How Social Psychologists Conduct Their Research

社会心理学万博maxbetx官网登陆research methodsallow psychologists to get a better look at what causes people to engage in certain behaviors in social situations. In order to empirically study social behavior, psychologists rely on a number of different scientific methods to conduct research onsocial psychologytopics. These methods allow researchers to test hypotheses and theories and look for relationships between different variables.

为什么人们做他们做的事情？为什么他们有时会在群体中表现不同？这些问题不仅对社会心理学家感兴趣，而是对教师，公共政策制定者，医疗保健管理人员或任何有关世界活动的新闻故事的人，“为什么人们这样行动？”

Which type of research is best? This depends largely on the subject the researcher is exploring, the resources available, and the theory or hypothesis being investigated.

Why Do Psychologists Study Social Behavior?

Why study social behavior? Since so many "common sense" explanations exist for so many human actions, people sometimes fail to see the value in scientifically studying such behaviors. However, it is important to remember that folk wisdom can often be surprisingly inaccurate and that the scientific explanations behind a behavior can be quite shocking.

Milgram's infamous obedience experimentsare examples of how the results of an experiment can defy conventional wisdom.

If you asked most people if they would obey an authority figure even if it meant going against their moral code or harming another individual, they would probably emphatically deny that they would ever do such a thing. Yet Milgram's results revealed that 65 percent of participants would hurt another person simply because they were told to do so by an authority figure.

利用它很重要科学的方法to study psychological phenomena in an objective, empirical, and analytical way.

虽然常识可能会告诉我们对立面的吸引力，但是羽毛的鸟群聚集在一起，或者缺席使心脏成长，心理学家可以使用各种研究方法对测试进行测试，以确定这些民族是否存在真正的真实性智慧。

Descriptive Research

The goal of descriptive research is to portray what already exists in a group or population.

One example of this type of research would be an opinion poll to find which political candidate people plan to vote for in an upcoming election. Unlike causal and relational studies, descriptive studies cannot determine if there is a relationship between two variables. They can only describe what exists within a given population.

描述性研究的一个例子将进行调查以找出人们的态度走向特定的社会问题，如离婚，死刑或赌博法。

Common Types of Descriptive Research

Some of the most commonly used forms of descriptive research utilized by social psychologists include:

Surveys

Surveys are probably one of the most frequently used types of descriptive research. Such surveys usually rely on自我报告库存其中人们填写了对自己行为或意见的问卷调查问卷。

观察方法

这涉及观看人们并描述他们的行为。有时被称为现场观察，这可能涉及在实验室中创建一个场景，然后观看人们如何回应或表演naturalistic observation在受试者自己的环境中。

Each type of observation has its own strengths and weaknesses. Researchers might prefer using observational methods in a lab in order to gain greater control over possible extraneous variables, while they might prefer using naturalistic observation in order to obtain greater ecologicalvalidity。However, lab observations tend to be more costly and difficult to implement than naturalistic observations.

Case Studies

Acase studyinvolves the in-depth observation of a single individual or group. Case studies can allow researchers to gain insight into things that are very rare or even impossible to reproduce in experimental settings.

案例研究Genie, a young girl who was horrifically abused and deprived of learning language during the critical period, is one example of how a case study can allow social scientists to study phenomena that they otherwise could not reproduce in a lab.

相关研究

社会心理学家使用correlational research寻找变量之间的关系。例如，社会心理学家可能会对媒体暴力与媒体之间的关系进行相关的研究侵略。They might collect data on how many hours of aggressive or violent television programs children watch each week and then gather data how on aggressively the children act in lab situations or in naturalistic settings.

从早期研究进行调查，直接观察行为或编译研究是用于收集相关研究数据的一些方法。虽然这种类型的研究可以帮助确定两个变量是否具有关系，但它不允许研究人员确定一个变量是否导致另一个变量的变化。

虽然前面的媒体侵略和暴力的研究人员可以使用他的研究结果来确定两个变量之间可能存在关系，但他不能明确地说，观看电视暴力会导致侵略性的行为。

实验研究

实验研究是揭示之间揭示因果关系的关键variables。在实验研究中，实验者随机将参与者分配到两组之一：

1. 对照组:对照组不接受治疗并用作基线。
2. 实验组：Researchers manipulate the levels of some独立变量在实验组中，然后测量效果。由于研究人员能够控制自动变量，因此可以使用实验研究来寻找变量之间的因果关系。

因此，如果心理学家想要建立媒体暴力和侵略行为之间的因果关系，他们将想要设计一个实验测试这个假设。如果是hypothesis是，打击暴力视频游戏使玩家在社交场合中更积极地回应，他们希望随机将参与者随机分配两组。控制组将在实验组将在同一时间段发挥暴力游戏的同时在预定的时间内发挥非暴力视频游戏。

Afterward, the participants would be placed in a situation where they would play a game against another opponent. In this game, they could either respond aggressively or non-aggressively. The researchers would then collect data on how often people utilized aggressive responses in this situation and then compare this information with whether these individuals were in the control or experimental group.

By using the scientific method, designing an experiment, collecting data, and analyzing the results, researchers can then determine if there is a causal relationship between media violence and violent behavior.