| Abstract: | Conducted an empirically based study in which the judgments of experts were used to identify the theoretical/methodological structure of the field of personality and social psychology, as well as the core "interest communities" extant in these disciplines. The similarities of figures prominent in the history of the field were judged by 16 of the American Psychological Association's Division 8 (Society of Personality and Social Psychology) Fellows. Multidimensional scaling of these similarity judgments revealed 3 general dimensions along which the figures varied: synthetic vs analytic, internal vs external determinants of behavior, and prominence. An alternate view of the field was provided by a taxonomic scheme in which the figures were grouped along major ideological, substantive, and methodological lines. The following 5 contemporary interest communities were identified from the self-characterizations of the Fellows: (a) psychoanalysis and psychiatry, (b) modern personality theory, (c) measurement and individual differences, (d) sociology, and (e) social psychology. Statements of implications for future directions in the field were also obtained from Ss. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
