Choosing a topic for a social psychology research paper or class project can be difficult. This is a broad and fascinating field, so it can be difficult to understand what you want to investigate in your research.
Social psychology studies how individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by social influences. Explore how each person’s behavior is influenced by their social environment.
In this article, we discuss several different social psychology topics and research questions you might want to study more deeply. Learn how to start searching for topics and specific ideas to consider.
How to find research topics in social psychology
As you begin your search, think about your questions. What topics are you interested in? Following your own interests and curiosities can often lead to great research questions.
Please select a subtopic
Social psychologists are interested in all aspects of social behavior. The field’s main areas of interest include social cognition, social influence, and social relationships, and explores subtopics such as conformity, groupthink, attitude formation, obedience, and prejudice.
- social cognition: How do we process and use information about our social experiences? What biases influence how we interact with other people?
- Social impact: What are the major social factors that influence our attitudes and behaviors? What are group dynamics? How can we understand patterns of behavior in groups?
- social relations: What types of social relationships are there? How do they develop and change over time?
To ensure that you choose a topic that is specific enough, it may be helpful to start by limiting your search to one of these key areas.
Browse past studies
Once you have narrowed down your options, consider what questions you may have. Do you have questions that past research hasn’t fully answered? At this point, it’s helpful to take the time to browse through journal articles and books to see some examples of past findings and identify gaps in the literature. There may be cases.
You can also find inspiration and learn more about your topic by searching psychology databases like PsycINFO for keywords related to your topic and browsing psychology journals.
Narrow down to specific topics
Once you have decided on a general topic, you need to narrow down your research. The goal is to choose a research question that is specific, measurable, and testable. Suppose you want to study suitability. An example of a good research question is, “Are people more likely to obey when they are in a small group or a large group?” In this case, the specific topic of the paper is: How group size affects social conformity.
Review the literature on your chosen topic
Once you have selected a particular social psychology topic to research, the next step is to conduct a literature review. A literature review is a close reading of existing research related to a particular topic.
You’re likely to come across a large amount of information about your topic, and it can seem overwhelming at times. It may be helpful to start by reading review articles and meta-analysis studies. These are previous studies on your topic, or research summaries that incorporate a large pool of previous studies on that topic.
Please consult your instructor
Even if you really want to start working on your project right away, there are some important preparatory steps you need to take.
Before you decide to work on a project for your social psychology class, be sure to clarify your ideas with your instructor. This first step will save you a lot of time and effort later.
Your instructor will give you clear feedback on what to do and what not to do during your studies and may even give you helpful tips. Additionally, if you plan to conduct your own social experiment, your school may require you to submit it to the Institutional Review Board and obtain permission.
summary
Thinking about questions you have about social psychology is a great way to find your research topic. Once you have an overall idea, review the literature to narrow down your research question and make sure it is specific enough.
Examples of research topics in social psychology
Below are specific examples of different subjects that you may want to investigate further as part of your social psychology research paper, experiment, or project.
implicit attitude
How do implicit attitudes influence how people respond to others? This includes how people’s attitudes toward different groups of people (men, women, ethnic minorities, etc.) This may include investigating how it affects the interaction of For example, one study found that 75% of people perceive men to be more intelligent than women.
In your own project, you might investigate how implicit attitudes influence perceptions of qualities such as kindness, intelligence, leadership skills, and attractiveness.
prosocial behavior
You may also choose to focus on prosocial behavior in your research. This may include investigating why people help others. Some questions you can explore further include:
- What motivates people to help others?
- When are people most likely to help others?
- How do people feel when they help others?
- What are the benefits of helping others?
persuasion
How do people change their attitudes in response to persuasion? What are the different techniques you can use to persuade someone? What are the factors that make some people easier to persuade than others?
One way to investigate this is to collect a variety of print advertisements and analyze how persuasion is used. What types of cognitive and emotional techniques are utilized? Do certain types of advertising tend to use certain types of persuasion techniques?
invasion
Another area of social psychology that can be studied is aggression and violence. This may include investigating the factors that lead to aggression and violence and the consequences of those behaviors. Further investigation may lead to questions such as:
- When is violence most likely to occur?
- What factors influence violent behavior?
- Do traumatic experiences in childhood lead to more aggressive behavior in adulthood?
- Does viewing violent media content contribute to increased aggressive behavior in real life?
prejudice
Prejudice and discrimination is an area that offers a variety of research opportunities. This may include studying different forms of prejudice (such as sexism, racism, ageism, etc.) and the psychological effects of prejudice and discrimination. You can also explore topics about how prejudice is formed and strategies that can be used to reduce such discrimination.
nonverbal behavior
How do people react when their nonverbal communication doesn’t match their verbal behavior (e.g., saying “I feel good” when their facial expressions and tone of voice indicate otherwise)? Which signals do people respond to most strongly?
Liar
How good are people at detecting lies? Ask participants to tell a group of people about themselves, but make sure some things are true and others are not . Ask group members which statements they think are true and which statements they think are false.
social norms
How do people react when social norms are violated? This may include acting in a non-standard way in a particular situation or having a friend act out the behavior during observation. may be included.
Examples of things to try include dressing differently, applauding inappropriately at the end of class, cutting in line in front of others, and other mildly inappropriate behavior. Record your thoughts as you perform experiments and observe how people around you react.
online social behavior
Does online social networking make people more or less likely to interact with people in person or in other offline settings? To explore this further, create a survey to find out how people engage in social networking. assess how often you do so and how much time you spend interacting with friends in real-world settings.
social recognition
How does our appearance affect how people react to us? Ask some friends to help you and have two people dress up in dramatically different ways. One in a professional way and the other in a less common way. Have each person perform a certain behavior and observe how they are treated and how others react differently.
Social psychologists have discovered that attraction can create the so-called halo effect. Basically, we tend to assume that physically attractive people are friendly, intelligent, pleasant, and likable.
To explore this topic, participants were asked to look at pictures of people with different physical attractiveness and rate each person based on different traits such as social ability, kindness, intelligence, and social ability. You can set up an experiment where you ask someone to do something. and overall likability.
Think about how this affects various social situations, such as how employees are selected or how juries in criminal cases react.
summary
Because social psychology is a broad field, there are many different subtopics that you can choose to explore in your research. Implicit attitudes, prosocial behavior, aggression, prejudice, and social cognition are just some of the areas to consider.
A word from Berrywell
Social psychology topics can provide great inspiration for further research, whether it’s writing a research paper or conducting your own experiments. In addition to some of the social psychology topics mentioned above, you can also draw inspiration from your own curiosity about social behavior or look into social issues happening in the world around you.