Question

1. a) How did Festinger's 'boring task' experiment call into question the reinforcement theory of behaviorists?

b) Kelley and Thibaut propose in their interdependence theory that partners assess the costs and benefits of the relationship as they decide whether to stay or leave. From your own experience and observations, do you think interdependence theory accurately describes the dynamics of close relationships?

c) Retrace the history of the evolution of the attribution theory, from Heider to Kelley to Ross to Jones and Nisbett.

d) What is ecological validity, and why is it especially important for social psychology experiments?

e) What were the main influences that brought up social psychology to establish itself as part of the science of Psychology?

Please answer each of the part of above question and quality matters a lot. Please write professionally and don't plagiarise from anywhere. Please write the answer to the point.

Answer 1

a) How did Festinger's 'boring task' experiment call into question the reinforcement theory of behaviorists?

Festinger and Carlsmith conducted an experiment where the participants were asked to perform a boring task. After the end of the task some of the participants were paid 1$ and some were paid 20$ to tell waiting participants that the experiment was fun. There was a dissonance for the participants who were paid only 1$ while those who were paid 20$ didn’t.

Considering the reinforcement theory, the reinforcements can get the job done. The reinforcements can implement or eliminate an action. When there is a success, there is also a chance for the existing of dissonance. The reinforcement theory has failed to address the dissonance problem.

b) Kelley and Thibaut propose in their interdependence theory that partners assess the costs and benefits of the relationship as they decide whether to stay or leave. From your own experience and observations, do you think interdependence theory accurately describes the dynamics of close relationships?

Interdependence theory is a social exchange theory which states that interpersonal relationships are defined through interpersonal interdependence. This in turn means that the higher the influence of the interacting people greater will be the influence on the other’s experiences, emotions, actions, behavior, etc.

In most cultures, marriages are mostly considered to be unconditional care, love and attention shared between partners. It can be concluded that the interdependence theory do not accurately describe the dynamics of close relationships, instead it only describes some types of close relationships. Also, the theory of interdependence theory is applicable retrospectively.

c) Retrace the history of the evolution of the attribution theory, from Heider to Kelley to Ross to Jones and Nisbett.

Attribution theory deals with the ways an individual perceives events and addresses the same in his very own ways to deliver a casual explanation. The theory analyzes the way the information is collected and how an individual combines to present an argument or judgment, etc.

Heider’s attribution theory deals about evaluating how people perceived their own behavior and others behavior and how well they presented.

Kelley’s theory which is also known as covariation model deals with how people make causal inferences to explain the behavior of other people.

Ross in his theory believed that there exists a fundamental attribution error and it is the conceptual bedrock in social psychology. He also believed that people are internally motivated to behave in one way and they are completely responsible for their actions as well as behavior.

Jones and Davis believed and argued that there is a process called actor-observer and the same became a theory. People take up the roles of observer and assign the role of actor to those who are being watched. The observers describe the performance of the actors.

Nisbett and Jones gave a theory that had the actors and observers. People who were actors are motivated by a stimuli that is inherent to the situation while the observers had a stable behavior without any stimuli.

d) What is ecological validity, and why is it especially important for social psychology experiments?

Ecological validity refers to the extent to which the outcomes of a research work is applicable in a general way real life situations and environments. In other words, ecological validity refers to the practical implementation of the research and how well it gets replicated or gets deviated.

Ecological validity is very much important for social psychology experiments as it should be applicable to all types of people equally, similar to a vaccine. If it does not function equally, it shall be an invalid research.

e) What were the main influences that brought up social psychology to establish itself as part of the science of Psychology?

The researches in Social Psychology is measurable. The experiments can be conducted, the result can be recorder and they can be further processed to obtain conclusions. To prove a hypothesis and disapprove an hypothesis there is always an evidence. This factor defines that the field of social psychology is a science.