Madiha Anas
Lecturer
Department of Applied Psychology
School of Social Sciences
Beaconhouse National University
Essentially a 20 th
Century field
–
90% of all Social
Psychologist are still alive
In contrast: Personality
Psychology – Freud,
Jung, Adler, Rogers, etc. are all dead
Social Psychology is
Interested in Old Issues
“If every Athenian had been
Socrates, then every
Athenian assembly would STILL have been a mob…”
Plato
Quick Overview:
The Exodus of
European
Psychologists Fleeing
Nazi Occupied Europe
– brings a Gestalt
Perspective to American
Psychology
Kurt Lewin, Fritz
Heider, Solomon Asche
Gives rise to Social-
Cognitive Perspectives
1

The Nazi phenomenon and Holocaust begged explanation and sparked Research
–
–
–
–
–
The Authoritarian
Personality
Conformity (Asche)
Obedience (Milgram)
Prejudice Reduction
(Sherif)
Aggression (Bandura, Buss,
Taylor)
War and the Art of
Persuasion
–
–
Nazi Propaganda sparked interest in persuasion research.
U.S. military Persuasion
Research Unit.
Persuading soldiers to continue the war in Asia
–
Changing soldiers attitudes about integrating the troops with others
Researchers became interested social problems
–
– gender issues racial prejudice.
1960s, there was growing interest in a variety of new topics,
– cognitive dissonance
–
– bystander intervention aggression.
1970s, social psychology in America had reached a crisis.
–
–
–
Heated debate over the ethics of laboratory experimentation,
Do attitudes really predict behavior?
How much science could be done in a cultural context?
1895: Le Bon presents a systematic theory of crowd behavior
1908: Ross and Dougall publish a textbook titled
Social Psychology
1918: Thomas and Znanieciki’s five-volume study,
The Polish Peasant in Europe and American makes attitude a central concept for social psychology
1921: The Journal of Abnormal Psychology becomes the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
2

1924: Floyd Allport publishes an influential text on social psychology
1934: George Herbert Mead’s book Mind, Self, and Society is published, stressing the interaction between self and others
1935: The first Handbook of Social Psychology is published
1939: Kurt Lewin reports an experimental study of leadership styles, showing how social issues can be studied in the laboratory
1941: In Social Learning and Imitation , Neal Miller and
John Dollard present a theory that extends behavioristic principles to the realm of social behavior
1945: Kurt Lewin founds the Research Center for Group
Dynamics
1954: The first edition of the Modern Handbook of Social
Psychology is published
1957: Fritz Heider lays the groundwork for attribution theory with the publication of The Psychology of
Interpersonal Behavior
1959: John Thibaut and Harold Kelley publish The Social Psychology of Groups , a foundation for social exchange theory
1960: The Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology splits into two separate publications: The Journal of Abnormal
Psychology and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1897: Norman Triplett carried out what has come to be considered the first experiment in
Social Psychology.
–
Effects of competition on performance
–
Conducted an experiment to compare the performance of participants who were alone with that of participants in groups (Triplett, 1897)
3

1908: Earliest publication of textbooks of this discipline
–
“Social Psychology”
Published simultaneously yet independently
American: Edward Ross
British: William McDougall
Allport’s text prompted the field
1930s: Muzaffar Sherif’s studies on social norms
–
Studying these norms in a systematic manner, Sherif laid the groundwork for subsequent research on
Conformity
Other forms of Social influence
Kurt Lewin
–
–
German psychology America
Developed a theory to explain how interaction between people’s environment and their personal characteristics combined to produce social behavior
End of WWII
–
Social psychologists gained confidence
–
–
Believed solutions to significant social problems were within their grasp
Governments agreed and funded
1950s
–
–
Considered “the decade of the group”
Research focused on group behavior – to improve group interaction
Emphasis on groups did not last
Festinger’s (1957) Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance
–
–
When people hold opposing attitudes within themselves, they experience unpleasant feelings,
– which they are motivated to reduce
4

1960s and 1970s
–
Number of social psychologists and areas of interest increased substantially
–
Social psychologists began to doubt the utility and value of their science
Field merely a study of social practices?
Any universal, fundamental social principles, that span over historical eras and cultural backgrounds?
Kurt Lewin (1935)
–
–
–
Behavior is largely shaped by our construal
(interpretation) of the world around us
Behavior is shaped by the interaction between person and environment
Social psychological theories should be applied to social problems
S. Asch (1956)
– conformity
Leon Festinger (1957)
– justifying behavior
Latane' & Darley (1970):
– behavior in a crisis situation
Stanley Milgram (1963):
– obedience to authority
P. Zimbardo (1973):
– taking on social roles
focus on thought processes focus on biology, psychophysiology focus on culture
5

A science of women?
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1920-
1974
1976 1980 1984 1988 1992
Percent
6