ABSTRACT
Let me introduce the main theme of the present chapter through Allport s (1954) definition of social psychology. According to this widely cited defi-nition, social psychology is "an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings" (p. 5). There are three interesting points about Allport s conception of social psychology that are relevant here. First, it finds a home for social psychology in the science of social influence. Second, Allport describes social influence in an open-ended way without the restrictions of directionality and intentionality. This point is important because much of social influence observed in the laboratory is unintentional and untraceable directly to particular agents or particular acts. For example, coaction effects are unlikely to be perceived as intentional, and influence leading to bystander apathy can hardly be traced directly to a particular 'influencer/ In the world outside the laboratory, influence is even more diffused and more anonymously exercised. The culmination of those two points is that social influence is a privileged and potentially a very broad topic in social psychology. To
Address correspondence to Sik Hung Ng, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 6000, Wellington, New Zealand. E-mail address: sikhung.ng@vuw.ac.nz
put it more strongly, Allport s definition implies that social psychology is effectively the science of social influence (see, for example, Jones, 1985).
