Social psychology (sociology)

About: Social psychology (sociology) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18151 publications have been published within this topic receiving 907731 citations. The topic is also known as: Social psychology & sociological social psychology.

Human Territorial Functioning: An Empirical, Evolutionary Perspective on Individual and Small Group Territorial Cognitions, Behaviors, and Consequences

Abstract: 'Territorial functioning' refers to an interlocked system of sentiments, cognitions, and behaviors that are highly place-specific, and socially and culturally determined and maintaining. In this book, Ralph Taylor explores the consequences of human territorial functioning for individuals, small groups, and the ecological systems in which they operate. His exploration is illuminated by his evolutionary perspective, and grounded in empirical studies by social scientists and in theoretical work on the evolution of social and spatial behaviors. He systematically reviews the related research and theory, and indicates the importance of territorial functioning to current social and environmental problems. Contrary to popular wisdom, he argues that territorial functioning is relevant only to limited locations, such as street blocks, and not to neighborhoods or nation states, and that it reduces conflicts and helps maintain settings and groups. His theoretically focused examination of all that has been discovered about human territorial functioning will interest a wide variety of environmental psychologists and designers, urban sociologists, social psychologists, planners, and ethologists, and their students.

Judgment under uncertainty: The availability bias in social perception and interaction

Abstract: Every day the social perceiver makes numerous, apparently complex social judgments – Predicting another's behavior, attributing responsibility, categorizing an individual, evaluating anothers, estimating the power or influence of a person, or attributing causality A central task of social psychology has been to determine how the social perceiver makes these judgments Until recently, research on this topic was marked by a rationalistic bias, the assumption that judgments are made using thorough, optimal strategies (see, for example, Fischhoff, 1976, for discussion of this point) Errors in judgment were attributed to two sources: (a) accidental errors due to problems with information of which the perceiver was presumably unaware; and (b) errors which resulted from the irrational motives and needs of the perceiver Within social psychology this perspective is represented by research on causal attribution In early attribution formulations (eg, Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1967) the social perceiver was characterized as a naive scientist who gathered information from multiple sources in the environment to make attributions regarding cause-effect relations When departures from these normative models were observed, they were believed to stem from biases such as hedonic relevance (Jones & Davis, 1965) or other egocentric needs (see Miller & Ross, 1975)