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In my high school science classes I was taught that science was comprised of universal truths uncovered by people with advanced degrees. For instance, I had the impression that my chemistry book was filled with unassailable scientific facts about the composition and properties of matter and that if I successfully committed them to memory, then I would understand the science of chemistry. However, the idea that science is just a collection of unchanging facts constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science.

One of the most important lessons that I want you to take away from this text is that science is not a collection of facts; rather, it is a process of discovery. It is true that the body of social psychological knowledge that we call “facts” constitutes the overwhelming bulk of the information in this book and, no doubt, much of what your professor will test you on. However, it is critical that you also understand the nature of science and especially of good psychological science. Science is a process of asking questions, developing hypotheses, and designing research in order to answer these questions (Hull, 1988). Briefly, four key characteristics of science as a process are

 Creative: Researchers need to be inventive and flexible when developing ways to explore social phenomena and test ideas;

 Dynamic: It is progressive and forward looking, continually asking new questions while building upon what has been learned;

 Honest: Scientists share what we know and how we know it, allowing others to understand the methods and techniques used to make our discoveries; and

 Self-correcting: Scientists sometimes make mistakes and, through rigorous investigation, research replication, and with a fervent desire to find the truth, we and/or other scientists will uncover and correct those mistakes.

In the pages of this text, you will encounter many rich and varied examples of scientists at work. Not only will you learn about the results of their research, but you’ll also get to witness how they discovered them as well as some of the mistakes made along the way. So rid yourself of the notion that science is always correct or that “facts” never change. Having said that, virtually all of the findings that will be presented in this text are based on rigorous, peer-reviewed research in which we can have confidence. Results that are controversial or tenuous or theories that are highly speculative will be identified as such.

Social psychological science—like any science—has three goals: description, explanation, and prediction. First we describe social behavior. Social psychologists are natural born people watchers, sometimes obsessively so. We record what we see, whether it be in a coffee shop, a parking lot, a classroom, or a laboratory. But observing what they did is simply a starting point for tackling the more interesting question of why. Social psychologists conduct research to understand why people thought, felt, or behaved as they did, including what characteristics of the person and the situation produced what we have observed. Good explanations are the crux of good science. Finally, social psychologists try to predict what will happen in the future, both in subsequent studies and, perhaps more importantly, in the real world. This chapter’s Doing Research section introduces you to how social psychologists perform these.