Essay on Social Psychology Experiments

The term paper involves all the researches that were made on the scope of experimental psychology in social psychology. Social psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Our researches involve the wider perspective of how cognitive abilities affect behavior. The wider range of experiments is performed in the field of social psychology intimating the face of its importance. In the respected term paper five of the research experiments are summarized. The first experiment is about how feeling good enhances your capability to help. How the good mood directly increases your will power to help. Second research experiment is about how rising income affects human nature either positively or negatively. The result turned out to be that income doesn't positive behavior as it requires more potential to earn. Another research report involves how different stereotypes reside in different minds of people. And how individual and group judgments effect it. The next search report is about how the fear inflicts among the people. Two studies have performed that show that fear transfers from one individual to another likewise empathy. The last experiment was based on the breakfast task and telephone interview task. Two studies were conducted. These studies involve the computerized testing of people's level of planning and monitoring through their cognitive processes. These experiments sum up the idea that how experimental psychology has a very significant in the field of social psychology.

Keywords: social psychology, experimental psychology, mood, help, income, behavior, stereotypes, fear, planning, monitoring, working memory, prospective memory, executive processes.

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Introduction:

Scope means the futuristic approach of any field that it holds. The scope of any field means the value it has in our social environment. As we know that Psychology is not about reading books only, it’s about communicating and experimenting. And Experimental Psychology is perhaps, the most realistic subfield of Psychology. Social Psychology is all about understanding the behavior and nature of the environment that surrounds us. Experimental Psychology and social psychology are perfectly linked together because without experimenting we can't find and explain the nature, behavior, and effects of different social aspects on the human mind.

Experiment No 1:

This experiment is a part of social psychology because as it is about human behavior and helping behavior is a socialistic behavior. Social psychology includes the interaction of people with each other; this experiment is also about the interaction of people. These are the reasons this experiment is linked to social psychology. In this experiment, the effect of a person's positive affective state on helpfulness was studied. Two studies were conducted in this experiment. In the study I students studying in the library were given cookies and checked the effect of this on helping behavior. In study II people using public telephone were getting a dime from return slot and studied the effect on helping behavior. In previous studies helping and success were linked with each other but recent studies suggested that feeling good enhances the helpfulness of a person. Therefore, the experiment conducted in which in the study I was conducted in the library where 52 students were studying. 5 sessions were done. Experimenter randomly divided the carrels for cookies and no cookies. And after the distribution and non-distribution of cookies, the experimenter asked if someone would serve as a confederate. But they were told that there is an assignment of help and distract to see the activity of students during examination as compared to rest of the time and distracter were told that the purpose of the experiment is to see distractibility. In actual help was confederate's aid that provides books, novels and things to subjects. While distract will drop things and make noise to see who would help them. The result of this experiment was that those who received cookies were more helpful than those who didn't. In study II, there were 24 females and 17 males. The experimenter used a public telephone and acted like he had taken his dime from return slot but in actual he didn't. And whoever comes next gets the unexpected money from return slot. Then the experimenter drops the papers and file to see who will help more. There was a control group who didn't receive any dime. The result showed that people who received dime helped more than those who didn't. These studies proved that feeling good and warm makes a person more helpful.

Experiment No 2:

The summary mainly focuses on the point that if rising income helps produce a healthy society. Richard Easterlies, a well-renowned socialist explained this phenomenon with his debate, explaining how rising income is not related to social well being of a person, according to him the rich people are more satisfied as compare to the poor. If societal wealth is increasing, and then it will prove more beneficiaries to the rich instead of the poor, hence creating an imbalance in the society, he also stated that increasing demands of a person may cause him to demoralize himself when it comes to his wage or salary. Researchers related this Easterlies hypothesis with GDP. Upon focusing on both, they concluded that GDP analyses the economic growth of a nation and merely skip the income and output of a regular household system. Rising income with regards to social well being is also concerned with how and where the income is spent. The social well being of a person depends on the fact that if he is happy spending his money the way he wants to spend it. Researches carried out this research AMERICA, Middle East and southeast, around 158 nations were covered under this survey having both rural and urban states. This report involved some measures which were asking if the person is self-confident on his stand in society. Secondly, the country's GDP was seen and lastly the lifestyle of the nation was taken into consideration. This article is pretty much linked to social psychology because it explains the nature and behavior of our social environment by rising income.

