Whatcontributed To The Crisis In Social Psychology

4507 Words19 Pages
What contributed to the “crisis in social psychology” and what was the outcome? Social psychology is a blend between the discipline of psychology and sociology. Usually, within a psychological field a researcher would look at the individual; cognitions, emotions and attitudes, compared to a sociological perspective of people in groups or crowds; demography, the impact of society on them and social inequalities. Social psychology aims to combine these two, the relationship between the individual and society as a whole. Allport, in an attempt to define social psychology said it scientifically tried to explain the cognitions of the individual (for example behaviours) and how they are “influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of human beings” (Allport, 1954). In this essay I intend to start with writing about a few different social psychologists and a couple of famous studies to give a bit of background, before the crisis in social psychology. I then aim to develop this into showing what brought about the crisis - its contributions; I will address the various critiques of early experimental social psychology. After the contributions I will write about what happen after the “crisis” and assess if it had a big outcome on the discipline of social psychology. Social psychology has in roots in the beginning of the 20th century in America. On the whole it was a positivist approach, using experimental methods to conduct its research – laboratory experiments which were thoroughly objective, it wanted to find the link of cause and effect in individual’s behaviour. It wanted to determine the laws of human nature and prove them using empirical techniques. After World War II the influx of research in social psychology increased, with the emergence of academics such as Asch and Milgram, who were interested the issues of conformity and obedience, partially

More about Whatcontributed To The Crisis In Social Psychology

Open Document