Psychology and Communication

This is a bit late. I'm on a program at the 2016 American Psychological Association Convention. Let's go back a year. At the 2015 APA Convention, I heard presentations by top social psychologists. How do psychology and communication relate to one another? My thoughts:

1. APA Division 49, Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy, is a major force at APA. Their work directly relates to communication. However, group communication researchers often focus on group decision-making. Division 49 panels often focus on using groups to help people develop social skills and improve their life outcomes. Similar, and related, but distinct.

2. I have seen very few APA panels about attitude theory or what communications professors teach during a persuasion class. Many APA social psychology panels emphasize practical issues. I have seen APA panels about the psychology of mass media.

3.We communication and speech people can continue to learn from psychologists, but they can learn from us, too. One of my 2015 APA papers discussed communication in training programs, partly based on the work of Steven Beebe, Timothy Mottet, and K. David Roach. This may have been new information for many of the attendees.

4. Communication classes often talk about Philip Zimbardo's research: either his controversial Stanford Prison experiment, or his studies about shyness, of which he seems very proud. Here is Zimbardo speaking at the 2015 APA film festival at a showing of the Stanford Prison Experiment feature film. Note the Super-Z shirt.