The results showcased descriptive analysis by analyzing income by log 10 methods. The difference in income between the rich and the poor were also seen depicting social imbalance. Income of a nation was seen about the social well being of the society and as to how the regular household correlates with the nations GDP. Also, relations between rich states like the USA and poorer state like BANGLADESH were seen, in poorer nations, a slight income change wouldn't really contribute to the social well being of the nation. Easterlies somehow couldn't prove his point on social well being and income as he only focused on materialistic mindset, he forgot happiness in his approach and, he approached a few nations, which in turn can't contribute to global findings. Somehow all the research done may lead to the fact that why rising income has a weak effect on positive life or enjoying life. Maybe because to earn more, you must work more, hence happiness is taken out of the equation. Self-employment may, however, cause an increase in income and may initiate positivity in terms of life. Conclusively, we can say that increasing income has an effect on the social wellbeing of a person as the needs continue to grow as time passes by.

Experiment No 3:

This case study was related to making comparisons that how same or different mindsets affect stereotyping on the basis of individual judgment rather than the group. This experiment was conducted to check that the self can also act as a reference point, suggesting that the power of comparison mindsets depends on what is important for which we take two studies to check this relationship by manipulating comparison mindsets and activated representations. In the first study, 94 females from Columbia University took part in this paid study that self-representation-activated in competition with group-representation activated (similarity versus difference mindset) between-participant design. Participants first reported preferences on 18items assessed from out-group and from self-group which was totally done by the randomization method. The order was that 6 of the items were dependable with a shared stereotype, 6 were independent and 6 were unrelated to shared stereotype. And comebacks were noted on 5 points scale. Later, participants assigned to write about their typical whole day for self or group representation. Participants then received sketches of two scenes portraying urban squares randomly and asked to list ten ways in which the scenes differed and similarity condition listed ten ways in which scenes were similar. Lastly, participants judged a female target; Janet by her sketch constructed on past work then rated preferences on 18 items mention in the study. The results found by this study are that participants use group preferences more than self and when assessed target preferences stereotyping was stronger than a prediction. And in case of self-ratings on target rating participants projected more in similarity mindsets.

In study 2 undergraduate 58 female students took part. It's also paid and principles were all similar to the first study and items were answered on 5 points scale. The study was done through online surveys and lab sessions. 6 items were taken for shared stereotype which was relevant and 6 for unshared which was irrelevant. After some days in lab sessions, students were supposed to design t-shirt through markers that would replicate their views. And in last participants were assigned to rate opposite gender and were given with the same description of gender mention in study 1.

And we find almost similar results in both of the studies that supported the idea that different mindsets have different belongings on projection and stereotyping based on activation of self or group reference point. When self-representations were triggered, a similarity mindset intensified projection compared to a different mindset. When group representations were triggered, a similarity mindset intensified stereotyping.

Experiment No 4:

In this experiment, it is explained that fear is like the torch of light that can be passed from person to person, especially when it comes to passing the fear of a child through the parents. An example of a parent is afraid of the raccoon behind the bins is presented which conditioned the child to believe that all sorts of hideous monsters reside behind dark corners of bins. The experiment that has been mentioned in this article is that there were mice which were kept in either complete isolation, or in selected social groups. After that, they were kept near the other mice where one of them went through a fear conditioning that inflicted the fear on the other mice as well. The 'fear' was conditioned through a sound or anything that caused a shock among them. Here, the independent variable was the sound of a loud bang which had no effect of anything on itself, but the dependent variable, which was the mice were pretty much affected by it and conditioned a certain fear which was later transmitted into the other mice in their company. The same way, empathy is also transferred in the children when they see their parents performing any social work or feeding the poor, which enables the child to put himself into another person's shoes and feel for him. This urges a sense of humanity and kindness and it works the best in upbringing. Even though this topic has been talked about a lot and is seen to influence many people, but there are hardly any researches which showed how to counteract in such a situation. Lastly, the link between social and experimental psychology with respect to this experiment is that a social situation where fear is inflicted has been justified by proving it with an experiment with proper use of subjects, IV, and DVs.

