SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. — This is the branch of general psychology that primarily studies two orders of phenomena: 1) the interferences and conflicts among social groups; 2) the behavior of the individual insofar as it is stimulated and conditioned by the behavior of other persons and of various social groups. The development and autonomous establishment of social psychology were not easy, because a clear differentiation was necessary both from sociology and from psychology. With the founding of the German periodical Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft (1860), M. Lazarus and H. Steinthal attempted a first systematization of philological, historical, and psychological data outside the traditional sociological framework, and from then on social psychology would for many years present itself as a genuine psychology of peoples (Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie, 1900, is of capital importance).
A more precise approach to psychology subsequently emerged from studies devoted to the dynamism of crowds. This orientation began in Italy (G. Sergi, Psicosi epidemiche, 1889; S. Sighelie, Folla delinquente, 1891) and continued in France with Le Bon (his Psychologie des foules dates from 1895). Almost all authors insist on emphasizing the negative character of the crowd (paroxysmal and criminal aspects) and oppose the value of the individual to the uniform leveling of the masses, which undermines and degrades intelligence and moral feeling. Continuing its natural process of differentiation, social psychology sought to free itself from related disciplines. Thus, there was talk of collective psychology, which studies the manifestations of unstable and accidental groups or aggregates (such as crowds), whereas the psychic manifestations of stable and organized groups would properly belong to social psychology. This distinction must be rejected, because it is impossible and useless to create new disciplines for every type of more or less organized structure. The same observation applies to more recent designations, such as psychosociology or sociopsychology. Social psychology is an autonomous psychology (v.) sociology (v.): it forms a link between the two disciplines.
Research must proceed in three directions: a) analysis of the social conditions that influence the mental and affective life of the individual; b) analysis of the reactions that the individual manifests in the face of social phenomena; c) analysis of the final result of this process, which may culminate in adaptation to or opposition to the group.
Social psychology was harmed by the claim of many authors, more or less imbued with positivism, to present excessively broad and definitive schemes (for example, research into the existence of typical social instincts that would explain the reality of collective life). The greatest attempt was made by the Anglo-American psychologist W. Mac Dougall and the American sociologist Ward, and, in less precise formulations, earlier by the Frenchmen Tarde (imitation as the basis of social relations) and Fouillée (the force-ideas that periodically modify the structures of social groups). Psychoanalysis (v.) placed this entire subject on new foundations: for Freud, the bond uniting the members of a group or the components of a crowd is always the libido, the fundamental psychic energy. There would always be a typical identification of the members with the leader, but in collective phenomena the libido would be “diverted from its normal sexual aims.” An uncertain and obscure thesis that cannot be presented as a fruitful working hypothesis. The same may be said of C. G. Jung’s thesis concerning the collective unconscious, which would contain the experience of all past generations and would be revived in a particular way in collective manifestations. Psychoanalysis sought to apply its basic concepts to social psychology (regression, identification, frustration, sublimation, repression, etc.). The Russian school, on the other hand, emphasized the value of conditioned reflexes, which were supposed to explain the individual’s social behavior (from Pavlov to Drabovic and Ciakotin): a thesis undoubtedly valid in certain respects, but impossible to accept in its generalizations.
Social psychology began to establish itself when it adopted a rigorous experimental approach and addressed concrete, clearly delimited subjects (v. advertising, with statistical surveys of public opinion, etc). First, it was necessary to specify the various types of environment with which the individual actually comes into contact; these were classified as cosmic, organic, social, and psychological environments (Miotto). Subsequently, it was necessary to demonstrate experimentally the influence exerted by environmental conditions on the individual’s psychic processes, and thus one moved from the theoretical views of the French sociologist Durkheim and the French psychopathologist Ch. Blondel to the concrete investigations of modern social psychology in the United States (Sherif; Moreno on sociometry; K. Lewin on the extension of social fields, etc.). As might be expected, statistical-mathematical evaluation—that is, the quantitative criterion—is becoming increasingly prominent, and in recent years the techniques of mental tests (mental tests) have also been routinely used in the study of the social components of human personality. It is obvious that modern social psychology has abandoned the subject of the so-called collective soul as inconclusive. Instead of speculating about this illusory entity which, detached from the psyche of individuals, would hover over communities or nations, it is more appropriate to insist on the psychology of the individual who, in particular circumstances, accepts the affective-ideational orientations of other equally concrete individuals. It may be concluded that the old notions of the collective soul, or similar notions, simply indicate the more or less lasting agreement between the intentions and actions of the individuals who make up a given social group. By accepting this criterion, it is possible to direct research along an experimental path,
and this is certainly the greatest achievement of modern social psychology.
In conclusion: social psychology studies the relations between the individual and the social group in the most elastic sense of the term (from the crowd to the strongly organized group), as well as relations of harmony, tension, or conflict among the various social groups. It is not a normative discipline, but it is certain that a better knowledge of social relations could make a valid contribution to the normalization of these relations both at the level of restricted groups (from the family to the nation) and at the international level.