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Psychology, Digital Data and the Study of Behaviour: A Golden Age for Social Psychology?
In a recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Buyalskaya, Gallo and Camerer (2021) make the bold claim that we are living though a ‘golden age in social science’ research. They argue that this golden age is a product of the availability of new digital data, the development of new analytic tools, and the proliferation of interdisciplinary research teams tackling big social problems. In this talk I will explore the role that social psychology (as a social science) can play in this new golden age. I will show how the availability of digital data streams – including digital visual data, naturally occurring text data, and mobile and wearable sensor data – have transformed our ability to record and analyse human activity. At the same time, it presents us with a series of moral, ethical and practical challenges to address. I will argue that while digital traces have allowed the study of behaviour to return centre stage in social psychology, we have been insufficiently curious about how these very technologies structure our social relations. More specifically, I will suggest that social psychology needs to embrace the study of digital technologies, not for what the technologies can do, but for who they do things to, and for who they do them for. A truly golden age for social psychology depends on our willingness to engage with the power relations of digital technologies in the same way we think about prejudice, discrimination, resistance and social change.
Date:
2 February 2026, 16:00
Venue:
Lecture room 2, Life and Mind Building, South Parks Road
Speaker:
Professor Mark Levine (Lancaster Univeristy)
Organising department:
Department of Experimental Psychology
Organisers:
Professor Asifa Majid (University of Oxford),
Professor Matthew Rushworth (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
hod.office@psy.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Shelley McKeown-Jones (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Perspectives in Psychology - Departmental Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Not required
Booking email:
hod.office@psy.ox.ac.uk
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Anne-Marie Honeyman-Tafa
