ABSTRACT
Social psychologists, rumors notwithstanding, are human beings—not just in their personal lives but in their professional lives as well. Social psychology is unlike other scientific disciplines—geology, astronomy, chemistry, and so on—in that people have a privileged relationship with the field’s subject matter. Social psychologists have become especially adept at framing a wide variety of social processes as counterintuitive and then coming up with insightful explanations for them. Understanding the problems associated with social life has been a priority for social psychology from its beginning in the early 20th century. Social psychology came of age in the aftermath of World War II. Intergroup conflict remains a lively topic in social psychology, and for good reason. Social psychology has strong roots in philosophy. Psychology tends to avoid descriptions of human nature as either good or evil, and it has also avoided dividing humanity on this basis. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
