Convergence: Connecting Levels of Analysis in Psychological Science
In the past, our field harbored distinct, and often competing, schools of thought that tackled different problems and produced findings that often appeared to diverge. Today, investigators attack shared problems at complementary levels of analysis and produce results that converge. Studies of people in a social world; mental systems of cognition and emotion; and biological mechanisms of the genome and the nervous system interconnect and yield an integrated psychological science. The APS 23rd Annual Convention displays, and celebrates, these advances in our field.

Society for the Teaching of Psychology

Putting the Person Back Together: The Social Psychology of Cultural Animals

Saturday, May 26, 2012, 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM
Missouri

Roy F. Baumeister
Florida State University

Conventional wisdom has held that social psychology studies situations, not people, but students are often more interested in people than situations. A new understanding of humans as cultural animals has emerged from social psychology research. Distinctively human traits were shaped by evolution to make possible the new kinds of social life humans developed, especially culture.

Roy F. Baumeister in the news: The Globe and Mail (Jan 3, 2012), Real Simple (January) , The New York Times (Jan 5, 2012) , The Montreal Gazette (Jan 22, 2012) , The Atlantic (Jan 30, 2012), ScienceNews (Jan 30, 2012), The Guardian (Feb 7, 2012), Financial Times (Feb 17, 2012), The Wall Street Journal (Feb 20, 2012) and The New York Times (Mar 23, 2012).