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https://studentshare.org/other/1425325-scientific-method-social-psychology.
Scientific Method - Social Psychology In order to fully establish the reasons that psychological researchers use the scientific method and how they would approach a social psychological issue from a scientific perspective, it is important to establish the meaning of social psychology. This would help us to see if a line of parallelism can be drawn between social psychology and sciences. Social psychology is the scientific study of the manner at which people perceive things, desire and are compelled to act under social conditions.
This means that social psychology studies the behavior of humans and to achieve this aim, they must necessarily apply different methods of scientific research to study the behavior of these humans. Scientific method is highly instrumental to the success of social psychologists in carrying out their analysis. It is the application of scientific method of systematic observation that the conditions of humans are effectively studied. Through the scientific method of research, social psychologists are better informed on the way people feel, how they behave and the kind of thoughts that go through their minds (Feldman, 2009).
Social psychologists cannot make observation without the use of scientific method and research as they make use of the advancement in technology to make precise and intricate observations about their subjects. This further emphasizes the role of scientific method in the field of social psychology as the more the improvement in research technology, the easier and faster the work of social psychologists would definitely be. It is therefore pertinent to note that social psychologists make use of different scientific methods of research, which includes; public opinion surveys, real world observations, case studies, and laboratory experiments to make their analysis and study.
This further corroborates the role of scientific method in social psychology. There are even instances that fundamental researches are conducted to test universal theories about the social behavior of humans and the result of these researches are used to solve some social problems in the real world (Feldman, 2009). Reference Feldman, R. (2009). Essentials of Understanding Psychology. 3rd Ed. Ontario: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Higher Education.
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