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Research Methods in Social Psychology — Previous Year Questions

📊 Topic Overview​

MetricValue
Total Appearances23 (8.2% of all questions)
Priority🔴 HIGH — appears in all 14 years
Section DistributionSec A: 10
Most Repeated QuestionsExperimental method; Ethical issues (7 times each)
ProbabilityVery High

🎯 Must-Know Concepts​

  1. Experimental method — strengths, limitations, threats to validity
  2. Ethical issues in social psychological research (APA principles)
  3. Ethnography — definition, steps, types
  4. Observational methods — types and advantages
  5. Correlation method — merits and demerits
  6. Quasi-experimental design

🔥 Key Question 1: Experimental Method in Social Psychology (Section A)​

Answer (~450 words):​

The experimental method is the primary research tool in social psychology because it is the only method that allows causal inferences. By manipulating an independent variable (IV) and measuring its effect on a dependent variable (DV) while controlling all other variables, the researcher can conclude that IV caused changes in DV.

Key Features: Random assignment: Participants are randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. This distributes pre-existing individual differences across groups, making groups equivalent before the manipulation.

Manipulation of IV: The researcher systematically varies the causal variable of interest.

Control of extraneous variables: Potential confounding variables are held constant or counterbalanced.

Measurement of DV: The outcome is measured reliably and validly.

Strengths: Causal inference — the defining advantage. Replication is possible due to standardised procedures. Control allows precise isolation of causal variables.

Limitations and Threats to Validity:

Internal validity threats — factors that could explain results other than the IV: history (external events during experiment), maturation (participants change over time), demand characteristics (participants guess the hypothesis and behave accordingly), experimenter bias (researcher inadvertently cues desired responses), and regression to the mean.

External validity (ecological validity) threats — findings may not generalise beyond the laboratory: laboratory settings are artificial; participant samples are often WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic); tasks may lack mundane realism (surface similarity to real life) even when they have experimental realism (psychological impact).

Ethical constraints: Many socially important questions cannot be studied experimentally because random assignment or manipulation would be unethical (e.g., studying the effects of childhood abuse). This limits the method's scope in social psychology.

Field Experiments: To improve ecological validity while retaining experimental control, field experiments conduct manipulations in natural settings. Isen and Levin's (1972) dime-in-telephone-booth study showed that finding a coin increased helping — conducted in a real telephone booth.

🔥 Key Question 2: Ethical Issues in Social Psychological Research (7 appearances)​

Answer (Section A — ~450 words):​

Social psychological research has faced intense ethical scrutiny, particularly following landmark studies involving deception, distress, and privacy violations (Milgram's obedience studies, Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment).

Major Ethical Issues:

1. Informed Consent Participants must be told the nature and purpose of the study, potential risks, their right to withdraw, and how data will be used — before they agree to participate. The challenge: many social psychology studies require deception to prevent demand characteristics from contaminating results. Milgram's participants believed they were genuinely shocking another person; if told otherwise, the study could not have been conducted.

2. Deception Using false cover stories or confederates is common in social psychology but raises ethical concerns about respect for persons and potential harm. The APA permits deception only when: the study has significant scientific value; the study cannot be conducted without deception; participants are fully debriefed immediately afterward; and participants suffer no lasting harm.

3. Debriefing After the study, participants must be fully informed of the true purpose, the use of deception (if any), and what the study found. Effective debriefing should eliminate any distress caused and ensure participants leave the study feeling respected and informed.

4. Right to Withdraw Participants must be free to withdraw at any time without penalty. Milgram's experimenter prods ("you must continue") violated this principle and were ethically controversial.

5. Protection from Harm Researchers must protect participants from physical, psychological, legal, and social harm. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) — in which student guards became abusive within days — was halted after 6 days due to psychological harm to participants; institutional oversight had been inadequate.

6. Privacy and Confidentiality Participants' data must be kept confidential; identities should be anonymised in publications. Observational studies in public places raise questions about whether covert observation is ethical even in public contexts.

7. Vulnerability of Participants Special protection is owed to vulnerable populations — children, prisoners, individuals with mental illness — who may not be able to give fully voluntary, competent consent.

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) All research involving human participants must be reviewed and approved by an ethics committee before it begins. IRBs evaluate risk-benefit ratios and ensure ethical standards are met.

In conclusion, ethical conduct in social psychological research requires balancing scientific value against participants' rights to autonomy, dignity, and protection from harm. The field has increasingly adopted rigorous ethical oversight since the controversies of the 1960s and 1970s.

📝 Other Questions​

Discuss ethnography as a research method in social psychology (Section B — ~250 words)​

Ethnography is a qualitative research method involving prolonged immersion in a social setting to understand the lived experiences, norms, and meanings of participants from an insider's perspective.

Features: Naturalistic (conducted in real settings), holistic (studies the entire cultural context), emic (adopts the insider's viewpoint), and flexible (research questions evolve during fieldwork).

Steps in Ethnographic Research:

  1. Select a site and gain entry/access
  2. Participant observation — researcher participates in the group's activities while observing
  3. Field notes — detailed records of observations, conversations, and reflections
  4. Key informant interviews — in-depth conversations with knowledgeable insiders
  5. Document analysis — examining existing records and artefacts
  6. Data analysis — identifying patterns, themes, and meanings through grounded coding
  7. Writing the ethnography — presenting findings as a rich narrative

Types: Realist ethnography (objective description), confessional ethnography (researcher's own experience is foregrounded), critical ethnography (examines power relations), and virtual ethnography (online communities).

Advantages: Ecological validity — studies behaviour in natural contexts. Depth — reveals meanings inaccessible to surveys and experiments. Generates hypotheses for further quantitative study.

Limitations: Time-consuming, difficult to replicate, researcher bias (going native), limited generalisability, and ethical issues of covert observation.

🧠 Memory Aids​

Threats to Internal Validity: "History Makes Demands Regress" → History, Maturation, Demand characteristics, Regression to mean

APA Ethics Principles: "In Deception, Bring Protection, Rights, Privacy" → Informed consent, Deception (limited), Debriefing, Protection from harm, Right to withdraw, Privacy

📚 Related Content​

✅ Self-Assessment​

  1. What is the essential difference between experimental and correlational methods?
  2. What are demand characteristics and how do they threaten internal validity?
  3. What is the APA's position on the use of deception in research?
  4. What distinguishes participant observation from non-participant observation?
  5. What happened in the Stanford Prison Experiment and what ethical principles did it violate?

💡 Exam Tips​

  • Section A on experimental method: structure as Definition → Key features → Strengths → Threats to validity (internal + external) → Field experiments → Conclusion.
  • Ethical issues question: structure as Introduction → 6–7 issues (each named and briefly explained) → Institutional oversight → Conclusion.
  • Always use Milgram and Zimbardo as case studies for ethical issues — they appear in virtually every textbook treatment.