This compelling work brings together leading social psychologists and evaluators to explore the intersection of these two fields and how their theory, practices, and research findings can enhance each other. An ideal professional reference or student text, the book examines how social psychological knowledge can serve as the basis for theory-driven evaluation; facilitate more effective partnerships with stakeholders and policy makers; and help evaluators ask more effective questions about behavior. Also identified are ways in which real-world evaluation findings can identify gaps in social psychological theory and test and improve the validity of social psychological findings; for example, in the areas of cooperation, competition, and intergroup relations. The volume includes a useful glossary of both fields' terms and offers practical suggestions for fostering cross-fertilization in research, graduate training, and employment opportunities. Each tightly edited chapter features an introduction and concluding reflection/discussion questions from the editors.

This volume provides the first authoritative explication of metatheoretical principles in the construction and evaluation of social-psychological theories. Leading international authorities review the conceptual foundations of the field's most influential approaches, scrutinizing the range and limits of theories in various areas of inquiry. The chapters describe basic principles of logical inference, illustrate common fallacies in theoretical interpretations of empirical findings, and outline the unique contributions of different levels of analysis. An in-depth look at the philosophical foundations of theorizing in social psychology, the book will be of interest to any scholar or student interested in scientific explanations of social behavior.

This book presents visions of how to solve social problems in the 21st century and how programs SHOULD be evaluated, not how they will be evaluated.

This student-friendly introduction to the field focuses on understanding social and practical problems and developing intervention strategies to address them. Offering a balance of theory, research, and application, the updated Third Edition includes the latest research, as well as new, detailed examples of qualitative research throughout.

Although best known for experimental methods, social psychology also has a strong tradition of measurement. This volume seeks to highlight this tradition by introducing readers to measurement strategies that help drive social psychological research and theory development. The books opens with an analysis of the measurement technique that dominates most of the social sciences, self-report. Chapter 1 presents a conceptual framework for interpreting the data generated from self-report, which it uses to provide practical advice on writing strong and structured self-report items. From there, attention is drawn to the many other innovative measurement and data-collection techniques that have helped expand the range of theories social psychologists test. Chapters 2 through 6 introduce techniques designed to measure the internal psychological states of individual respondents, with strategies that can stand alone or complement anything obtained via self-report. Included are chapters on implicit, elicitation, and diary approaches to collecting response data from participants, as well as neurological and psychobiological approaches to inferring underlying mechanisms. The remaining chapters introduce creative data-collection techniques, focusing particular attention on the rich forms of data humans often leave behind. Included are chapters on textual analysis, archival analysis, geocoding, and social media harvesting. The many methods covered in this book complement one another, such that the full volume provides researchers with a powerful toolset to help them better explore what is "social" about human behavior.

Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs assists researchers and practitioners by identifying and reviewing the best scales/measures for a variety of constructs. Each chapter discusses test validity, reliability, and utility. Authors have focused on the most often used and cited scales/measures, with a particular emphasis on those published in recent years. Each scale is identified and described, the sample on which it was developed is summarized, and reliability and validity data are presented, followed by presentation of the scale, in full or in part, where such permission has been obtained. Measures fall into five broad groups. The emotional disposition section reviews measures of general affective tendencies, and/or cognitive dispositions closely linked to emotion. These measures include hope and optimism, anger and hostility, life satisfaction, self-esteem, confidence, and affect dimensions. Emotion regulation scales go beyond general dispositions to measure factors that may contribute to understanding and managing emotions. These measures include alexithymia, empathy, resiliency, coping, sensation seeking, and ability and trait emotional intelligence. The interpersonal styles section introduces some traditional social–psychological themes in the context of personality assessment. These measures include adult attachment, concerns with public image and social evaluation, and forgiveness. The vices and virtues section reflects adherence to moral standards as an individual characteristic shaped by sociocultural influences and personality. These measures include values and moral personality, religiosity, dark personalities (Machiavellianism,narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy), and perfectionism. The sociocultural interaction and conflict section addresses relationships between different groups and associated attitudes. These measures include cross-cultural values, personality and beliefs, intergroup contact, stereotyping and prejudice, attitudes towards sexual orientation, and personality across cultures. - Encompasses 25 different areas of psychology research - Each scale has validity, reliability info, info on test bias, etc - Multiple scales discussed for each construct - Discussion of which scales are appropriate in which circumstances and to what populations - Examples of scales included

This timely and applied textbook brings together leading scientists to illustrate how key theories and concepts in social psychology help to predict and explain behavior, and can be successfully applied to benefit social and practical problems. It focuses on robust theories and models known for their successful applications and covers a diverse range of settings—spanning classroom interventions, health behavior, financial decision making, climate change and much more. Each chapter comprises of a theoretical section to define the key concepts and summarize the theory, providing evidence for its reliability and limitations from basic research, as well as an application section that summarizes research in an applied context and provides details about a particular study including the respective application setting. The textbook expertly shows how theory can make meaningful predictions for real world contexts, and isn’t afraid to explain the potential hurdles and pitfalls when applying a theory and its underlying set of concepts in a certain context. Crucially, this format moves towards theory testing in applied contexts, enabling a closer examination of why and under what circumstances interventions may be successful in obtaining a desired behavioral or psychological end-state. Among the topics explored: Mindset theory of action phases and if-then planning Quality of motivation in self-determination theory The focus theory of normative conduct Social identity theory and intergroup contact theory Intergroup forgiveness Social Psychology in Action is a critical resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in social and cultural psychology, as well as students of behavioral economics seeking to develop a deeper understanding of major theories and applications of the fields. Practitioners working in the areas of organizational behavior and management, health communication, social work, and educational science and pedagogy will also find the volume pertinent to their work.