Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Fri, 11 Dec 1992 16:42:04 -0800
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         Tor Neilands <tbn@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject:      Re: What's new and exciting in Social Psych?

Betty Harris writes:

>I had an interesting phone call from a prof of mine at the
>school I attended for my MA.  The school has a masters program
>that puts out experimental, couseling and school psychology
>majors.  The program is very strong in the areas of statistics
>and computers and to a lesser extent in basic research design,
>but has a definite behavorist bias. They're restructuring their
>program a bit and he's tryin to decide whether to add an upper
>level undergrad social psych course or some other course.  He
>asked me "Hey Betty, What's new and exciting in the
>field of social psychology?"
>Well... I didn't have a real good answer for him.
>I rambled a bit bout attitudes and persuasion eg the
>elaboration liklihood model, Chaiken's model; measurement
>issues in attitude behavior consistancy ala Fishbein & Ajzen,
>Epstein, Snyder & Ickes, Mischel, but I was a bit disappointed
>that I really couldn't make a strong case for the social
>psych course.  *shrug* now it's buggin me!  Does anyone out there in
>Psygradland have any better answers for him???

I don't know about better, but how about "different"?

        1.      Recent work on attributional biases is kind of interesting in
social cog in the sense that a lot of it is re-examining the idea that
people are lame person perceivers all of the time. And, to extend it, to
the Kahneman and Tversky "people are
lame judgers" vs. "people are okay perceivers because they judge stuff in
context"---Swann, '84. That's always a good one to stimulate discussion
among students.

        2.      Then there's the cross cultural stuff reported by Markus
and Kityama (sp?) in a recent psych review (this past summer, or was it
last summer) article where asian cultures were compared with our culture on
a whole host of traits and behaviors. Pretty interesting stuff, and a lot
of it goes to show that just because we say it works one way for us
American folk doesn't mean that it necessarily works the same way for other
folks around the globe.

        3.      There's a move afoot in social to revitalize the role of
affect in social psychological processes, and some of the more intriguing
and exciting work going on involves trying to map things like affect and
self-esteem in the brain with PET and CAT scans. Cacioppo is doing similar
stuff with facial myography stuff, I believe.

        4.      If you want a clarion call which trumpets fresh stuff in
social cog, you might check out in the latest JPSP the lead article by
Susan Fiske tooting the horn for social cog.

>
>He also asked. "Why should I teach a social psych course?
>Will that help prepare them for grad school better than
>some other course?"
>On this one I leaned toward measurement and methodology
>eg Fishbein & Ajzen, Epstein, Snyder & Ickes on measurement issues
>and Cronbach and Meehl, Campbell and Fiske on construct
>validity.  As I think this would better prepare people for PhD
>programs that a general social psych course would.  How
>would you respond to his question?

Mm...now that's a good question. I guess it depends more on how the class
is constructed than on the actual content--in other words, I'd recommend
that he have the students do oral presentations in small groups to the rest
of the class at least once during the semester (I found this helped me when
I had to give a presentation of my first year proposal in grad school).

Methods might be good, as might be psychometrics and test scale
construction. A lot grads wind up writing test items as TAs. I wish I'd
known a lot more about test scaling and construction issues before I'd
written test items *and* survey items for my own research!
>
>Time to go give a final exam!
>(Jeeeez it's nice not having to take final exams!)
>Betty


Tor Neilands
Systems Analyst
Statistical Services Group
Computation Center
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX  78712

Phone: (512)-471-3241, Ext. 263

Internet:  TBN@Utxvm.cc.utexas.edu
___________________________________________________

"To thy own self be true".             --- Walt Whitman

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took
 the road less traveled by, and that has made all the
 difference".                                 --- Robert Frost
___________________________________________________

Disclaimer:  All of the views expressed above are solely
those of the author. Any relationship between my own
views and those of the University of Texas and/or The
Computation Center at the University of Texas are
due merely to regression to the mean.
____________________________________________________
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