The Field of Social Psychology

While an active field subject to heated debate, the field of social psychology is less a field to itself as it is a middle-ground between psychology and sociology. To this end, the field has been much maligned for its lack of definitional authority and, as such, its limited specialty application. Indeed, the field of social psychology is thought to incorporate all manner of social sciences, including criminology and anthropology. In this sense, social psychology as a field of study most suffers from the perception that in having multiple identities, it lacks a core set of principles upon which it may draw.

The most clear-cut definition of social psychology is that it studies how thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are influence by encounters with people of various backgrounds. Social psychology has its roots in both very recent scholarship and also in more ancient forms of thinking. Generally, the construction of theories bearing on how our interactions with our fellows impact or psychological well-being, in addition to how our mental processes and personality traits interact our social conduct, encompasses the full range of social psychology. Some have argued that, in this sense, Plato founded social psychology in that he was the first to consider the social implications of human connectivity.

In a more modern context, albeit in 1897, Norman Triplett conducted the world’s first empirical test for the commonsense sociopsychological hypothesis. Triplett understood that bicycle racers reach higher peak speeds when challenged by others riding with them relative to the top speeds reached when riding alone. Essentially, Triplett theorized that any individual’s peak performance, in any context, should be impacted to a significant extent by those with whom or around whom that individual performs, regardless of context. Triplett’s hypothesis was proven correct and, in so proving, his model of social analysis formed the primitive basis for modern social psychology.

It was not until 1924, however, that social psychology finally garnered the attention of the psychiatric community, in earnest. By the 1930s this new field of study was distinguishable from the more observational techniques used in sociology, thereby strengthening social psychology’s foothold within the psychiatrist community. The foothold was all the more strengthened with the arrival of Kurt Lewin’s “field theory,” which sought to account for all the visceral and physical factors that might come to bear on an individual’s existence. When Lewin founded the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT in 1944, social psychology had all but evolved as a professionally regarded and distinct discipline.

Lewin’s experiments with clubs for boys formed the baseline from which social psychology has grown. In these experiments, each club was supplied with an adult leader, whose task it was to assist the boys with crafts, games, and other activities. Each of these leaders adopted one of three leadership styles: autocratic, democratic, or laissez-faire. Sure enough, the boys with autocratic leaders soon emerged as either hostile or passive, while those led by democratic leaders became friendly and cooperative, and those with laissez-faire leaders evolved into friendly, apathetic actors, often unmotivated to achieve. Despite Lewin’s herculean contributions to the filed, social psychology remained somewhat obscure through the 1950s, at which point the plethora of world events that lent themselves to sociological analysis had proliferated. Eventually, the theory of cognitive dissonance transfixed the academic community and provided social psychology with its much-sought-after foothold in the field.

Floyd Allport struggled to define social psychology through an examination of the impact of outside influences on individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In his work, Allport relied heavily on the role of observers in social psychology, following research theory proposed by Triplett and others. Allport’s work culminated in the publication of Social Psychology, a work that ultimately gave life to the discipline of social psychology. The advances made in this science may be traced directly back to Allport.

With the advent of social psychology came new areas of study. Conflict resolution, a coined term of art, was used to describe approaches that may ultimately facilitate agreement between two individuals (or groups of individuals) with varying interests. Morton Deutsch, a pioneer in this field of study, expounded on existing research regarding the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” and proposed a model of his own. In doing so, Deutsch sought to identify circumstances under which individuals may develop mutual trust for one another, although each is generally unconcerned with the other’s welfare. Deutsch also explored the effectiveness of threats in conflict resolution and their impact on constructive dispute resolution. As described in the text, Deutsch’s findings gave rise to future research studies and helped shape psychologists’ general approach to conflict resolution.

Two social psychologists, John Darley and Bibb Latané, sought to explain a phenomenon called the “bystander effect.” The researchers found that there was a direct correlation between the number of available witnesses to an event and the level of response in a bystander. The greater the number of people in a group, the greater the level of perceived apathy in its members. These actions were tied back to three determinant factors in each individual: (1) reluctance regarding the appropriateness of any single action within the group; (2) reliance on the correctness of inaction of other group members; and (3) reliance on the level of understanding of other group members. Much like Deutsch, Darley and Latané’s study gave rise to additional research into this group behavior.

Lastly, social psychologists explored the concept of attribution. Researchers worked to identify the underlying thought process which causes an individual to draw conclusions regarding life events, or make certain inferences individual behaviors. Expounding on historical research conducted by Fritz Heider, researchers sought to predict patterns of behavior based on identifiable attributions. In recent years, attribution had been enveloped into other social theory and is widely used to explain behaviors and attitudes.

While it remains a somewhat undefined field, social psychology is more distinctly its own discipline than it has ever been before. Over the past century, social psychologists have continued to evolve the means by which their group dynamic theories can be applied and, in so doing, have raised the field to a heightened level of relevance, especially as applied to modernity.