UC Davis

Findings from a study that surveyed editors and editorial board members of personality and social psychology journals are reviewed to examine the practice of psychological science in the field of social-personality. Findings demonstrate: (a) although personality and social researchers tend to use many of the same approaches, methods, and procedures, they show average differences in each of these domains, as well as in their overarching theoretical aims and perspectives; (b) the average differences between the two subgroups conform to social and personality researchers' explicit beliefs about the differences; (c) despite the overall methodological and philosophical differences between the two groups, there are few differences in the research topics each subgroup focuses upon, and there are many researchers whose research appears to bridge the two subareas; (d) the structure of social-personality research practices is best characterized as having two independent factors corresponding to Cronbach's (1957) correlationaland experimental "streams of research."