Although a standard definition of social psychology is not likely to emerge soon, understanding the history and the different philosophies that provide the foundation for contemporary social psychology clarifies understanding of the field while offering insight into how individuals and others dynamically influence one another in the context. This section provides a brief overview of critical historical phases and events that contributed to contemporary social psychology and explores vital research that contributes to understanding human interaction through a social psychology perspective.
Officially born in the early 20th century, when two textbooks titled “Social Psychology” presented distinctly different perspectives, the new science started similarly to any philosophy or religion. In short, the definition of truth was in the eyes of the beholder.
From the perspective of a sociologist, Edward Ross (1919) saw social psychology as a study of the “psychic planes and currents that come into existence among men in consequence of their association.” To Ross, the purpose of social psychology was to explain “uniformities in feeling, belief, or volition… which are due to the interaction of human beings” (p. 1). Ross focused on the collective mind, exploring how mob mentality, fads, and other collective behaviors influence individuals.
From the perspective of a biologist, William McDougall (1919) saw social psychology as the expression of the generalized individual. To McDougall, social behavior was a product of instinct rooted in the individual's biological nature and universal to all. Social psychology shows the combination of inherent nature and external influence that shapes the “complex mental life” of society (p. 24).
Albert Pepitone (1981) would argue that neither approach provided a foundation for supporting theory and research; neither instinct nor collective mind offers an adequate basis for social psychology research. Ross and McDougall pioneered a science for understanding human behavior. However, Durkheim, Weber, and Marx's sociological perspectives influenced modern social psychology practice more than its founders' views.
Controlling social behavior
Since the 1870s, psychologists had demonstrated methods for engineering human activities. Most famously, John B. Watson (Watson & Rayner, 1920) experimented on babies to illustrate how he could use classical conditioning to program and control human development (Harris, 1979). To Watson and his fellow behaviorists, human behavior was little more than stimulus-response connections to observe, predict, measure, and control.
After his “little Albert” experiments, Watson lost his standing in the academic community and has since earned no place in social psychology readings (Goldhaber, 2000; Harris, 1979). However, Watson is essential for two reasons.
- In the 1920s, influential social psychologists like Floyd Allport (1924) saw social psychology through the behaviorist lens. He proposed that the individual is at the center of social behavior, suggesting that “there is no psychology of group which is not entirely a psychology of the individual” (p. 4). From the behaviorist perspective, human nature is understandable and controllable.
- Since psychological experiments like those conducted by Watson shifted perspective from understanding individuals in a social context to actively changing human activities to solve social problems.
Allport’s significant contribution to social psychology brought “theoretical rigor and experimental precision” to a field that had been “a loose amalgamation of sociology, instinct psychology, and evolutionary theory” (Post, 1980, p. 369). By combining the mechanistic perspective with experimental social psychology, Allport tried to study the individual as the fundamental unit in society objectively. Through behaviorism, social psychologists could simultaneously control the individual while liberating the individual from threatening cultural forces.
As summarized by Ian Nicholson, “behaviorist psychology served to confirm the authenticity and primacy of the individual while providing a technology for managing the individual” (Nicholson, 2000, p. 465). From this perspective, social psychologists would focus on “marriage and family problems… social movements, social control, and government, [and] rural problems” (Allport F. H., 1920). Though today’s social psychologists mostly reject behaviorism, they tend to consider social psychology through the perspective of the social problems they need to fix (Kipnis, 1994).
Solving practical problems
Kurt Lewin coined a social psychology adage when he quoted an anonymous businessperson, saying: “nothing is so practical as a good theory” (Fiske, 2010, p. 40). Lewin proposed that social psychology should have practical and positive impacts on society. Social psychologists should not just be satisfied with theorizing and understanding. They should also actively apply theory to real-world applications. Lewin’s biography Alfred Morrow (1969) wrote that “Lewin’s most enduring legacy was his innovative blending of science and practice” (p. 234).
Lewin proposed a field of experimental social psychology through which practitioners could test real-world issues in a laboratory setting and use their findings to drive social change. By controlling variables in the laboratory, researchers could understand the factors influencing social perception, influence, and interaction. Proposing that behavior is a function of the person and the environment [B = f(P, E)], Lewin (1935) conducted experiments that laid the foundation for social psychology trends in group dynamics, attribution theory, cognitive dissonance, and situational leadership. Though “B=f(PE)” was neither theory nor mathematical formula, it did emphasize the growing understanding that social behavior results from dynamically interacting individuals and context.