Experiment No 5:

The studies involve the cognitive process in the breakfast task. It is a computerized task that stimulates the planning and monitoring requirement involved in cooking breakfast. In the first experiment, the experimenter selected 28 adults were divided into males and female category they were provided with the touch screen monitor for the breakfast task. All they have to do was to make the 5 foods and assemble them on the given table in the given period of time. Their time was set properly so that the duration of overcooking and undercooking could be calculated. Their primary goal was to make the food and assemble them on the table which was said as the secondary goal. The three types of screen settings were provided. In the one-screen condition (performed first), all the foods and the table were on the same screen. In the two-screen condition (performed second), the table appeared on one screen and the five foods and their time bars appeared on a different screen, requiring switching between the two screens. In the six-screen condition (performed last), each of the five foods occupied a separate screen, in addition to the table screen. The result came out to be participants often temporarily neglected one or more foods while concentrating on other foods or setting the table. This feature of the task resulted in many cases in which participants might have four discrepancy scores of a few seconds but one poorly monitored food with a discrepancy of 60 s or more. In the second experiment, there were 59 adults having the age in between 60 to 79 years. They were divided into 38 males and 21 females. They all were screened for dementia which is a sort of inability to plan or memory impairment using the telephone interview of cognitive status TCIS. The maximum score of TCIS was 41 and the cutoff of dementia at 25. There were 36 controlled participants of 71.8 years. Their TCIS was 33.4. However, the mean TCIS score was 35.8. All of the participants were fluent English speakers and the scored 17.3 out of 20 in the vocabulary test having the 15.4 years of education. They all had normal hearing and vision too. Later, almost 55 participants were allowed to perform the breakfast task again after 4 to 5 weeks. 24 of returning participants had received 2 hours of practice on a computerized version. 13 had received instruction in aspects of music, and 18 were controls who received no further training. The resulting data from the second visit provided a further opportunity to assess the structure of the Breakfast Task and to measure test-retest reliabilities of its component measures. Administration of the Breakfast Task was the same as in Experiment 1 except that participants did not perform the two-screen condition. We wanted to see if the same factor structure could be achieved with a shorter version of the task. Additionally, all participants used the computer mouse rather than a touch screen in this study.

These experiments link to social psychology because social psychology comprises the idea of cognition and behavior of human beings which was all explained through these experimental studies.

Conclusion:

As mention above social psychology is totally depending on experiments so, our articles are all related to experiments conducted in the field of social psychology. One of the experiments in which feeling good enhance your helping behavior and under this study, two experiments were conducted by which it was proved that your good mood increases your helpfulness. The second experiment related to social psychology was that Inflicting fear among the people near you. Under this study, one experiment was conducted on a mouse which proves that fear and empathy can be transferred through one another even without experiencing it. The third study was related to how rising income effect human beings either positively or negatively. Under this experiment, 10 studies were conducted and the accuracy rate reached to 66000. And researchers found that rising income has a low positive effect on human nature because for more earning you have to work harder. So it is inversely proportional to happiness and positive life effect. The fourth study which we take is based on how same or different mindsets affect stereotyping on the basis of individual judgment rather than a group. In this study, two experiments were conducted. We found the same results in both of the experiments that different mindsets have different belongings on projection and stereotyping based on activation of self or group reference point. When self-representations were activated, a similarity mindset intensified projection compared to a different mindset. When group representations were triggered, a similarity mindset strengthened stereotyping. Another study was based on cognitive processes in which they conduct two experiments. The first experiment was computerized in which researcher judge planning and monitoring. And in the second experiment, they judge dementia which is the inability to plan or memory impairment and measure through scores that how it is different from person to person. The purpose of all these case studies was to prove that experiments are very much important in social psychology as many fields. By experiments, we can see cause and effect relationships because it is important to utilize the scientific method to study psychological phenomenon in an objective, empirical and analytical way and generalize the results to a large population.

References:

1. American Psychology Association, (2018). Age-Related Differences in Associative Memory: Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Perspectives. https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-112
2. American Psychology Association, (2016). Social Transmission of Fear. https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/peeps/issue-70
3. Shira Mor, (2012). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232417158_Journal_of_Experimental_Social_Psychology
4. Isen et al., (1972). Effect of Feeling Good On Helping. http://psy2.ucsd.edu/~nchristenfeld/Happiness_Readings_files/Class%205%20-%20Isen%201972.pdf
5. Janelle Jump, (2013). The scope of Experimental Psychology. https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Scope-of-Experimental-Psychology-FKZTKJKE3RYYS
6. Nathan S. Rose et al., (2015). Cognitive Processes in the Breakfast Task: Planning and Monitoring. https://www.apa.org/images/cep-0000054_tcm7-192760.pdf