This paper is aimed at expanding experimental social psychology into a more interdisciplinary research domain by broadening the concept of experimentation in social psychology. Social psychological experiments in the laboratory are widely regarded as being completely separate from fieldwork-centered social psychology, which focuses more on historical and cultural contexts. However, once we place the well-known Milgram experiment or historical experimental research as a mediator between these two extremes, we can see that both approaches have much in common. With this continuity in mind, experimental social psychology can be reestablished as a more comprehensive discipline by taking a middle-of-the-road approach. First, laboratory experiments should be enriched by opening a channel to the actual lives of people in the real world, which was successfully taken into consideration in a couple of experiments on group dynamics in early experimental social psychology research. Second, fieldwork-centered social psychology should be strengthened by performing more rigorous comparative analyses, which can be realized in laboratory experiments through the manipulation of experimental conditions.

Catastrophic events, such as worldwide pandemics and disasters caused by natural hazards, may shape ambivalent attitudes among citizens toward science. On one hand, there may be pessimistic feelings toward the limitations of scientific knowledge and technology. On the other hand, at the same time there may be optimistic prospects for science-based solutions to the problems caused by these events. Science communication plays an integral part in shaping societal attitudes toward science. This research was aimed at constructing more fruitful relationships between science and society by improving science communication in the area of seismology. Based on the concept of open science, we conducted action research at a seismology observatory as it transitioned to function as a science museum. The museum employed a citizen science approach to communicating the science of seismology. In this approach, citizens not only learned seismology from scientists, but they worked collaboratively with scientists in doing science. Our research found that a citizen science approach plays a critical role in opening up and communicating the science of seismology to society.

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among severe punishment orientation toward juvenile offenders, fear of/perceived risk of juvenile crime, and the image of the child as incomprehensible. Building on existing arguments and research, we tested a hypothetical model that assumed that 1) severe punishment orientation was determined by fear; 2) fear was determined by the perceived risk; and 3) the perceived risk of juvenile crime was determined by the child image, and compared its goodness-of-fit and information criterion to those of a model built on slightly different assumptions. The analysis of data from 226 individuals supported the hypothetical model. The implications of this study’s findings were discussed.

Gamblers consist of two sub-categories: pathological and recreational gamblers. People have negative attitudes toward gamblers, which often makes pathological gamblers hesitant about seeking others’ help or seeing a doctor. To resolve this problem, relatively positive attitudes toward recreational gamblers might be effective in changing the negative stereotypes associated with them. In measuring the change in attitude, the effect of social desirability should be considered. For this purpose, implicit rather than explicit attitudes need to be evaluated. In this study, 40 university students participated in a vignette experiment. They read one of the vignettes depicting a target: pathological gambler or recreational gambler, and implicit attitudes toward gamblers were measured by Single-Category Implicit Association Test before and after reading the vignette. The results show that participants who read the vignette of a recreational gambler had more positive attitudes toward gamblers. We suggest that drawing awareness to the recreational gamblers subgroup, who are not often recognized, is effective in psychological research aiming to change attitudes toward pathological gamblers.