The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology

The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology Synopsis

This book critically traces the attempt of social psychology over the past half century to forge a scientific understanding of human behavior based on the systematic use of experiments. Having examined the record from the conception of the field to the present, Brannigan suggests that it has failed to live up to its promise; that psychologists achieved little consensus about the central problems in the field; that they failed to amass a body of systematic, nontrivial theoretical insight; and that recent concerns over the ethical treatment of human subjects will probably bring their discipline, as we know it, to an end. In an epilogue, going beyond his iconoclasm, the author explores the prospects for a postexperimental discipline.