • Piliavin et al. (1969) manipulated: • Race of the victim simulating a crisis. • Whether victim appeared ill or drunk. • They recorded race of helper, number of helpers, racial composition of bystanders. • Results: • Help offered more readily to ill (95%) than drunk (50%). • Race only mattered for drunk victims. • Number of bystanders didn’t matter.

16. Where Did the Effect Go? • Piliavin et al.’s study was done in the field not in the lab. Maybe other factors were present. • If people are made to feel responsible for a situation they are more likely to help, regardless of bystanders. • Milgram’s subjects were told that the experimenter was responsible. • People may be reluctant to intervene due to potential embarrassment, loss of poise.

17. Stereotypes and Prejudice • People may be unaware of their prejudices or misreport them in order to be consistent with social norms. • Implicit memory tests and attitude measures permit observation of hypothesized correlates of prejudice without self-report. • Implicit attitudes may influence behavior in real life, outside experimental contexts too.

18. Implicit Measures • People may be unaware of their own prejudices or misreport them to be consistent with social norms against racism. • Implicit attitude measures allow observation of correlates of prejudice without explicitly asking subjects about it. • The IAT (Implicit Association Test) is one such measure – used in lab this week.

19. Payne’s Priming Study • On each trial a black or a white face was flashed so quickly subjects were unaware of seeing it (200 ms). • Next, either a weapon or a tool was presented. • Subjects had to quickly identify whether it was a tool or a weapon. • Tools were misidentified as guns more often after seeing the black face, suggesting a reliance on racial stereotypes.

20. Sample Stimuli Press a key indicating gun or tool

21. Payne’s Results Error patterns suggested that guns were associated with black faces. Response times showed a similar pattern