| Summary: | "My conception of social psychology has been a development of the core ideas implicit in the lines of an integration of the contributions of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. As an interdisciplinary science, the chief problem of social psychology is the study of the behavior of the individual in the group. Since that behavior is largely determined by the group in which the individual lives, the study of the group and its customs, norms, and institutions assumes a position of vital importance in social psychology. The view that social psychology is the study of behavior or personality as such, as if the latter were a structure in and of itself, or apart from the social and cultural factors which help to shape it, is from our field-theoretical view an untenable position. The integrated whole of biological, social, and cultural factors which manifests itself in the behavior of the individual is his personality. With the foregoing view in mind I have tried to write a social psychology that not only concentrates on the behavior of the individual but on the significant role of the group and its culture in shaping his personality. I hope that the book will create in the reader an image of the person-in-his-group, rather than the person as a developing structure, unique and independent. Rather than detracting from man's dignity, this approach enhances it, for it places the individual squarely within the rich context of other human beings and their ways of doing things"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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