The branch of psychology that focuses on studying individual attitudes, beliefs and behaviours when other people (real, implied or imagined) are present. Perhaps a similar definition proposed by Gordon W, Allport (1897-1967) in 1954 puts it somewhat better
An attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behaviour of individuals is influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. Thus, social psychology is the study of social influences such as attitude, change, coercion, conformity, persuasion, and prejudice. From this definition stems the central task of social psychology
To explain the ways in which interaction between people affects the way they think and behave. Like sociology, social psychology has its roots in French writings and especially those of Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), Gustave LeBon (1842-1931), and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). In the 20th century, it was introduced into sociology by Edward A. Ross (1886-1951), Lester E.Ward (1841-1913), and William G. Sumner (1840-1910), and previously a link with developmental psychology was forged by James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934) in his book Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development
A Study in Social Psychology (1897). The title of this book is significant in that it was the first one in English to use the term ‚asocial psychology‚aa. The experimental approach to social psychology is credited to Norman Triplett (1865-??) with his studies involving competition and how groups influence the speed of individual performance. The use of the experimental methods to study to group processes increased in the US, but less so in Europe and the UK in particular where there has been a growing interest in discourse analysis using qualitative methods. Other significant influences in the 20th century that helped to form the experimental approach social psychology today were
1. the publication of by Floyd Allport (1890-1978) of his book Social psychology (1924), 2. the application of ideas from Gestalt psychology to the study of group dynamics by Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) in the 1930s, 3. the incorporation of learning theory into social psychology by John Dollard (1900-1980) and Neal Miller in their book Social Learning and Imitation (1941), 4. through Fritz Heider (1896-1988) and Leon Festinger (1915-1990) and the cognitive dissonance theory during the late 1940s and 1950s (a theory having continuity with a current major area of experimental research in social psychology, namely, social cognition), 5. the controversial research of Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) in the 1960s that used deception to study the effects of perceived figures of authority on obedience, and which was instrumental in the establishment of research ethical committees, and 6. and more recently, the influence of the self-concept, leading to studies on self-esteem, self-identity, self-image and self-perception
. See Cognitive psychology, Developmental psychology, Discourse analysis, Qualitative research, Self, Sociology