Dynamical Systems in Social Psychology

The following website was a project generated by a group of graduate students from my Dynamical Systems Course in Social Psychology. At the midterm, I gave them the goal of compiling information they wished would have been available prior to taking the course. My only stipulation was that they had to do their best to target the general audience of social scientist, graduate and undergraduate. I think they did pretty well. -- Jonathan Butner, Ph.D.

An Introduction to Dynamical Systems Theory - This section presents some canonical examples of dynamic systems from other fields and attempts to integrate many of the basic concepts of dynamical systems as it relates to our social world.
A Comparison of Current Practices in Social Psychology with the Dynamical Systems Approach - While Dynamical Systems Theory overlaps nicely with social psychology theory, it has relatively little overlap with current social psychology research practice. We compare some of the assumptions and implications of those assumptions.
Some Historical Figures in Social Psychology who used Dynamical Systems Notions - Surprising to some, even the roots of social psychology have tremendous overlap with systems theory. Here are a couple of notable examples.
A Lexicon of Terminology and Ploticon of Figure Types - One of the biggest learning curves to Dynamical Systems Theory is the jargon. So, we have included a lexicon to place dynamical systems terms into more common parlance. Many concepts in Dynamical Systems can be represented Geometrically. Here are some of the types of figures you will encounter with some explanations as to how to read them.
Some Example Examinations using Systems with Real Data (including code in R) - For years, systems theory has existed in the world of simulations and metaphor. However, recent advances have linked systems concepts to ideas that are relatively easy to understand. We explore some concepts with data and code in R (though almost everything donehere can be done in any statistical program).