PSY 320 Week 1 Discussion Question 2 of 6

On page 10 of the text Social Psychology, David Myers (2012) writes, "There are two general ways that values enter psychology: the obvious and the subtle." After reading pages 10 through 13, answer this question - what are the direct (obvious) and indirect (not-so-obvious) ways that these values enter into social psychological research and theories?

Some of the direct ways that values enter psychology are first in the social psychologists choice of research topics (Myers, 2013, p.10). When a social psychologist chooses his or her topic, they choose it based on their own personal values and beliefs, wether they are conscious of this fact or not. Next, you can see values differ by culture. For example, western culture puts of emphasis and value on the individual, while nonwestern cultures tend to put more value on the group, tribe, or family. Another way we see values directly is in the types of people attracted to certain disciplines (Myers, 2013, p.10). A persons values will be reflected in the profession they choose as well as their political affiliation and any groups they might be associated with. Lastly, we can study values themselves and the role that they play in our research and analysis.

Some of the indirect ways that values enter psychology are first recognizing that we as humans each have our own prejudices and bias that have been formed as a result of our values. What we value can influence our thoughts and how we categorize things. This means we can make judgements of those around us, based on what we believe to be true and right, even though these are subjective actions. Another way our values come into play is through professional advice. When a psychologist gives advice to a patient, his or her personal values are reflected in that advice (Myers, 2013, p.12). Lastly, our values are reflected when we put labels on things and people. "Values lie within our cultural definitions of mental health, our psychological advice for living, our concepts, and our psychological labels" (Myers, 2013, p.12). As social psychologists, our personal values are visited upon the judgements we make about the people around us. We use our own values to measure our beliefs about other people.

Reference

Myers, D. G. (2013). Introducing social psychology. In Social psychology (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.