ABSTRACT
The history of personality and social psychology describes an increasing process of discovery. As social scientists explored the social world, phenomena that once appeared to be the product of a few variables were understood, instead, to result from the action of many. Faced with a much more complex work agenda, specialized research programs emerged to examine the many factors that seemed to compose a social event. Nearly a century of work on personality and social psychology has clarified major portions of the social process, providing us with the series of social processes that we understand quite well. However, as our theories developed out of the study of these apparently separate phenomena, it has been difficult to bring them together into a broader statement that might be applied more generally. With a substantial empirical foundation now in hand, the time seems right to take the generalist’s point of view and use this information to develop a more comprehensive approach to the study of people in social situations.
