ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the study of social movements can function as an important bridge for understanding the relation between the individual and society, between structure and process, and between psychology and sociology. It shows that not only does the sociological study of social movements have much to contribute to social psychology, and vice versa, but that exclusively sociological or exclusively psychological analysis yields a truncated understanding of the dynamics of social movements. The sociological study of the organizational characteristics of social movements de-emphasizes psychological explanations for movement emergence. A social movement is a set of opinions and beliefs in a population which represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or reward distribution of a society. The resource mobilization approach shifts the analysis of social movements from the characteristics and dispositions of individual participants to the structure and operation of movement organizations.
