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PSYCHOLOGY 305 / 305GSocial Psychology

History of Social Psychology2005

Lecturer: James Neill

Overview

• Long past, short history• Social Darwinianism• ‘Group mind’ – late 19th century• Volkerpsychologie – ‘folk psychology’• Le Bon (1895) ‘crowd psychology’• Triplett’s first experiment (1897)• Post WWI & Attitude Scaling• Group Processes & WWII: 1930’s – 1950’s• Cognitive, Crisis, Social Identity Theory &

Social Constructionism: 1960’s - present

Long past, Short history

“Psychology has a long past, but only a short

history.”- Herman Ebbinghaus,

Summary of Psychology

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Long past, Short history

“People have probably been asking social psychological questions for as long as humans could think about each other. Certainly, Plato offered keen insights into many social psychological issues. But no systematic and scientific study of social psychological issues developed until the end of the nineteenth century.”

- Brehm, Kassin, & Fein (2005, p.12)

Long past, Short history

90% of social psychologists who had

ever lived were still alive in 1979

- Dorwin Cartright (Brehm, et al, 2005)

Long past, Short history

‘Social psychology’ as a term came into

common usage around the turn of the 20th

century.

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Darwin’s Evolutionary Theorymid-late 1800’s - 1

• “Origin of Species” (1859) didn’t contain social psychological theory, but it laid a vital academic platform for scientific study of human behavior and for understanding humans socially and psychologically.

• “The Descent of Man” (1879) was more psychological, essentially proposing that modern humans had stone age brains. This furthered evolutionary theory as a significant platform for the development of scientific psychology.

Darwin’s Evolutionary Theorymid-late 1800’s - 2

Darwin prophesized that psychology would one day be based on a new foundation, an evolutionary foundation.

Herbert Spencer• Leading Social Darwinian

(1820-1903) and 19th century self-taught academic.

• Coined the term “survival of the fittest”

• Viewed evolution as occurring at inorganic levels, including in groups, societies and cultures.

• Layed important academic foundations for psychology, sociology, and economics.

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“Group Mind” - Late 19th Century

‘Emerging academic consciousness’ of ‘group mind phenomena can be found in Europe & North America, late 19th - early 20th

century.e.g., – Volkerpsychologie– Le Bon’s “The Crowd”

Volkerpsychologie - 1

• ‘Folk psychology’ or ‘cultural psychology’

• Study of the “collective mind” in Germany mid-late 1800’s

• Wilhelm Wundt named volkerpsychologie to distinguish it from individual psychology

Volkerpsychologie - 2

• Examined social psychological (communal) phenomenon, including– Language– Myth– Religion– culture & – "higher" mental functions.

• Wundt believed volkerpsychologie was to be pursued through comparative & historical analysis, not experimentally as was the case of individual psychology.

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The Crowd (Le Bon, 1895) - 1

• “La Foule”, an early, well-received, landmark social psychology book

• “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”

• 1st major study of crowd psychology

The Crowd (Le Bon, 1895) - 2

• Focused on pathology of crowd behavior• Why do people sometimes lose their

rationality when in groups?• Believed in the lack of intelligence in

group action and the organic, powerful nature of a ‘group mind’

The Crowd (Le Bon, 1895) - 3

“Crowds can never accomplish acts

demanding a high degree of intelligence and are always intellectually

inferior to the isolated individual.”

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• Influenced Freud & inspired modern theories of group dynamics

• Influenced Göbbels, Mussolini, & Hitler

The Crowd (Le Bon, 1895) - 4

Triplett (1898) 1st Social Psychological Study

• Classically attributed as the first experimental social psychology study (see Research)

• Demonstrated effects of ‘social influence’• At the time Triplett’s study wasn’t considered a

social psychological study (it is only in retrospect that the study has been redefined as the 1st

social psychological study)• The overemphasis on this as the first empirical

social psychological study may be an “origin myth” (Danziger, 2000)

Post WW1 & Attitude Scaling

• rise of individual behaviourism & experimentation

• social psychology splits offe.g., by studying attitudes (Thurstone, 1930s)

• social psychologists were interested in studying mental constructs, like attitudes, and not simply behaviour.

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• Increasing interest in studying group phenomenon after the Great Depression

• Gestalt theorists (e.g., Asch, Sherif, Lewin) studied group processes & dynamics

• Post WW2 - motivation to explain atrocities committed e.g., – authoritarian personality (Allport), – obedience (Milgram),– roles (Zimbardo).

Group Processes & Post-WWII:1930’s – 1950’s

• 1960’s - rise of attribution theory, cognitive dissonance (Festinger)

• Developments in European social psychology - Tajfel (social identity theory), Moscovici(minority influence)

• 1970’s crisis over limits of scientific method in social psychology

• 1970s to now - rise of social cognition, information processing and alternative approaches via social constructionism and discourse analysis

Cognitive, Crisis, Social Identity & Social Constructionism:

1960’s – present

References• Brehm, S. S., Kassin, S., & Fein, S. (2005). Social psychology

(6th ed.) Houghton Mifflin: Boston.• Danziger, K. (2000). Making social psychology experimental: A

conceptual history, 1930 - 1970. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 36, 329 - 347.

• Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (2001). A 100 years of certitude? Social psychology, the experimental method and the management of scientific uncertainty. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 1-21.

• Richard, F. D., Bond, C. F., Jr., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described. Review of General Psychology, 7, 331-336.

• Ellwood, C. A. (1900). Prolegomena to social psychology III: The Nature and Task of Social Psychology. American Journal of Sociology, 98-109.