This was an MSc assignment which concentrated on the ethical and philosophical factors behind misleading participants.

Persuasion is a much studied subject in the science of communication. Social psychologists, sociologists and communication scientists among others spend a lot of time and effort into investigating this process of social influence. However, relatively little is told about the reasons this is so widely studied. Why do scientists focus so much on persuasion. What are the benefits from studying it?

Most attitudes are expressed through behavior. However, this is not always so. Sometimes we are thinking one thing (attitude) and behaving another (behavior). Why is this incongruence between attitude and behavior. What makes attitudes and behavior be in line with one another, what other factors are at work here?

Persuasion is a communication process where someone (the persuader) tries to convince another person (the persuadee) to take over the ideas and perspective of the persuader. In science, however, the exact definition of persuasion is more complex and elaborate.

Attitudes are a widely used construct amongst social scientists. However, what are the exact functions of having attitudes? Why do we have them, what do they do for us?

Attitudes are learned global (typically emotional) evaluation of an object (person, place or issue) that influences thought and action. However, some attitudes we hold are strong, others are weak. Generally, strong attitudes are more influencing to our behavior than weak ones. But what makes an attitude strong?

Having an attitude can mean several things in social interaction. However, social psychology uses the term attitude to a mental and emotional construct. In other words, it’s a process going on in our heads. But what exactly is this definition of attitudes. More precisely, what is an attitude?

These are two theories formulated in the last century by Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein. How do these theories work? What are its constructs, this is explained in the following article.

By Terri Gast
What is the basis of Social Psychology?

Social psychologist study how we think and how we influence one another. They suggest that there is an enormous power of social influence, which can affect a person. One way that this influence can be seen is conformity and obedience. So what could we say about group pressure and how is it related with conformity? What are the reasons for conformity? And finally what is obedience and when it reaches the peak?