Strategic Uses of Social Technology: An Interactive Perspective of Social Psychology

On an everyday basis, we communicate with one another using various technological media, such as text messaging, social networking tools, and electronic mail, in work, educational, and personal settings. As a consequence of the increasing frequency of use and importance of computer-supported interaction, social scientists in particular have heeded the call to understand the social processes involved in such interactions. In this volume, the editors explore how aspects of a situation interact with characteristics of a person to help explain our technologically-supported social interactions. The person-by-situation interaction perspective recognizes the powerful role of the situation and social forces on behavior, thought, and emotion, but also acknowledges the importance of person variables in explaining social interaction, including power and gender, social influence, truth and deception, ostracism, and leadership. This important study is of great relevance to modern readers, who are more and more frequently using technology to communicate with one another.

Dr Zachary Birchmeier is currently an Instructional Technology Support Specialist at Stephens College in Columbia, MO, USA. He received a PhD in Psychology from Miami University in 2004.

Beth Dietz-Uhler is Professor of Psychology at Miami University. Her research interests include intragroup and intergroup behavior, reactions to threats to social identity, sport fans and spectators, and computer-mediated communication.

Garold Stasser is Professor of Psychology at Miami University. His published work has appeared in the Psychological Review, the Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Inquiry, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. His research interests are communication in decision-making groups, coordination of social behavior, collective choice and problem solving and computational models of social interaction.