Message of Social Psychology

Craig Mcgarty is Professor and Head of Psychology at Western Sydney University. He was previously Director of the Centre for Social and Community Research and Director of the Social Research Institute at Murdoch University and Head of the School of Psychology at The Australian National University. His books include Categorization in Social Psychology and Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology, The Message of Social Psychology and Stereotypes as Explanations.

• 1. Introduction and a short history of social psychology / Craig McGarty and S. Alexander Haslam 2. The theory of cognitive dissonance: The evolution and vicissitudes of an idea / Elliot Aronson3. Discursive, rhetorical, and ideological messages / Michael Billig4. On the social origins of human nature / Marilynn B. Brewer5. Organizing social-psychological explanations / Willem Doise6. Predicting, understanding, and changing socially relevant behaviors: Lessons learned / Martin Fishbein7. Let social psychology be faddish or, at least, heterogeneous / Susan T. Fiske and Jacques-Philippe Leyens8. Social psychology as social construction: The emerging vision / Kenneth J. Gergen9. Social life as rule-governed patterns of joint action / Rom Harre10. Beliefs, knowledge, and meaning from the perspective of the perceiver: Need for structure-order / O.J. Harvey

"The contributors include notable social psychologists representing several generations, several theoretical perspectives, and a variety of content areas. Thus, the volume does a nice job of giving the reader a number of different, yet generally representative, opinions to consider. For students with some background in social psychology... the volume is likely to be informative and interesting, and it could serve as the impetus for thought and discussion. The chapters are likely to spark discussion, either by telling readers what has been learned from social psychology or by telling them what social psychology should be. Either way, the volume will stimulate graduate students, teachers, and researchers to reconsider some basic issues and perhaps see their own and other investigators' research in a broader context." Contemporary Psychology