Social psychology: once overlooked, now a staple

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 11 December 1999

Though psychologists had little to do with early thought in social psychology, the subfield is now mainstream.

A century ago, the burgeoning field of psychology was little interested in interpersonal relationships and processes. In fact, fields that became sociology and social anthropology were much more fertile for social considerations than the psychological theories of the day.

It was the French writers in particular who influenced thought in the domain, among them Gabriel Tarde, with his imitation concept, Gustave LeBon and his thoughts on suggestion and Emile Durkheim and his theory on society's influence on the individual.

Perhaps the most influential turn-of-the-century force for social psychological thought was Herbert Spencer, who in 1874 extended Darwin's notions from the biological realm into the social. It was Spencer--not Darwin--who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." In fact, Social Darwinism became quite influential in the thought of many early American psychologists, including William James.

Early 20th century sociologists Edward Ross, Lester F. Ward and William G. Sumner introduced social psychology within sociology. Meanwhile, a handful of psychologists began to explore the field. Among them were J. Mark Baldwin, who in 1897 used the concept of social psychology in a treatise on children, and William McDougall, who published his popular "Social Psychology" in 1908. In 1897, Norman Triplett carried out what is usually described as the first experimental study of social psychology, a study of competition and how groups set the pace for individual performance.

It wasn't until the mid-1920s that social psychology would take a firm hold in psychology. A watershed event was the 1924 publication of Floyd Allport's "Social Psychology," a book that became widely used in social psychology classes at American universities. Whether Allport's book was part of a spontaneous combustion of research in social psychology--or produced it--research exploded in the 1920s.

In the 1930s, two works became mainstays in the field: "Experimental Social Psychology," by Gardner Murphy and Lois Barclay Murphy, later with Theodore Newcomb, and "Handbook of Social Psychology," by Carl Murchison. Both defined social psychology as an experimental discipline separate from the more naturalistic observational techniques used in sociology.

Soon after, social psychology began to further define itself, collecting specific subject matters under its rubric. Psychologists, for example, continued to emphasize the individual in society rather than the structure of society itself, which was largely left to sociologists. This approach fit well with American individualism and the increasingly behaviorist definition and interpretation of psychological phenomenon.

Other subject matters adopted by social psychology included:

Attitudes. Social psychologists saw attitudes as an individual's collection of views on people, behaviors, events and even on attitudes themselves. The study of attitudes and attitude change would emerge as a fundamental subfield. During the Depression and later World War II, social psychologists researched such changes in attitudes as persuading Americans to eat underused meat products (sweetmeats and the like) and reducing bigotry. That attitudes could be scaled and measured was demonstrated by Thurstone and Likert.

Group processes. The work of Kurt Lewin and Gestalt psychology on democratic and autocratic groups, as well as on frustration and its resulting aggressive behavior in children, became classics. Also, Lewin's work on group dynamics and conflict resolution would establish his field from the 1940s through the 1970s. The research on small group dynamics in summer camps by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif in the 1940s and 50s remains classic in the field

Social learning. The period after World War II was one of searching for problems for social psychologists. John Dollard and Neal Miller's 1941 work "Social Learning and Imitation" brought social psychology to learning and into the rat lab. In 1950, their "Personality and Psychotherapy" turned the tables on Freud by explaining aspects of psychoanalytical theory in terms of social learning.

Social cognition. The postwar period also saw the study of motivations and internal cognitive states. In 1946, Fritz Heider helped spark what would become in Leon Festinger's hands Cognitive Dissonance Theory. This approach posited that there is a perceived imbalance when our perceptions of a relationship do not match reality and thus an attempt to change perceptions or reality to bring them into balance.

In the early 1960s, a major reappraisal of social psychology occurred in reaction to Stanley Milgram's controversial research on obedience. Milgram set up a situation where subjects believed they were shocking an unknown individual for incorrect responses. The use of deception in social psychological experiments and allied methodological problems led universities to create committees to examine ethical concerns about such experiments.

Self-perception. Issues of self-identity, self-esteem and self-image have been much in the forefront of the field as the century grows to a close. While psychology continues to splinter and form new alliances in this last decade of the century, social psychology is very much part of the psychological mainstream.