Concluding the Synthegrate Social Psychology discussion, I will identify the categories of social psychology thought, review the essential historical perspectives on social psychology, consider the essential principles of social psychology, compare the field of social psychology with social wisdom, and propose practices for inoculating society from undue influence from the unethical application of social psychology to influence individual behavior.

Categories of social psychology perspective

With many competing perspectives exploring perpetual questions about the human as a social being, social psychology lacks a cohesive definition. Though Aronson (2008) would observe that the definitions of social psychology are as varied as the individuals who made up the field, the various perspectives fall within five general categories, including:

• The sociocultural perspective sees that the social environment affects social behavior.
• The evolutionary perspective sees that natural selection explains the social behaviors that have assured the adaptability and survivability of the human species.
• The social learning perspective sees that individual experience with reward and punishment drive social behavior.
• The social-cognitive perspective sees that social behavior is a function of the individual interacting with the environment.
• Neurology is providing fresh insights into the neurobiological factors that influence social emotions, perceptions, and behavior--while showing how the brain adapts to social interactions.

Categorizing the perspectives does not mean they are mutually exclusive; that one is correct while the others are not. Rather, each perspective exposes a different piece of a dynamic process. Just as integrating different definitions can provide a more accurate understanding of the field of social psychology, integrating perspectives on human social interaction can provide a glimpse of different parts of the picture. Understanding a process through which individuals and others dynamically and continuously interact and adapt over time requires observation through multiple perspectives while adjusting perspectives as dynamics unfold.

Foundations of social psychology

Studying the history of social psychology helps demonstrate the different approaches that major contributors have introduced through the field, including:

• Early pioneers like Edwin Ross (1919) and William McDougall (1919) explored social psychology as a means to understand human social behavior.
• Introducing theoretical rigor and experimental precision from a behavioral psychology perspective, Floyd Allport (1920) ushered in an age where social psychologists would see social psychology as a means for controlling human behavior.
• Kurt Lewin (1951; 1947) would blend science with practice so social psychologists could apply research-based technologies to solve practical problems, spawning applied psychology movements in intergroup relations, leadership, organizational behavior, teamwork, consumer behavior, and environmental psychology.
• As the founding father of contemporary psychology, Gordon Allport (1947) would proclaim that the purpose of social psychology is to create a utopian society applying social psychology to solve the perpetual problems of humanity, including war, discrimination, violence, and hopelessness. Social psychologists carry Allport's torch to engineer a society free of sexism, homophobia, racism, conflict, social injustice, and global warming.

Social psychology principles

Despite disparate perspectives, some social psychologists propose common principles among all approaches to understanding and influencing human social behavior (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2007), including:

• The first common principle is that social behavior is goal-oriented and motivated by self-interest.
• Second, individual motivations interact with events to form both the individual and the situation.

Differentiating between social psychology and social wisdom

A key difference between social psychology and folk psychology is that folk psychology relies on wisdom, experience, and culture, while social psychology relies on research. Social psychologists use the scientific method to ask questions, do experiments, and find answers. Social psychologists have a toolkit of research methodologies to understand social phenomena, including:

• Descriptive methods, like observation, case studies, archives, and surveys;
• Correlation research that uses data from descriptive methods to reveal correlation among independent variables;
• Experimental methods that attempt to create laboratory simulations so they can observe behavior changes caused by manipulating some aspects of the situation while controlling others.

Each of these methods has inherent strengths and weaknesses, which social psychologists address by combining methods to balance the weakness of one method with the strengths of the other. For example, the experimental method helps researchers to identify cause and effect, but the results are artificial. The lack of definition and cohesion fuel controversy of and in social psychology, including but not limited to the following:

Documents the obvious

Critics assert that social psychology documents the obvious, its big ideas and discoveries tend to align with what already is known in religion, philosophy, and folk psychology. Social psychologists argue that social psychology provides a more accurate picture of reality by using the scientific process to reduce untruth. The scientific process can be long and slow.

Meanwhile, today's social psychology truths can become tomorrow's expensive policy failures. For example, imposing self-esteem doctrines through schools to engineer a society free of crime, violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, chronic welfare dependency, and educational failure has created generations of "conceited fools" whose inflated self-esteem is being connected to escalating the social problems the self-esteem programs were supposed to cure.

Same conclusions as common knowledge

Critics argue that social psychology discoveries are no different from common knowledge. Social psychologists counter by saying that proving or disproving common knowledge is a starting point for social psychology research. In addition, the criticism says more about the critic than the field because the critics suffer from hindsight bias; they overestimate their ability to predict events after they already know the outcome.

Deceptive and unethical research practices

Widely published criticisms of research abuses from experiments like Phillip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram's obedience experiments contributed to the creation of a code of ethics to ensure that psychologists treat subjects ethically. Critically assessing research from practitioners like Zimbardo and Milgram helps to explain why social psychologists still debate the approaches and results of these experiments.

In short, critics assert that the researchers violated their subjects, invalidated the results by actively influencing the research process and outcomes, and failed to create the contexts they set out to test. A continuing controversy is that the code of conduct still allows social psychologists to deceive and even harm patients as long as they can demonstrate that the ends justify the means, and have an ethics review board supervising the deception. Critics continue to reject the sponsorship and application of deception in social psychology research, saying that subjects cannot give consent when they are being deceived, and it harms the subject, the profession, and society.

Inoculating society against unethical applications of social psychology

Critics express concern about how social psychology is used. Those with the power to commission social psychology research also have the resources and the means to apply social psychology technologies to solidify power. However, social psychology is becoming a democratized technology in educated societies.

In western society, social psychology is no longer just a tool used to engineer an unwitting population for the interests of government and special interest; people are increasingly becoming aware of the techniques used to manipulate them and to engineer society. Educating the public about the techniques those with power use to gain and exert control can help to inoculate people against undue influence. Further, the public can learn how to use social psychology to disrupt the undue influence of power structures. In the words of B. F. Skinner, "the best step in a defense against tyranny is the fullest possible exposure of control techniques” (Skinner, 1955).

By synthesizing learning from social psychology for real-world applications, social psychologists have catalyzed processes and technologies for influencing every aspect of American society; the same technologies are used to influence humanity on a global scale. Organizational behavior, organizational psychology, leadership, group dynamics, and consumer behavior are examples of social psychology applications businesses use to align customers and employees with organizational goals. Health, law enforcement, and legal professionals apply social psychology to promote healthy habits, reduce crime rates, and influence juries. Some educators apply social psychology theory and technology to enhance learning outcomes in the classroom. Other educators apply the same social psychology practices to indoctrinate children into their special interests.

Specific applications explored in this section included how social psychology in adult collaborative learning environments and the global sustainable development “revolution”. In the adult learning environment, educators integrate social learning theory, Jigsaw Classroom, and group dynamics theory to facilitate adult learners in a collaborative environment. This learning team model accelerates learning, fosters performance, and increases motivation, persistence, and satisfaction. The same psychology techniques that teachers apply to the classroom are also used to drive political and social agendas on a global scale. Considering the role social psychology plays in driving the sustainable development “revolution” provides insight into how governments and special interests interact to transform global society to a “post-materialistic” status, and how social psychology will be instrumental in helping people “adapt to the pain” (Myers, 2008).