Social Psychology in Transition, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1976

Emergence of Individual Differences in Social Context ROBERT B. ZAJONC A priest who was a heavy smoker once asked his bishop if it was all right if he smoked while praying. Appalled, the bishop chastised the priest for the very thought of soiling the solemn moment of prayer with such a filthy habit. Some years passed and the bishop came again through our priest's parish. And our tormented priest asked again about his predicament. But he asked a somewhat different question: "Your excellency," he said, "is it all right to pray while smoking?" There was no hesitation in the bishop's answer. "Of course!" he said. "There is nothing in the world that should keep you from praying. You can always pray, my son. You should miss no opportunity to pray. Whenever you wish to pray, by all means pray!" The relationship between individual differences and social psychology is roughly the same as between smoking and praying. Many social psychologists, and especially experimental social psycholOgists, are openly disdainful of individ­ ual difference variables. They avoid them in their studies and refuse to incor­ porate them in theories. The reasons for their (and we really should say "my" because the author is no exception in this matter) attitude are not obvious.

Section I Introduction.- Priorities and Paradigms: The Conference and the Book.- Section II The Critical Context of the Conference.- Social Psychology as History.- The Yin and Yang of Progress in Social Psychology: Seven Koan.- Experimentation in Psychology.- Section IIIPriorities and Problems.- Resolution versus Revolution? The Theory of Conflicts in Question.- Critique: On Cursing the Darkness versus Lighting a Candle.- Critique: On “Resolution versus Revolution?”.- On “Emancipatory” Social Psychology.- Possible Limits on a Science of Social Behavior.- Some Metatheoretical Issues in Social Psychology.- Section IV Research Response.- Preface: Emergence of Individual Differences in Social Context.- Birth Order and Intellectual Development.- Postscript to Birth Order and Intellectual Development.- Critique: Zajonc and Science: A Case Study.- Critique: On Zajonc and Markus’s “Birth Order and Intellectual Development”.- On the Architecture of Intersubjectivity.- Critique: On Rommetveit’s “On the Architecture of Intersubjectivity”.- Critique: On Rommetveit’s “On the Architecture of Intersubjectivity”.- Social Psychology and Cultural Analysis.- Critique: On Triandis’s “Social Psychology and Cultural Analysis”.- Critique: On Triandis’s “Social Psychology and Cultural Analysis”.- Beyond Attribution Theory: The Human Conception of Motivation and Causality.- Critique: The Interdependent Mode of Personal Causality.- Critique: On deCharms and Shea’s “Beyond Attribution Theory”.- Exit, Voice, and Intergroup Relations.- Section V Alternative Futures.- The “Power Structure” in Social Psychology.- Critique: Some Tentative Suggestions for Analyzing and Neutralizing the Power Structure in Social Psychology.- Research Methods and the Future.- Participants in the Conference “Priorities and Paradigms in Social Psychology”.- Author Index.