SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Santa Barbara City College, Kurt Lewin, Leon Festinger
Document Summary
Social psychology history: the study of social psychology started when scientists first began to systematically and precisely analyze human beings " emotions, feelings and behaviors. Prior to 1900, the first studies in social psychology were performed on group behavior. American journal of psychology, published in 1908, and the first textbooks on social psychology. The social psychologists kurt lewin and leon festinger perfected the experimental approach to conduct research during the 1940s and 1950s, creating social psychology as a rigorous scientific discipline. Lewin is sometimes referred to as "the father of social psychology" because he first introduced many of the discipline"s important ideas, including an emphasis on the complex interactions between people. In 1954, festinger wrote an influential book called behavioral science research. Methods, in which he and other social psychologists discussed the need to quantify variables and use laboratory experiments to systematically evaluate social behavior research theories.
