| Summary: | "Political domination is so obvious a phenomenon in every walk of daily life and on every page of history that it must have a biological and psychological basis. Social institutions and particular forms of social behavior are but trivial and incidental consequences brought about by the ever present and irresistible influence of those persons or communities that dominate others. The field of social psychology will cease to exist even by the end of this generation unless its subject matter can consist of more important things than hypotheses concerning natural behavior or of mere verbal definitions. If the psychologist is unable to keep possession of this field, it will rapidly become occupied by the historian, the sociologist, the economist, and the educationalist. In accordance with the principles of this book, the field of social psychology will eventually be occupied by those most competent to survive under the conditions of that subject-matter. It is my hope that these more competent individuals will be psychologists, though there is no guarantee that such will be the case. Psychology in this field is poverty-stricken and has escaped a death notice chiefly because no one has called in the coroner. This need not continue to be the case. In the field of social psychology, as in psychology in general, we need ideas more than we need anything else. There are hundreds of men who are either brilliantly equipped or fairly well equipped to do experimental work if they only knew what to work at"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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