217
to others—also came out of this
new emphasis on the importance
of social interaction.
Research in the 1960s shed light
on the darker aspects of behavior;
Melvin Lerner showed how victims
are sometimes blamed for what
happens to them, and Elliot Aronson
explained that apparently aberrant
behavior could be the result of
circumstances rather than insanity.
More controversially, especially at a
time when the atrocities of World
War II were still fresh in people’s
minds, experiments by Stanley
Milgram and Philip Zimbardo
showed just how far the need to obey
and conform affects our behavior.Applying psychology
The advent of cognitive psychology
brought a new influence on social
psychology. The effects of cognitiveprocesses such as memory and
emotion were highlighted by Roger
Brown and Robert Zajonc, and
these findings were exploited
widely by the mass media and
advertising, which began to play
an increasingly important role in
modern society. Mass media and
advertising in turn had a growing
effect on social structures,
prompting theories of social
constructivism by psychologists
such as Serge Moscovici.
As a result, social psychology
has rapidly become more
applicable to many different
situations. It has influenced other
areas of psychology—in particular
psychotherapy, through William
Glasser’s “reality therapy.” It has
also impacted on other disciplines,
including sociology, anthropology,
and even politics and economics.The 1960s saw the rise of the civil
rights movement and feminism,
both of which challenged the status
quo. Issues surrounding prejudice,
cultural norms, and beliefs came
to the fore, and the work of social
psychologists such as Janet Taylor
Spence did much to alter attitudes
toward women, while others
used Lewin’s process of social
transformation to bring
about organizational changes.
Theories and models pioneered
by social psychologists are now
used by business, industry, and
all kinds of social organizations,
and more recently have been
adopted as a means of achieving
social and political reform in
societies suffering from
oppression, most notably in
the “Liberation Psychology”
espoused by Ignacio Martín-Baró. ■SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
1965 1971 1972 1978
Elliot Aronson develops
the “jigsaw classroom”
technique to reduce
ethnic rivalry and
encourage cooperation in
newly desegregated
classrooms.Janet Taylor Spence and
Robert Helmreich
devise the Attitudes
toward Women
Scale (AWS).Melvin Lerner suggests
his just world theory,
which claims that many
of us tend to believe
that people get what
they deserve.William Glasser
publishes Reality
Therapy, which forms
the basis of his later
Choice Theory.
1968
Robert Zajonc conducts
experiments on the
mere exposure effect.1971
Philip Zimbardo runs the
Stanford Prison
Experiment.1977
Roger Brown and James
Kulik publish Flashbulb
Memories, about our
special biological
memory mechanism.1994
Ignacio Martín-Baró
calls for “Liberation
Psychology,” for poor
and war-torn countries.