Academic Scientific JournalsDo psychologists study behaviour?
Keywords:
methodology, social psychology, health psychology, science of psychologyAbstract
Although social psychology is defined as the science that explores the social behaviour of people, today’s research, which is devoted to this matter, is primarily (or almost exclusively) focused on highly specific behaviours that Baumeister, Vohs and Funder wittily called “finger movements”. The point is that psychologists most often ask people to fill in various scales and questionnaires and/or to imagine that they found themselves in some situation and answer how they would behave in it. The author of the article asks a question about the reasons for this state of affairs, and also claims that psychology should return to examining real human reactions, and not only verbal declarations about how a person would react in a particular situation.
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References
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