Investigating Psychology 2 - From Social to Cognitive

400 Pages·2015·5.183 MB·English

by  Rose Capdevila, John Dixon and Gemma Briggs

DE200 Investigating psychology 2

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Investigating psychology 2
From social to cognitive
Edited by Rose Capdevila, John Dixon and Gemma Briggs
This publication forms part of the Open University module DE200 Investigating psychology 2. Details of this
and other Open University modules can be obtained from the Student Registration and Enquiry Service,
The Open University, PO Box 197, Milton Keynes MK7 6BJ, United Kingdom (tel. [phone];
email [email protected]).
Alternatively, you may visit the Open University website at www.open.ac.uk where you can learn more about
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The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

First published 2015

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Edited, designed and typeset by The Open University.

Printed in the United Kingdom by Latimer Trend and Company Ltd, Plymouth

ISBN 978 1 7800 7855 7
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Contents
Chapter 1 Investigating psychology: an integrative
approach 1
John Dixon, Rose Capdevila and Gemma Briggs
Chapter 2 Why do good people do bad things? The
psychology of social influence 37
Stephen Gibson
Chapter 3 Are you with us or against us? Group
processes and decision making 81
Rose Capdevila
Chapter 4 Why don’t we like one another? The
psychology of prejudice and intergroup relations 129
John Dixon
Chapter 5 Why do we help one another? Helping,
altruism and prosocial behaviour 183
Rachel Manning and Mark Levine
Chapter 6 Why would I hang around with you? The
psychology of personal relationships 227
Simon Watts and Vicki McDermott
Chapter 7 How do you feel about that? The
psychology of attitudes 281
Karen Hagan
Chapter 8 How do we make sense of the world?
Categorisation and attribution 327
Lisa Lazard
Glossary 367
Acknowledgements 378
Index 381

Chapter 1
Investigating psychology: an
integrative approach
John Dixon, Rose Capdevila and Gemma Briggs

Contents
1 Introduction 5

2 The historical emergence and institutionalisation

of psychological

sub-disciplines 8

3 Why do we feel empathy for others? 12

3.1 The concept of empathy 12

3.2 Four perspectives on empathy 16

4 An integrative approach to psychology:

opportunities, complexities and challenges 26

5 Organisation of the textbooks and chapter

outlines 32

5.1 Book 1: From social to cognitive 32

5.2 Book 2: From cognitive to biological 33

5.3 Book 3: From biological to developmental 34

References 36

1 Introduction
1 Introduction

Psychology is often defined as the study of how individuals think, feel
and act. This definition is a useful starting point, conveying a general
sense of the discipline’s core concerns, but it doesn’t capture the kinds
of concrete, everyday questions that make psychology so fascinating.
. Why do we sometimes help or cooperate with others and why do we
sometimes dislike or mistreat them?
. With whom do we form friendships?
. Why do some relationships endure happily while others fail
miserably?
. How do we organise what we know of the physical and social world,
including what we see, hear, pay attention to and remember?
. How do basic perceptual and cognitive processes feature in everyday
activities, such as driving a car, listening to music or revising for the
exam that will conclude this module?
. How does the brain work?

. What happens when particular areas of the brain stop working

because of disease or physical trauma?
. What is the point of childhood?
. How do children become moral beings, acquiring a sense of right
and wrong?
. How do we acquire a sense of ourselves as gendered and sexualised
beings?
. How do we develop across our lifetime?
Your module textbooks are designed to provide a critical overview of
the current state of psychological knowledge about these and other
important questions. Working through these books, you will develop a
richer understanding of the kinds of answers psychologists have
provided and a better sense of the diversity of psychological research.
You should also be able to evaluate the strengths and limits of current
knowledge.
The textbooks do not simply offer a series of independent discussions
of key topics however. They are also designed to explore some of the
deeper themes, perspectives and debates that enrich the discipline of
psychology, several of which are addressed across a number of chapters.
For example, what is the role of genetic and environmental factors in
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Chapter 1 Investigating psychology: an integrative approach
shaping our thoughts, feelings and behaviours? Should psychologists
adopt research methods that seek to measure and quantify psychological
processes, producing universal laws of human behaviour? Should they
adopt methods that embrace the qualitative richness of human
experience and acknowledge that behaviour is often specific to
particular social contexts? How can psychology help us to not only
understand the world, but also to change it, helping to solve social
problems and improve people’s lives?
Of these deeper and recurring themes, one is particularly central to this
module. It concerns the organisation of psychology into sub-disciplines
that are characterised by specialist concepts, theories and methods of
inquiry. Indeed, these textbooks are designed to take you on a journey
through four of these sub-disciplines, exploring their distinctive and
overlapping contributions. Book 1 is thus subtitled ‘from social to
cognitive’, Book 2 ‘from cognitive to biological’, and Book 3 ‘from
biological to developmental’. Equally important, the module is designed
to highlight work that crosses the boundaries between sub-disciplines,
for example, by employing concepts or methods developed in one field
of research to elucidate psychological problems that have been studied
mainly in another.
Later on, this chapter will describe in more detail the topics you will
cover across the three textbooks. However, it begins by considering two
more general issues.
First, we outline the nature of the four sub-disciplines explicitly covered
in the module textbooks, namely social psychology, cognitive
psychology, biological psychology and developmental psychology.
Second, and related, we present a worked example that explores an
everyday psychological question (‘Why do we feel empathy for others?’)
and illustrates how psychologists working in these different sub­
disciplines have tried to address this question. In practice, psychologists
often draw on more than one sub-discipline in their work. As you will
see, however, the development of an integrative approach to psychological
inquiry poses many challenges and problems, as well as offering many
opportunities and possibilities.
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