| REU 2008 - Mentor abstract |
 |
Mark Snyder
Psychology
How individuals create their own social worlds is the over-arching theme of Dr. Snyder’s programs of research. Understanding these processes has involved theoretical and empirical inquiries into the linkages among personality, motivation, and social behavior. Specifically, Dr. Snyder has been concerned with the processes by which individuals construct and enact motivational ‘agendas for action’ that draw upon and integrate features of their personal identities and their social settings, and that guide and direct their pursuit of relevant life outcomes in diverse domains of functioning.
The investigative strategy that Dr. Snyder employs constitutes something of a marriage between personality and social psychology. It brings together personality's concern with the psychology of the individual and social psychology's focus on the influence of the situation in coordinated programs of basic and applied research, conducted in laboratory and field settings, on the motivational foundations of individual and social behavior.
In these programs of research, Dr. Snyder and his colleges are addressing matters of functioning within individuals (which they have examined in studies of self and identity), between individuals (which they have investigated in studies of social interaction sequences), and in the context of groups and collectives (which they have studied in the context of voluntary action in response to societal problems). |
