ABSTRACT
As social psychologists our task must therefore be the same. We have to look behind the theories and research that have made up this sub-discipline of psychology over approximately the last 100 years and ask ourselves what kind of persons we are and can be according to its accounts. And, just as with its parent discipline, social psychology has more than one answer to the question. Our task must be to take a close and critical look at these accounts in order to find out whether we like the look of the person lurking behind them. This isn’t always a simple matter, because sometimes the nature of this person is present by implication rather than explicitly stated. Students therefore often find that, although they become familiar with the subject matter of social psychology, they don’t see the bigger picture of the person that exists between the lines of the text book. The aim of this book is to make this person (or persons!) more visible and therefore more open to critical scrutiny.
