With the lack of a unified definition and a confusing assortment of contrasting ideologies (Aronson, 2008; Jex, 2002), social psychology can seem more like a mix of competing philosophies than a science. This contributes to criticisms of and conflicts within social psychology, some of which will be covered in this section, as follows:

• Review key arguments surrounding criticisms that social psychology documents the obvious and that discoveries in the field are no different from the conventional wisdom drawn from philosophy, religion, history, and experience.
• Consider ethical issues about research practices that continue to cause controversy, even after Phillip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s shocking obedience studies contributed to the establishment of ethical standards for psychological research.
• Ethical debates surrounding the misuse and abuse of research findings.

Featured Articles:

• Social psychology condemns and builds on conventional wisdom
• Does social psychology document the obvious?
• Escalation of commitment to a social psychology failure builds generations of "conceited fools"
• Milgram's shocking obedience experiments
• Tyranny in a university basement: The Stanford Prison Experiment