Monday, August 6, 2007

Social psychology

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The scope of social psychological research. Adapted from Cote and Levine (2002).
The scope of social psychological research. Adapted from Cote and Levine (2002).

Social psychology is the study of how social conditions affect human beings. Scholars in this field are generally either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis. Despite their similarity, the disciplines also tend to differ in their respective goals, approaches, methods, and terminology. They also favor separate academic journals and societies.

Like biophysics and cognitive science, social psychology is an interdisciplinary area. The greatest period of collaboration between sociologists and psychologists was during the years immediately following World War II (Sewell, 1989). Although there has been increasing isolation and specialization in recent years, some degree of overlap and influence remains between the two disciplines.