Taking a Historical Turn: Possible Points of Connection Between Social Pyschology and History

Abstract

The article confronts methodological differences between (and among) social psychologists and historians about how far the social psychologist should be interested only in contemporary or very recent history and how far general conclusions can be drawn about human behaviour across time and space. The article suggests that social psychology need not be present-centric and might take different forms of a 'historical turn'. In turn, it is suggested, historians can benefit from approaches developed by social psychologists. Seven possible points of connection with the discipline of history are put forward in the hope of fostering future collaborations. These are: the nature of modernity; collective memory and the uses of the past; political discourse and ideologies; partisanship; the public sphere; stereotypes; and languages and images. Indeed, just as they can encourage closer collaboration between historians and social psychologists, these themes might also open a wider inter-disciplinary discussion with anthropologists, sociologists, literary scholars, art historians and scholars of political discourse.