Areas of Psychology

Empathy: The ability to take another person’s point of view and to imagine how they are thinking, feeling or perceiving. Empathy allows us to engage in moral reasoning about what is right and wrong, and to know when and why to perform prosocial behaviours such as helping. More broadly, it also allows us to anticipate the behaviours of other people in everyday situations and to react appropriately.

• social psychology perspective on empathy: in-group / out-group
• cognitive psychology perspective on empathy: sharing “autobiographic memories” may create empathy for others. Cognitive psychology focuses on the mental processes through which we perceive, interpret, store, recall and judge information about the social and physical world. Second, mainly through the use of laboratory experiments, it aims to show how such basic cognitive processes (e.g. remembering) may shape our behaviours in day-to-day life. Also, cognitive research has informed many interventions to improve individual mental responses or decision making.
• biological psychology perspective on empathy: The focus here is mainly on the neurological and physiological processes through which our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are shaped and, in turn, how those thoughts, feelings and behaviours shape how we respond at a biological level. Tt tends to emphasise theoretical explanations that can account for the development of basic features of the brain, body and nervous system. It thus makes greater use of evolutionary explanations and cross-species comparisons than other areas of psychology.
• developmental psychology perspective on empathy: In its focus on cognitive and emotional changes that occur during infancy, but nowdays encompass developmental trajectories across the entire lifespan, from cradle to grave.

Integrative approach: using all approaches

Empathy

Compliance: Social influence arising as a response to a request.

Conformity: Social influence arising from adherence to group norms.

Obedience: Social influence arising in response to a direct order.

Informational influence: Social influence based on the belief that others are better informed than we are

Individualistic bias: The tendency to either explain social phenomena in terms of individual psychological processes (explanatory individualism), or to see the individual as the locus of rationality and morality (normative individualism).

Rhetorical psychology: The study of how social life consists of rhetoric (argumentation), with people constantly engaged in rhetorical struggles to define the world in one way or another.

• Zimardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and BBC Prison experiment

• Social identity theory: A theory of intergroup relations, with specific focus on exploring how members of disadvantaged groups can work collectively to overcome illegitimate inequality.

Social comparison theory: A theory that suggests we compare our abilities and opinions to those of other people in order to make sense of how to behave in the world:

• we attempt to change ourselves to fit in with our reference group
• we attempt to convince the reference group to change to fit with us
• we disassociate ourselves from that group and maybe even disparage it.

Anonymity: According to LeBon (1960), anonymity refers to the loss of the sense of responsibility in the context of a crowd.

Contagion: According to LeBon (1960), this refers to the idea that, in a crowd, every sentiment and act is ontagious to the extent that an individual will readily sacrifice their personal interest to the collective interest.

Suggestibility: According to LeBon (1960), an individual in a crowd enters a special state not unlike hypnosis, in which they lose consciousness of their acts and are directed by the behaviour of the crowd as by a hypnotiser.

Self-categorisation: An awareness of one’s membership in a social group.

Intergroup processes: The relationships between groups. Intragroup processes: The internal workings of a group.

Bales' phase model and interaction process analysis (IPA)

• Social-emotional area: positive reactions
• Task area: attempted answers
• Task area: questions
• Social-emotional area: negative reactions

Tuckman and Jensen’s stage model of group development

• forming
• storming
• norming
• performing
• adjourning

Group cohesiveness: All those processes that function to hold the group together. Entitativity: The degree to which a group is a unified and coherent whole

Social facilitation: How individual performance is impacted by the presence of others.

Social loafing: The tendency of individuals to make less of an effort when they are working collectively with others than when they are on their own.

Meta-analysis: A technique for combining data from different studies on the same topic, and analysing them together, to derive an overall conclusion.

Collective effort model: This model suggests that working as a group reduces motivation because participants realise that their individual contributions cannot be evaluated on an individual basis.

Group polarisation: The tendency of group members to shift their position to a more extreme one after group discussion than the one they expressed initially.

Persuasive arguments theory: An informational approach to social influences, it describes the process by which arguments are drawn into and used in decision making.

• Social comparison theory is most applicable in situations where there is little opportunity for argument but information is available on how others behave and on the socially preferred way of behaving. An example of this would be gambling.
• Persuasive arguments theory is most applicable when the group has more scope for argument, which can be controlled in an experimental context.
• Self-categorisation theory seems to apply when individuals are identified with a specific group. Thus, it would be unlikely to apply in a situation where there was no obvious out-group. A possible example of this might be a jury.

Groupthink: A mode of thinking in which the desire to reach unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt proper, rational, decision-making procedures.

• be impartial – don’t endorse any specific position
• assign a devil’s advocate, thus encouraging critical evaluation
• sub-divide the group occasionally then reunite it to air differences
• consult outside experts or colleagues
• call a ‘second-chance’ meeting before implementing decisions

Ethics: ethics is often called moral philosophy and it is concerned with what is good and bad or what is right and wrong. While ethics has traditionally been classified as a branch of philosophy, because of its practical implications it is decidedly relevant to many other areas of study, such as anthropology, biology, economics, history, politics, psychology, sociology and theology. However, ethics is different to all these disciplines because it is not a matter of factual knowledge. Ethics stem from moral positions we take about issues and are intimately intertwined with cultural values.

• Consequentialism: the philosophical approach to ethics that argues that rightness or wrongness depends on consequences or outcomes of behaviours.
• Deontology: The philosophical approach to ethics that argues some behaviours are right and wrong in themselves regardless of their outcome.

• Research should not threaten the psychological well-being, health, values or dignity of participants.
• Participants should give informed consent before taking part in research.
• Participants should be able to stop participating in the research at any point.

in psychological research, ethics refers to the codes and principles that researchers should adhere to

https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bps.org.uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/BPS%20Code%20of%20Ethics%20and%20Conduct%20%28Updated%20July%202018%29.pdf

Code of Human Research Ethics

Methods of data collection: interviews, questionnaires, diary method, observation, visual methods, standardised tests and scales, documents, experiments