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The Notion of Accuracy in Current Social Perception Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Barbara Von Eckardt
Barbara Von Eckardt*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Extract

There are many different kinds of psychology: abnormal, behavioral, clinical, cognitive, developmental, physiological, personality, and social, to name some of the major categories. In recent years, philosophers of psychology (in the sense under discussion today) have focused primarily on cognitive psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis (which cross-cuts abnormal and personality). In this paper, I propose to turn my attention to one of the least discussed of these fields: social psychology. Specifically, I will consider a debate currently raging in the sub-field of social psychology known as “social perception research.”

Social psychology is - to quote from a recent textbook - “the scientific study of the thoughts, actions, and interactions of individuals as affected by the actual, implied, or imagined presence of others…. The social emphasis distinguishes social psychology from [other fields of] psychology, and the emphasis on the individual distinguishes it from sociology” (Tedeschi, Lindskold, and Rosenfeld 1985, 4-5).

Type
Part II. Philosophy of Psychology as Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 35 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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