Calling for psychology majors or equivalent

[Pekka]

I'm basically going through some material of your field, social psychology to be more exact. I'm going to do some heavy duty studying on few "narrow" fields in it that have to do with few types of human behaviour. (well it isn't narrow exactly).

I'm looking for classics, either articles on top journals or classic books, or respected authors. Basically I need to make the references count as well. Quality over quantity for starters.

The particular subject is human behaviour when it comes to things such as deception and manipulation. To understand the process of it from your perspective comprehensively. I understand this will give more routes that shouldn't be left out in the name of trivializing issues, but give those "also check out" hints as well.

Umm, particularly situations where humans are being manipulated or deception is used from both sides, the perpetrator and also the target. I know it's not so simple to just state that this is the scenario, now give me facts.... humans are not that simple and neither are the situations, but I need to get started from a more valid side of your field so get me started. All kinds of basic classic books and articles are going to be appreciated.

Then the other thing, behaviour and especially modifying behaviour using subtle tools and everything related. Basically behaviour modification.

I am going to connect with people in here with this stuff, but I'd like to get started sinc eit'll be at least 3 months until it happens and I'm already in a situation where I can start reading about it and I'd like to know something so I can follow it all better.

Everything is of interest, studies, especially different frameworks etc.

Please help.

[Pekka]

Ok I'll be more to the point.

Please excuse me for my amateur terms and also perhaps wrong idea and interpretation, I'm trying to just kind of describe the situation I'm covering.

Say we will use deception. We're going to fool someone, someone unknown perhaps. So, say I'm going to have to lie to that stranger and hopefully get the results I want.

So I could try to establist authority. We know there's lots of good studies how authority works often and there are people who kind of bend over if they figure you're an authority. This can be done in several ways, superior knowledge creates authority for example.

Now, say we want to establist trust. I want to establish trust so I can later on abuse that trust and do my carefully planned thing. Basically what I'd want to know is what we know about trust, establishing it and so forth in your field. I know it's not going to be a model where it's straight forward and so on, but that's not the point and I don't need that. I need to understand what we know about it, do we know about it?

So stuff like that.

[DaShi]

When you first arrive, find the biggest toughest guy and beat the crap out of him. No one will mess with you after that.

[Pekka]

dashi,

Nah, but I'm really quite serious. Also if you have any friends who are in the field, maybe you could ask from them?

Just looking for sources, not the answers. I just need to knwo reliable and appreciated authors, books, articles, so I can read it for myself ASAP, because this stuff takes some time for me to understand, this is not my field so I need time to digest this stuff.

The problem for me is that I don't quite know who is a good source and who is not, what is a good book and what is not. I might be referring to some BS idiot who has 0 respect in the field, I just want to avoid making that big mistake.

[Elok]

Well, my mom's an adjunct psych professor, I can ask her. It doesn't sound like something she'd know a lot about, though, she tends to focus more on relationships and development and suchlike AFAICT.

[Apocalypse]

http://search.epnet.com/

[Pekka]

Elok, I'd very much appreciate it. I don't need the information about this subject, I just need to know what the good sources are in the field. I am going to use some of them as reference quite soon, and we are kind of strict about them... they have to be quality sources, as in articles from top journals, respected authors and so forth.

[Pekka]

I'll give you guys an example. I talked about Robert Cialdini, and this one dude totally slammed him. So I had to kind of forget about it. THe thing is, I don't know if I should have said that he is respected and he is a good and valid source or not. Because I simply don't know... so I made a fool of myself and could not proceed. I know the big boys in my field, and if someone is going to go for some of the lesser ones, I'm going to be the first one to call them up for it. Doesn't mean they're wrong, but I will be questioning the validity of it, so when it happens to me in another field, I have no clue what so ever.... so I'm lost.

[Apocalypse]

use that search engine and you'll find what you want

[Pekka]

Elok, the very focused issue I'm dealing with is social engineering. So everything related to that in the field of psychology is something I'm very interested in.

