Social Psychology Commons^™

[Introduction To] Handbook Of Social And Clinical Psychology: The Health Perspective, C. R. Snyder, Donelson R. Forsyth

Bookshelf

From 1988 to 1991 Donelson R. Forsyth worked with C.R. Snyder and many other experts in the field of social and clinical psychology, editing a handbook that--at that time--summarized ongoing efforts in what was known as the social-clinical interface. This interface recognized the growing interdependency of these two fields. Up to that time social psychologists were mostly preoccupied with the study of the interpersonal determinants of thought, feeling, and action. Their work was primarily theoretically driven, the behaviors they sought to explain were the sort that occurred in everyday settings, and they preferred to test their hypotheses through laboratory experimentation. …

The Pecking Order, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

How can you increase your status? A clearly defined role and a central position in the group's communication network are essential. Good verbal skills and positive body language can help you make the right impression.

On Being Better But Not Smarter Than Others: The Muhammad Ali Effect, Scott T. Allison, George R. Goethals, David M. Messick

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Past research suggests that people believe that they perform socially desirable behaviors more frequently and socially undesirable behaviors less frequently than others (Goethals, 1986; Messick, Bloom, Boldizar, & Samuelson, 1985). The present research examined whether this perception also characterizes people's thinking about intelligent and unintelligent behaviors. In Study 1, subjects wrote lists of behaviors that they or others did. Subjects indicated that they performed more good and intelligent behaviors and fewer bad and unintelligent behaviors than others, although the magnitude of these differences was greater for good and bad acts than for intelligent and unintelligent ones. In Study 2, a …

Social Psychology's Three Little Pigs, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Three perspectives on the nature of scientific research are discussed allegorically: (1) basic science, or the study of theoretically meaningful hypotheses through rigorous research; (2) applied science, which focuses on practically significant problems; and (3) "action research," which integrates elements of both basic and applied science. The allegory concludes by advocating the unification of basic and applied science.

An Attributional Analysis Of Students' Reactions To Success And Failure, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Like it or not, evaluation is as much a part of education as is learning. In most schools and universities students are regularly tested and evaluated by their teachers, who communicate their appraisals in the form of a grade. When the papers are handed back, the grades are posted, or report cards are sent home, students find out if they have succeeded or if they have failed.

How do students react to these academic evaluations? According to a growing number of studies, the answer to this question depends upon their attributions: students' inferences about the causes of their performances and …

Effective Group Meetings And Decision Making, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

An extraordinary amount of work and many types of decisions are handled by groups of people, for in group meetings we can pool our knowledge and abilities, give each other feedback about our ideas, and tackle problems that would overcome us if we faced them alone. Group members not only give us emotional and social support when meeting together, but they can stimulate us to become more creative, more insightful, and more committed to our goals.

Not every group, however, realizes all these positive consequences. Often we dread going to "committee meetings," "council sessions," and "discussion groups" because they take …

Predicting Immoral Behavior, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Moral behavior remains an unpredictable puzzle for psychological researchers; however, some success has been achieved recently by taking individuals' personal moral philosophies into consideration. Writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1980, Forsyth argued that individual variations in approaches to moral judgment and behavior may be conceptualized in terms of two basic dimensions: relativism and idealism. First, while some personal moral codes emphasize the importance of universal ethical rules like "Thou shalt not lie," others maintain a posture of relativism that skeptically rejects universal principles. Second, while a fundamental concern for the welfare of others lies at …

Perceptions Of The Magnitude And Diversity Of Social Support, George R. Goethals, Shelley Jean Allison, Marnie Frost

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Three studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that subjects would overestimate the proportion of their peers who shared their opinion on an issue and that they would perceive their own opinion group as consisting of people with a wider and more diverse range of values and outlooks than those holding different opinions. The first study was conducted following a period of intense debate about sexism on a college campus. Subjects estimated student opinion on issues related to sexism and indicated how diverse or similar they perceived supporters and nonsupporters of the women's movement to be. In a second study …

Berkeley's Social Theory: Context And Development, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper is an investigation of Berkeley's social thought, particularly as it is grounded upon Berkeley's quite explicit, but neglected, social theory, which is revealed in an essay written by Berkeley in 1713 for Steele's short-lived Guardian. Originally untitled, this short essay has been labeled "The Bond of Society" in Luce and Jessop's critical edition of Berkeley's works. Its significance was noted by Harry Elmer Barnes in 1948, but Barnes's comment has not brought the essay the recognition it deserves. This is all the more unfortunate since, as Barnes says, Berkeley's essay is "one of the most suggestive essays …

The Attributional "Double Standard": Actor-Observer Differences In Predicting The Relationship Between Attitudes And Behaviors, Donelson R. Forsyth, Barry R. Schlenker, Thomas V. Bonoma

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

It was hypothesized that subjects who took the role of interaction observers ration than actors would predict a closer relationship between attitudes and behaviors and would report greater confidence in behavioral predictions derivable from an actor's attitude statements. One hundred sixty-eight subjects assumed the role of either actor or observer in scenarios of group interactions in which a central person made a statement about a particular attitude object. As predicted, subjects in the observer role reported that specific future behaviors (e.g., loaning money, helping to study for a test) had a greater likelihood of occurrence following an attitude statement (e.g., …

Impression Management Concerns Governing Reactions To A Faulty Decision, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

As a part of a study ostensibly concerned with conceptual ability, 120 male and 92 female undergraduates were asked to perform a boring task that consisted of generating random numbers for 20 minutes. The experimenter presented herself as being either attractive or unattractive, and made either favorable or unfavorable comments in describing the task. Following performance of the task, subjects rated it on either signed or unsigned questionnaires. Prior findings were replicated since a direct relationship was obtained between subjects' task evaluations and experimenter's opinion only when the experimenter was attractive; when she behaved unattractively, her opinion had no effect. …

The Effects Of Frustration And Social Desirability On Heterosexual Attraction, Donelson R. Forsyth, Russell D. Clark Iii

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Walster, Walster, Piliavin and Schmidt's (1973) finding that a selectively hard-to-get female was preferred over either an easy-to-get or a hard-to-get female was replicated for unfrustrated males. However, when males were mildly frustrated, they preferred females who had indicated attraction toward them. The implications of these results were discussed in terms of external rewards and the motivational state of individuals.

The Effects Of Failure And Achievement Imagery On A Paired Associates Verbal Learning Task, Warren Daniels Bloodsworth

Master's Theses

Concern over the effects of failure on performance has led many researchers to experimental investigation of this problem. However, a review of the literature indicated that the exact effects of failure are still not known. The results of most studies have shown a decrement in performance or learning following failure hill others have found either no effect or an increment.