The task of social psychology: Some historical reflections

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Abstract
Changes, over time, in the task of social psychology are evaluated in the light of Van Leent's detailed study concerning the relationship between sociology and psychology. He distinguished between a number of different levels of analysis within each discipline. This leads to horizontal specialisms within both camps. He also identified a limited number of subdisciplines involving the vertical integration of phenomena from more than one level. It is argued that the problem with social psychology is that it is neither a horizontal specialism nor a vertical subdiscipline. In some ways the task of integrating the two parent disciplines is easier than it was at the end of the 19th century and in some ways it is more difficult. This is due to a number of largely uncorrelated and uncoordinated changes in the parent discipline themselves which are identified and discussed in the course of the paper. It is argued that the shift of interest in the evolution of sociology has been from the macro‐ to the micro‐level whilst in psychology the shift has generally been in the opposite direction.This article is dedicated to J. Van Leent.

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