Talk:Social Psychology

Introduction
It should be noted in the introduction to this book that it is a perspective and approach to social phenomena and not an actual theory. The social psychological approach to studying social phenomena has generated a number of theories, which should be discussed in the text, but the perspective is not a theory. --Exmoron 22:10, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Notes from Abrams, D. in Group Processes
p. 425 "William James (1890) distinguished between the "I" and the "Me." The "I" is the self as experienced, the active thinking processor. The "Me" is the stock of empirical information about oneself, which has material, social, and spiritual components. The self is a central concept in social psychology (Ashmore & Jussim, 1997; Baumeister, 1999; Dweck, 1999), reflecting in part the importance of the individual in modern society as a target for social influence and a unit of economic activity. However, much of the research activity only considers the self as an individual, and this misses an important part of James's analysis. James argued that, in principle, one has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize one. In practice, these selves are determined by the groups of people about whose opinion one cares. James argued that people can change their persona to reflect the social audience. These transformations involve shifts of identity in different contexts, not merely forms of strategic self-presentation."

p. 447 "Our view is that society and the individual are mutually instantiated (Abrams, 1992a; Abrams et al., 2000; Hogg & Williams, 2000). Theologians and poets have understood this point for centuries and some sociologically inclined psychologists reached similar conclusions half a century ago (e.g., Newcomb, 1950; Sherif, 1936). We believe that this conclusion is gradually being reflected not just in a corner of the discipline, but as change in the meta-theoretical framework (Doise, 1986; Operario & Fiske, 1999). The combination of a social identity perspective with models of social cognitive, interpersonal, and intergroup processes offers hope for achieving a better understanding of the truly social nature of the self." Mead said this 70+ years ago. Why repeat what is known?

Transfer from Wikipedia

 * Transferred stuff from Wikipedia article, created content for a variety of articles. Lucidish 00:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The Table of Contents
The headings are convoluted. Let's give simpler headings for the major subjects. i.e. "The Individual" instead of "Social Elements of the Individual." Seems redundant- people know this is going to be a book about social psychology. What say ye????

Capitalization
Just capitalized all the section titles on the table of contents. If someone wanted them lower case for a reason, feel free to revert.