Introduction to Social Psychology

In this video I introduce social psychology and the investigation of how groups, culture, and social context influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I differentiate social psychology from sociology, which generally looks at influence on broader groups rather than individuals. Next I describe some of the research methods that are more common in social psychology, including archival research, naturalistic observation, … Read More

External Validity

In this video I explain external validity (or ecological validity) and criticisms of artificiality that can arise from laboratory experimentation. I also explain naturalistic observation and field experiments as ways of overcoming artificiality and collecting real-life data, though both of these approaches have the disadvantage of sacrificing control over potential confounding variables. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel to … Read More