Do social psychology theories provide new insight into the human condition? Or do they only describe the obvious, many of the conclusions presented in this course may have already occurred for you. So for social psychological phenomena are all around you. We constantly observe people thinking about influencing and relating to one another, it pays to discern what the facial expression predicts how it will get someone to do something or whatever to regard as primed or fool for centuries, philosophers, novelists, empires have observed and commented on social behavior. And now we have a question. Does this mean that social psychology is just common sense in fancy words?
Social Psychology faces two contradictory criticism. First, that it is a trivial because it documents the obvious and second that it is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people. Those social psychology and other social sciences simply formalize what any amateur already knows. Right? Cool and Murphy took that view. They have 30 social scientists go out into the world.
They after they they discovered that people's behavior is pretty much what fueled it back. nearly a half century earlier, historian Arthur Schlessinger Jr. reacted with similar scorn to social scientists studies of American War War two soldiers. sociologist polarizer reviewed those studies and off a sample with interpretive comments a few which are paraphrased here. For better educated cultures suffered more adjustment problems attended less educated soldiers, soldier soldiers cope better with hot salty Island climates that need northern soldiers, wide privates were more eager for promotion, and then were black privates, still there and blacks prefer to store down to northern white officers. As you reduce findings, did you agree that they were basically common sense. If so, you may be surprised that Learn that last ourselves went on see every one of these seasons in either direct opposite of what was actually found.
In reality, the studies found that less educated soldiers adapted more per week, sort of as we're not more likely than Northerners to adjust to a tropical climate. Blacks were more eager than whites for promotion and so forth. Even we had mentioned the actual receipts of the investigation first, as a blessing very experienced, the reader listener would have labeled these obvious also, one problem with common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts, events are far more obvious and predictable in his side than beforehand. Experiments reveal that when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome suddenly seems unsurprising, certainly less surprising than it is to people who are simply told about the experimental procedures and the possible outcome. Likewise, in everyday life, we often do not expect something to happen until then we suddenly see clearly the forces that brought the event about into our surprise.
Moreover, we may also miss remember our earlier view, errors in judging the futures for civility and in remembering our past combined to create inside buyers, also called the Irish along phenomenon, it hints that bias is pervasive. You may now be feeling that you already knew about this phenomenon. Indeed, almost any conceivable result of a psychological experiment can seem like common sense, but only after you know the result.