History of Social Psychology

History of Social
Psychology
Wundt and The Dawning of a
Scientific Discipline: 1862-1894
• German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1921), who is widely regarded as
the founder of psychology, had a hand in
the early development of what would
become social psychology.
• In 1862, Wundt proposed that there should
be two branches of psychology:
physiological psychology and social or folk
psychology.
Some milestones in the field of
Social Psychology
The Early Years
• In 1895 Triplett asked the following
question: “How does a person’s
performance of a task change when other
people are present?”
• Cycle race example ………….
• 1897 – Norman Triplett publishes the first
scientific study of social behavior, on a
topic that was later called facilitation.
Who was Norman Triplett?
• - A psychologist who conducted one of
the first experiments in social psychology
in 1898.
• Social Facilitation Concept

• Refers to the tendency of individuals to
perform tasks better when they are in the
presence of others, compared to when
they perform alone.
• Triplett's Cycling Race Experiment
(1898)
• Triplett observed that cyclists had faster
race times when competing against others
compared to when racing alone against
the clock.
• The presence of others enhanced
performance due to increased arousal and
motivation.
• 1900: Wundt publishes the first volume of
what would become a classic 10-volume
set of Völkerpsychologie (folk or social
psychology) which analyzed a wide variety
of social thought and behavior.
• 1908 – Psychologist William McDougall
and sociologist Edward Ross separately
publish social psychology textbooks
1920 – Willy Helpach founds the 1st
institute for Social Psychology in
Germany.
1924 – Floyd Allport publishes the 3rd

Social psychology text, clearly
identifying the focus for the
psychological branch of the discipline
covering many topics that are still
studied today.
• 1925: Edward Bogardus develops the
social distance scale to measure attitudes
toward ethnic groups. Shortly, Louis
Thurstone (1928) and Rensis Likert (1932)
further advance attitude scale
development.
• 1934: George Herbert Mead’s book Mind,
Self, and Society is published, stressing
the interaction between the self and
others.
The Coming-of-Age Years
• 1936: The Society for the Psychological Study of
Social Issues is founded. Muzafir Sherif
publishes The Psychology of Social Norms,
describing research on norm formation.
• 1939: John Dollard and his colleagues introduce
the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
• 1941–1945: Social psychologists are recruited
by the U.S. government for the war effort.
Rapid Expansion Years
• 1949: Carl Hovland and his colleagues publish their first
experiments on attitude change and persuasion.
• 1950: Theodor Adorno and his colleagues publish The
Authoritarian Personality, which examines how extreme
prejudice can be shaped by personality conflicts in
childhood.
• 1951: Solomon Asch demonstrates conformity to false
majority judgments.
• 1954: Gordon Allport publishes The Nature of Prejudice,
which provides the framework for much of the future
research on prejudice. Social psychologists provide key
testimony in the U.S. Supreme Court reunion case, Brown v.
Board of Education.
• 1957: Leon Festinger publishes A Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance, emphasizing the need for consistency
between cognition and behavior.
• 1958: Fritz Heider publishes The Psychology of
Interpersonal Relations, laying the groundwork for
attribution theory.
• 1963: Stanley Milgram publishes his obedience
research, demonstrating under what conditions people
are likely to obey destructive authority figures.
• 1965: The Society of Experimental Social Psychology is
founded. Edward Jones and Kenneth Davis publish their
ideas on social perception, stimulating attribution and
social cognition research.
Interactionism
An important perspective in
social psychology that
emphasizes the combined
effects of both the person
and the situation on human
behavior.
Social Cognition
The way in which we
interpret, analyze,
remember, and use
information about our
social world.
Culture
The total lifestyle of a
people including all the
ideas, symbols,
preferences and material
objects that they share.
Ideology
• A set of beliefs and values
held by the members of a
social group which explains
its culture both to itself and
to other groups.
Individualism
A philosophy of life stressing the
priority of individual needs
over group needs, a
preference for loosely knit
social relationships, and desire
to be relatively autonomous of
other’s influence.
Collectivism
A philosophy of life stressing the
priority of group needs over
individual needs, a preference
for tightly knit social
relationships, and a
willingness to submit to the
influence of one’s group.
Self
A symbol using social
being on his or her own
behavior
Self-Concept
The sum total of a
person’s thoughts and
feelings that defines the
self as an object.
Self-esteem
A person’s evaluation of
his or her self-concept.
Self-awareness
• A psychological state
in which you take your
self as an object of
attention.
Self-consciousness
The habitual tendency to
engage in self-
awareness.
Self-regulation
The ways in which people
control and direct their
own actions
Self-discrepancies
• Discrepancies between our
self concept.
• Real self and ideal self
Schema
• Organized, repeatedly exercised
patterns of thought about some
stimulus, which are built up from
experience and which selectively
guide the processing of new
information.
Self-schema
The many beliefs people
have about themselves
that constitute the
ingredient of the self-
concept
Gender Identity
• The knowledge that one is a male
or a female and the internalization
of this fact into one’s self-concept.
• Gender schema – A mental
framework for processing
information based on its
perceived male or female qualities
Self-enhancement
• The process of seeking out and
interpreting situations so as to
attain a positive view of oneself.
• Self-verification is the process of
seeking out and interpreting
situations so as to confirm one’s
self-concept

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History of Social

• Social Facilitation Concept

1924 – Floyd Allport publishes the 3rd

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