Social Psychology
Social Psychology
- Thomas Heinzen
- William Paterson University, New Jersey
- Wind Goodfriend
- Buena Vista University
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Brief Contents
Preface
If social psychology is a roller coaster and we are its passengers, then the recent pace of discovery justifies throwing our hands into the air and screaming. Since the 1930s, the percentage of articles published in PsycINFO (the largest database of psychological research) related to social psychology has quadrupled. This is an impressive growth pattern because when you are actually doing science, the pace of discovery feels more like a race between snails than a careening roller coaster. So why is social psychology growing so fast? Why all the excitement?
The number of articles published in journals devoted to social psychology has quickly increased since the 1930s.
Three Social Forces
There are three social forces at work that explain the excitement behind what is happening in social psychology: numbers, psychological literacy, and a scientific mission.
Numbers.
More than one million students in the United States are taking at least one course in psychology every year, and social psychology is among the most popular offerings. Its gone global. In China in the 1970s, there were only three or four departments of psychology; there are now approximately 250300 (see Halpern, 2010). Social psychologys insights provide practical guidance. The head of a start-up software company finally understood the fundamental attribution error (a major concept within the field) when he said, You mean . . . if an entire department is unproductive, then the problem might not be with them, but in the situation I created in that department? Social psychology provides practical guidance to retail consumers and marketers, to trial lawyers and judges, to athletes and coaches, and to politicians and voters. We have a large and growing audience. We cant tell social psychologys distinctive story often enough or well enough. Numbers = New Opportunities.
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