Book Description

While social psychology has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of basic principles that underlie social behavior, these principles themselves--including expectancies, goals, explanations, arousal, social influence, interdependence, social conflict, persuasion, and social standards--have never been directly reviewed in a comprehensive manner. Filling a significant gap in the literature, this authoritative reference and text illuminates the essential processes, mechanisms, and structures at different levels of analysis--biological, cognitive, motivational, interpersonal, and group/cultural--to provide access to the central principles that guide social psychological investigation. Formatted for easy reference and comparison, each chapter describes alternative conceptualizations of a particular principle and reviews research supporting (and failing to support) these different perspectives. Covering all the significant theories and research programs, the empirical literature is surveyed not for the traditional function of providing comprehensive reviews of content areas, but for its relevance to broad conceptual issues. This enables readers to get a better idea of the "big picture" concerning various social psychological principles, facilitating their ability to keep track of conceptual trends and developments in social psychology. An essential tool for all social psychologists, as well as professionals in related fields, this authoritative handbook also serves as an invaluable text for advanced classes in social psychology.