Apo, I don't have the account for that database. I do have others, but the problem is I don't know what a good valid source is in a field I'm not familiar with. I can't just search by topic. It doesn't let me know if it is quality or not. Quality as in respected in the field.

[Apocalypse]

Robert Cialdini is nothing special.

[Apocalypse]

If you have a good database, you can find a work and then find other works that reference that work. In their introduction, they will probably discuss the work and you can use that information to see how good it really is.

[Pekka]

Right, so you get my problem. He has dealt with issues that I'm interested in, but is not an author I'd like to be referring to in a serious paper. One of the measures as to how good your paper is considered is the quality of your references. So even if your content remains the same, the references do matter quite a lot.

So I don't for example know that R. Cialdini is not the man. I look him up on wikipedia and it says well, he's the man but apparently people who know more about the field say he isn't. So .. I need people to recommend me better ones .

[Pekka]

Apo, Sure, but I have no idea if the ones referring to that article are any good either.

This is something I'm prolly going to have to do anyway, but it wouldn't hurt if someone already knows something about this stuff and gives their recommendation. Once I get started, then it isn't a problem, I just want to get started with good ones.

[Apocalypse]

Pekka, honestly if you are doing a project like this you need like 20 or 30 sources at least so mention everyone with a degree. In the course of research, you will be able to tell who is really good and who isn't.

[Pekka]

Ah, but you don't know the kind of project I'm doing . Anyway, you are still correct, I need PLENTY of sources. 20 or 30 won't probably cut it, because it extends to more than just issues about trust in situation of deception and manipulation. I'm also going to deal with behaviour modification and such.

So I'm going to need plenty of sources. These will be in my dissertation, so I think by default I need freaking tons of sources. And this is just one angle I need in it, but I have time to do it and I have very much interest and motivation, so it's not a problem.

But like I said, I don't know the field, I want a good start. A classic book would be good, or a top journal that deals with these kinds of issues etc. I'm asking help so I can start good, I can move from there on. I'm not doing any kind of... big research on issues using this field particularly. I'm more into knowing what the field knows about it and if there are any frameworks and theories etc and what the main ones are.

What's your major, since you knew Cialdini?

[Nostromo]

Pekka, I'm not a psychology major, but I'm a philosopher of science currently specializing in psychology, for what its worth.

A couple of suggestions:

- Check out the up to date social psychology handbooks for the topics that interest you. They'll tell you all about the major theories, the experiments and who are the important researchers, etc, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw...&Go.y=15&Go=Go

You can also check out the Social psychology Network for useful info:

http://www.socialpsychology.org/

And there's Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Social_psychology

[Pekka]

nostromo, thanks... socialpsycDOTorg seems pretty good.

Nice. I can already start with these. I had the wikipedia page checked out but I got lost in it, since that's where I found Cialdini in the first place

This is useful.

[Pekka]

oh my.. I got a fast track into some good books. There's so many... I also have this BAD quality, that I like to buy books. THat is if I need books in my work for example, I'd rather buy them than order them in our library. I mean I can request any book I want, if it's for work, they'll order it right away but I want to HAVE IT!!!! Then again , I am interested in my work. So what I do is something I want to knwo about, and I don't put a price on knowing. I'd rather just buy few, see if they're good and then buy more.

Oh damn, this will bring me down haaaard...

[Apocalypse]

I am psych

[Pekka]

Great. Well, I think I got what I wanted, I guess the term often used that I'm most interested is persuation and also self regulation.

Persuation as a way to influence on people during a scam or setting one up, and also self regulation as a way to modify behaviour.

[Elok]

Good thing you found something, because Mom couldn't recommend anything. She offered to dig something up online once the school year started, but I figured you wanted this info a bit sooner than that.

[SpencerH]

So who is it you're trying to manipulate Pekka? You have to use different methods for different people.

[Grandpa Troll]

Maybe you could do a current but unidentified issues segment on this particular case?

This person in question I am sure would appreciate your help, oh and yes they bring da chaah-ching up front so money is not a matter