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Choosing topics for social psychology research papers or projects for class can be challenging. It is a broad and fascinating field, which can make it challenging to figure out what you want to investigate in your research.
This article explores a few different social psychology topics and research questions you might want to study in greater depth. It covers how to start your search for a topic as well as specific ideas you might choose to explore.
8 Famous Social Experiments
How to Find a Social Psychology Research Topic
Choose a Sub-Topic
Social psychologists are interested in all aspects of social behavior. Some of the main areas of interest within the field include social cognition, social influence, and social relationships investigating subtopics such as conformity, groupthink, attitude formation, obedience, prejudice, and so on.
Browse Through Past Research
Narrow Down Your Specific Topic
Once you have a general topic, you’ll need to narrow down your research. The goal is to choose a research question that is specific, measurable, and testable. Let’s say you want to study conformity; An example of a good research question might be, “Are people more likely to conform when they are in a small group or a large group?” In this case, the specific topic of your paper would behow group size influences social conformity.
Review the Literature on Your Chosen Topic
After choosing a specific social psychology topic to research, the next step is to do a literature review. A literature review involves reading through the existing research findings related to a specific topic.
Talk to Your Instructor
Even if you are really excited to dive right in and start working on your project, there are some important preliminary steps you need to take.
Before you decide to tackle a project for your social psychology class, you should always clear your idea with your instructor. This initial step can save you a lot of time and hassle later on.
Your instructor can offer clear feedback on things you should and should not do while conducting your research and might be able to offer some helpful tips. Also, if you plan to implement your own social experiment, your school might require you to present to and gain permission from an institutional review board.
RecapThinking about the questions you have about social psychology can be a great way to discover topics for your own research. Once you have a general idea, explore the literature and refine your research question to make sure it is specific enough.
Recap
Thinking about the questions you have about social psychology can be a great way to discover topics for your own research. Once you have a general idea, explore the literature and refine your research question to make sure it is specific enough.
9 Major Research Areas in Social Psychology
Examples of Social Psychology Research Topics
The following are some specific examples of different subjects you might want to investigate further as part of a social psychology research paper, experiment, or project:
Implicit Attitudes
How do implicitattitudesinfluence how people respond to others? This can involve exploring how people’s attitudes towards different groups of people (e.g., men, women, ethnic minorities) influence their interactions with those groups. For example, one study found that 75% of people perceivemen to be more intelligent than women.
In your own project, you might explore how implicit attitudes impact perceptions of qualities such as kindness, intelligence, leadership skills, or attractiveness.
Stereotyping: Implicit Bias Toward Social Groups
Prosocial Behavior
You might also choose to focus onprosocial behaviorin your research. This can involve investigating the reasons why people help others. Some questions you could explore further include:
Altruism: How to Cultivate Selfless Behavior
Persuasion
How do people change their attitudes in response to persuasion? What are the different techniques that can be used to persuade someone? What factors make some people more susceptible to persuasion than others?
One way to investigate this could be through collecting a wide variety of print advertisements and analyzing howpersuasionis used. What types of cognitive and affective techniques are utilized? Do certain types of advertisements tend to use specific kinds ofpersuasive techniques?
Consumer Psychology: Why Did I Buy That?
Aggression
Another area of social psychology that you might research isaggressionand violence. This can involve exploring the factors that lead to aggression and violence and the consequences of these behaviors. Some questions you might explore further include:
How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health
Prejudice
Prejudiceand discrimination are areas that present a range of research opportunities. This can involve studying the different forms that prejudice takes (e.g., sexism, racism,ageism), as well as the psychological effects of prejudice and discrimination. You might also want to investigate topics related to how prejudices form or strategies that can be used to reduce such discrimination.
How Othering Contributes to Discrimination and Prejudice
Nonverbal Behavior
How do people respond whennonverbal communicationdoes not match up to verbal behavior (for example, saying you feel great when your facial expressions and tone of voice indicate otherwise). Which signal do people respond to most strongly?
Understanding Body Language and Facial Expressions
Lying
How good are people atdetecting lies? Have participants tell a group of people about themselves, but make sure some of the things are true while others are not. Ask members of the group which statements they thought were true and which they thought were false.
How to Spot a Liar
Social Norms
How do people react when social norms are violated? This might involve acting in a way that is outside the norm in a particular situation or enlisting friends to act out the behaviors while you observe.
Some examples that you might try include wearing unusual clothing, applauding inappropriately at the end of a class lecture, cutting in line in front of other people, or some other mildly inappropriate behavior. Keep track of your own thoughts as you perform the experiment and observe how people around you respond.
Deviant Behavior: Definition, Causes, and Types
Online Social Behavior
Does online social networking make people more or less likely to interact with people in face-to-face or other offline settings? To investigate this further, you could create a questionnaire to assess how often people participate in social networking versus how much time they spend interacting with their friends in real-world settings.
The Social Media and Mental Health Connection
Social Perception
Social psychologistshave found that attractiveness can produce what is known as ahalo effect. Essentially, we tend to assume that people who are physically attractive are also friendly, intelligent, pleasant, and likable.
To investigate this topic, you could set up an experiment where you have participants look at photographs of people of varying degrees of physical attractiveness, and then ask them to rate each person based on a variety of traits, including social competence, kindness, intellect, and overall likability.
Think about how this might affect a variety of social situations, including how employees are selected or how jurors in a criminal case might respond.
Factors That Affect Our Perception of Someone
RecapSocial psychology is a broad field, so there are many different subtopics you might choose to explore in your research. Implicit attitudes, prosocial behavior, aggression, prejudice, and social perception are just a few areas you might want to consider.
Social psychology is a broad field, so there are many different subtopics you might choose to explore in your research. Implicit attitudes, prosocial behavior, aggression, prejudice, and social perception are just a few areas you might want to consider.
A Word From Verywell
Social psychology topics can provide a great deal of inspiration for further research, whether you arewriting a research paperor conducting your own experiment. In addition to some of the social psychology topics above, you can also draw inspiration from your own curiosity about social behavior or examine social issues that you see taking place in the world around you.
How to Conduct a Psychology Experiment
3 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
American Psychological Association.Frequently asked questions about institutional review boards.
Storage D, Charlesworth TES, Banaji M, Cimpian A.Adults and children implicitly associate brilliance with men more than women.J Exp Soc Psychol. 2012;90:104020. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104020
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