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Futures in Research

Verbal behavior and the future of social science

David Markowitz
Michigan State University

This proposed working group will be a generative brainstorming session and discussion to consider big questions for the study of verbal behavior in the social sciences. In the context of studying language and verbal behavior, questions to guide the discussion will include, but are not limited to: (1) What defines an individual, an interaction, and the situation?, (2) How can we operationalize these ideas with the right metric(s), not just a convenient metric(s)?, (3) How does verbal behavior interlink with other types of behavior?, (4) What methodologies can best capture the dynamic nature of language within different psychological systems?, (5) What is the role of computation and automation in understanding, interpreting, and discovering psychological information about the human condition? The goal of this group is to begin thinking deeply and generating ideas about how we can measure, study, and analyze verbal behavior more strategically compared to established approaches.