Psychology Research Guide

Social Psychology

Social psychologists study the influence of social perception and interaction on individual and group behavior. The following resources can help you narrow your topic, learn about the language used to describe psychology topics, and get you up to speed on the major advancements in this field.

Social Psychology Databases

Research in social psychology utilizes core psychology resources, as well as resources in communication and sociology. You may find it helpful to search the following databases for your social psychology topics or research questions, in addition to the core resources listed on the home page.

Social Psychology Subject Headings

You may find it helpful to take advantage of predefined subjects or subject headings in Shapiro Databases. These subjects are applied to articles and books by expert catalogers to help you find materials on your topic. Learn more about subject searching:

Consider using databases to perform subject searches, or incorporating words from applicable subjects into your keyword searches. Here are some social psychology subjects to consider:

• bullying
• culture
• gender
• personality
• shyness
• social psychology
• social anxiety
• social influence

Social Psychology Example Search

Not sure what you want to research exactly, but want to get a feel for the resources available? Try the following search in any of the databases listed above:

(behavioral OR social) AND Psych*

There isn't just one accepted word for this area of psychology, so we use OR boolean operators to tell the database any of the listed terms are relevant to our search. We use parenthesis to organize our search, and we stem or truncate the word psychology with the asterisk to tell the database that any ending of the word, as long as the letters psych are at the beginning of the word, will do. This way, the word psychological and other related terms will also be included.

Social Psychology Organization Websites