Broadly speaking social psychology is in charge of studying the relationships between the individual and society . That is, it is interested in explaining and understanding the interaction between persons and groups, produced in social life.

At the same time, social life is understood as a system of interaction, with particular communication mechanisms and processes, where the needs of one and the other create explicit and implicit norms, as well as meanings and structuring of relations, behaviours and conflicts (Baró, 1990).

Such objects of study could be traced back to the most classical philosophical traditions, since the interest in understanding group dynamics in relation to individual ones has been present even before modern times.

Nevertheless, the history of social psychology is usually told from the first empirical works , since these are the ones that allow considering it as a discipline with enough “scientific validity”, in contrast with the “speculative” character of the philosophical traditions.

Having said this, we will now take a look at the history of social psychology, starting with the first works of the late 19th century, up to the crisis and contemporary traditions.

First stage: society as a whole

Social psychology began its development in the course of the nineteenth century and is permeated by a fundamental question, which had also permeated the production of knowledge in other social sciences. This question is the following: what is it that holds us together within a given social order? (Baró, 1990).

Under the influence of the dominant currents in psychology and sociology, fundamentally based in Europe, the answers to this question were found around the idea of a “group mind” that keeps us with each other beyond individual interests and our differences.

This occurs at the same time as the development of the same disciplines, where the works of different authors are representative. In the psychological field, Wilhelm Wundt studied the mental products generated in community and the links they produced. For his part, Sigmund Freud maintained that the bond is sustained by affective ties and the processes of collective identification, especially in relation to the same leader.

From sociology, Émile Durkheim spoke about the existence of a collective consciousness (a normative knowledge) that cannot be understood as an individual consciousness but as a social fact and a coercive force. For his part, Max Weber suggested that what keeps us together is ideology , since from this ideology interests become values and concrete objectives.

These approaches were based on considering society as a whole, from which it is possible to analyse how individual needs are linked to the needs of the whole.

Second stage: social psychology at the turn of the century

Baró (1990) calls this period, which corresponds to the beginning of the 20th century, “the Americanisation of social psychology”, while the centre of his studies has just moved from Europe to the United States. In this context, the question is no longer what keeps us together in a social order (in the “whole”), but what leads us to integrate into it in the first place. In other words, the question is how does an individual integrate harmoniously into this social order .

The latter corresponds to two problems of the American context of the moment: on the one hand, the growing immigration and the need to integrate people in a certain scheme of values and interactions; and on the other, the demands of the rise of industrial capitalism .

On a methodological level, the production of data supported by the criteria of modern science, beyond the theoretical production, takes on special relevance here, and thus the experimental approach that had already been developed begins to take off.

Social influence and individual approach

It is in the year 1908 when the first works in social psychology appear. Its authors were two American academics called William McDougall (who placed special emphasis on psychology) and Edmund A. Ross (whose emphasis was more on the social). The first of them maintained that human beings have a series of innate or instinctive tendencies that psychology can analyse from a social perspective . That is, he held that psychology could account for how society “moralises” or “socialises” people.

On the other hand, Ross considered that beyond studying the influence of society on the individual, social psychology should attend to the interaction between individuals. That is, he suggested studying the processes by which we influence each other, as well as differentiating between the different types of influences we exert.

An important connection between psychology and sociology emerges at this time. In fact, during the development of symbolic interactionism and the works of George Mead, a tradition often called “Social Sociological Psychology” emerges, which theorized about the use of language in interaction and the meanings of social behavior.

But, perhaps the most remembered of the founders of social psychology is the German Kurt Lewin . The latter gave a definitive identity to the study of groups, which was decisive for the consolidation of social psychology as a discipline with its own object of study.

Development of the experimental approach

As social psychology became consolidated, it was necessary to develop a method of study that, under the positivist canons of modern science, would definitively legitimize this discipline. In this sense, and the pair of “Social Sociological Psychology”, a “Social Psychological Psychology” was developed more linked to behaviorism, experimentalism and logical positivism .

Hence, one of the most influential works of this time is that of John B. Watson, who considered that for psychology to be scientific, it had to be definitively separated from metaphysics and philosophy, and adopt the approach and methods of the “hard sciences” (the physical chemistry).

From this point on, behavior begins to be studied in terms of what is possible to observe. And it is the psychologist Floyd Allport who in the 1920s ends up transferring the Watsonian approach to the exercise of social psychology.

In this line, the social activity is considered as the result of the sum of the states and the individual reactions; question that ends up moving the study focus towards the psychology of the individuals, especially under the space and the controls of the laboratory .

