This paper compares and contrasts the philosophical and methodological paradigms used by psychologists and system dynamicists. Currently, psychologists collect huge amounts of data, use open loop methods of experimental design, and think that classical statistical models, such as analysis of variance and regression analysis, provide the most useful methods for studying social phenomina. Behavioral approaches to psychology differ sharply with the system dynamicists concerning the relative importance of external vs. internal sources of influence on behavior.The behaviorists focus on controlling the external environment, even denying the existance or importance of internal states. The problems of using external control are illustrate by contrasting two simple attitude change models; one which modifies attitudes solely through outside influences and another which makes the change in attitudes a function of the state variables. System dynamicists attempt to understand the dynamics of social processes through the study and analysis of dynamic loop structure. These techniques would be extremely useful for those psychologists using correlational analysis and causal modeling methods, where the implications of dynamic structure are not always fully understood.

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Date created

• 1983

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• Document

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System Dynamic Society Records

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• This collection is part of the University Archives