The Analysis of Rule-Governed Behavior in Social Psychology

Abstract

This article describes part of the common ground on which behavior analysts and social psychologists can meet for fruitful discussions to further their research: Both groups of investigators share an interest in rule-governed behavior. I describe four lively research areas of mainstream social psychology to illustrate that shared interest—time horizons, optimism and pessimism, attribution, and equity theory. Numerous experiments in each area are designed to (a) discover individuals’ self-rules and (b) analyze their implications for various activities in daily life.