Lewin modeled a blend of science and application in Berlin after World War I by applying research to improve worker efficiency and job design and to understand how scientific management influenced workers. After fleeing Nazi Germany to the United States, he researched to develop interventions for community problems, like racial prejudice, gang violence, and integrated housing. Also, he developed practical applications for driving individual and organizational change and for developing leaders. His approach to applied social psychology also strongly influenced organizational behavior, organizational psychology, and management. Lewin’s approach to experimental social psychology sprouted social psychology applications for addressing real-world phenomena, like intergroup relations, leadership, organizational behavior, teamwork, consumer behavior, and environmental psychology.
In addition to his experimental and applied psychology contributions, Lewin trained influential social psychologists like Festinger, Schachter, Deutsh, Kelly, and Thibaut. Of note:
- Leon Festinger (1954) offered social comparison theory and cognitive dissonance theory. Social comparison theory hypothesized that individuals have an innate drive to evaluate themselves based on external images.
- Festinger built his social comparison ideas on self-concept theories proposed by Coolley (1902) and Mead (1934). They explained how people come to know themselves through a reflected appraisal. People imagine what others think of them (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2007, p. 49). Cognitive dissonance theory explained the uncomfortable feelings people experience when recognizing the inconsistency in their beliefs and behaviors. The recognition of a disconnect between personal beliefs and behavior motivates actions to reduce inconsistency.
- In the experimental vein, Katz and Braly (1933) conducted the first empirical studies on stereotyping, finding a high degree of consensus in ethnic stereotypes.
- La Pierre (1934) conducted the first experiments exploring the link between attitude and behavior, finding that what people think is not what they do.
- Heider (1958) made a significant contribution to social psychology theory when he proposed attribution theory to explain how individuals interpret why others do what they do. Heider proposed that individuals attribute others’ actions to two causes: internal attribution or external attribution, as follows:
- Internal attribution means that others behave a certain way due to internal factors, like attitude or traits.
- External attribution means that others behave the way they do because of the situation.
Engineering utopia
In his first speech to the Division of Personality and Social Psychology of the American Psychological Association in 1947, Gordon W. Allport (1947) saw social psychology from a different perspective than his prior mentor and older brother, Floyd. The “difference, uneasiness, and tension” (Nicholson, 2000, p. 463) between these two pioneers of social psychology reflected the conflicting perspectives that drove the field's evolution.
Gordon proclaimed that social psychology's primary purpose is to create a utopia by solving humanity's perpetual problems, including war, discrimination, violence, and hopelessness. Today, the perennial ills social psychology attempts to cure include sexism, homophobia, racism, conflict, diversity, and social injustice. “We believe we have a contribution to make in interpreting and in remedying some of the serious social dislocations of today” (p. 182). Gordon’s perspective sounds familiar to religious proclamations for “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.” Contrary to his brother’s proposition for a value-free science, Gordon argued for a practice to improve and enlarge “man’s moral sense and betterment of human relationships on an international scale” (p. 183).
As a founding father of contemporary social psychology, Allport’s declaration suggests three critical assumptions of the field, according to David Kipnis (1994):
- “Psychologists know what is best for society.”
- Social psychologists “have the right to decide what constitutes social diseases and how best to eliminate them.”
- Social psychologists have “the right to change social behavior without the consent of the people” it is trying to change (p. 40).
Such assumptions positioned social psychology against myriad religious and political philosophies that held the same beliefs.
Striking chords similar to Marxist utopian ideology in a society that distrusted autocratic control and rejected socialism, Johnson (1993; Kipnis, 1994) argued that Allport’s declaration blocked federal research support for social psychology. However, the depression and World War II catalyzed heightened interest in understanding human social behavior and solving social problems. This a “golden age” (Sewell, 1989, p. 1) for social psychology.
After World War II, the Department of Defense poured money into understanding World War II's social causes and consequences. Among the questions, social psychologists explored with federal funding: How did the Nazis influence the German population to participate in the Holocaust? What was behind the effectiveness of Japanese brainwashing programs? What was the influence of strategic bombings on the morale of Japanese and German civilians? How did the American soldier adjust to civilian life? (Weingarten, 2007).
What does not seem evident in the literature was whether the research generated understanding that would prevent a recurrence or provided social control technologies that government could use on populations. Pepitone (1981) asserted that Allport’s philosophy had practical qualities, but it “did not address specific social problems.”
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