This model, of empiricist cut, was concentrated mainly in the production of data, as well as in obtaining general laws under a model of “the social” in terms of pure interaction between organisms studied within a laboratory; which ended up distancing social psychology from the reality it is supposed to study (Íñiguez-Rueda, 2003).

The latter will be criticized later by other approaches from social psychology itself and from other disciplines, which, together with the following political conflicts, will lead the social sciences to an important theoretical and methodological crisis .

After World War II

The Second World War and its consequences at the individual, social, political and economic levels brought with it new issues that, among other things, reshaped the work of social psychology.

The areas of interest at this time were mainly the study of group phenomena (especially in small groups, as a reflection of large groups), the processes of formation and change of attitudes, as well as the development of personality as a reflection and motor of society (Baró, 1990).

There was also a major concern with understanding what lay beneath the apparent unity of groups and social cohesion. On the other hand, there was a growing interest in the study of social norms, attitudes, conflict resolution; and the explanation of phenomena such as altruism, obedience and conformism .

For example, representative of this era are the works of Muzafer and Carolyn Sheriff in conflict and social norm. In the area of attitudes the studies of Carl Hovland are representative, and in conformity the experiments of Solomon Asch are classic. In obedience the experiments of Stanley Milgram are classic .

On the other hand, there was a group of psychologists and social theorists concerned with understanding what elements had triggered the Nazi regime and the Second World War. Among others , the Frankfurt School and the critical theory emerge here, whose maximum exponent is Theodore W. Adorno. This opens the way to the next stage in the history of social psychology, marked by disenchantment and skepticism towards the discipline itself.

Third stage: the crisis of social psychology

Not without the previous approaches having disappeared, the decade of the 60$0027s opens new reflections and debates on the what, the how and the for what of social psychology (Íñiguez-Rueda, 2003).

This occurs within the framework of the military and political defeat of the American vision, which among other things showed that the social sciences were not alien to historical conflicts and power structures, but on the contrary (Baró, 1990). Consequently, different ways of validating social psychology emerged, which developed in constant tension and negotiation with the traditional approaches of a more positivist and experimentalist nature.

Some characteristics of the crisis

The crisis was not only caused by external factors, which also included protest movements, the “crisis of values”, changes in the global production structure and questions about the models that dominated the social sciences (Iñiguez-Rueda, 2003).

Internally, the principles that underpinned and legitimated traditional social psychology (and social sciences in general) were strongly challenged. Thus new ways of seeing and doing science and of producing knowledge emerge . Among these elements were mainly the imprecise nature of social psychology and the tendency towards experimental research, which began to be considered as very distant from the social realities it studied.

In the European context the work of psychologists such as Serge Moscovici and Henry Tajfel , and later sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, among many others, were key.

From this point on, reality begins to be seen as a construction. In addition, there is growing interest in a conflictive approach to social order, and finally, a concern for the political role of social psychology and its potential for transformation (Baró, 1990). In this context, a critical social psychology emerges in opposition to sociological social psychology and psychological social psychology.

To give an example and following Iñiguez-Rueda (2003), we will see two approaches that came out of the contemporary paradigms of social psychology.

The professional approach

In this approach social psychology is also called applied social psychology and may even include community social psychology . Broadly speaking, this is the professional inclination towards intervention.

It is not so much a question of “applying the theory” in the social context, but rather of valuing the theoretical and knowledge production that took place during the intervention itself. It acts especially under the premise of looking for solutions to social problems outside the academic and/or experimental context, and the technologization that had gone through much of social psychology.

Transdisciplinary approach

It is one of the paradigms of critical social psychology, where beyond constituting an interdisciplinary approach, which would imply the connection or collaboration between different disciplines, it is a matter of maintaining such collaboration without the strict division between one and the other .

These disciplines include, for example, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, sociology. In this context it is of particular interest to develop reflective and socially relevant practices and research.

Bibliographic references:

  • Baró, M. (1990). Action and ideology. Social Psychology from Central America. UCA Editors: El Salvador.
  • Íñiguez-Rueda, L. (2003). La Psicología Social como Crítica: Continuismo, Estabilidad y Efervescencias. Three Decades after the “Crisis”. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 37(2): 221-238.
  • Seidmann, S. (S/A). History of Social Psychology. Retrieved September 28, 2018. Available at http://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios_catedras/obligatorias/035_psicologia_social1/material/descargas/historia_psico_social.pdf.