ABSTRACT
In its early days, social psychology’s main goal was to examine how social context influences individual behavior. The work of social psychological scholars like Allport, Sheriff, and Lewin reflects this concern with social forces in their studies on social dynamics in various social contexts. The core assumption underlying this research was that human beings are basically social, and that social reality can have a pervasive influence on individual behavior. Although this may not seem a very controversial idea nowadays, I think it is interesting to consider the question of to what extent current social psychological theories and methodologies still pursue this line of thinking. I argue that this is not the case. In much-though not all-contemporary social psychological research, social context is reduced to a bare minimum, neglecting the broader social and cultural environment.
