Young Psychophysiologist Award address, 1981. Social psychophysiologist: a classic perspective and contemporary approach.

Abstract

ABSTRACTHuman reactions are viewed as developing from a physiological and social context. This perspective is traced to third century B.C. to Erasistratos’ diagnosis of lovesickness in Antiochus, the son of Alexander's most able general. Empirical research guided by this perspective emerged with the development of the polygraph, but has not provided a consistent contribution to the study of human reactions and problems. Social psychophysiological research is surveyed, and causes for the inconsistency are indicated. It is suggested that even fairly basic psychological processes such as emotion would appear to be elicited more often by social than nonsocial factors: to the extent that physiological processes elicited by social and nonsocial factors are not interchangeable, psychophysiological theories of human reactions may be incomplete; and to the extent that social factors influence the very nature of an individual's physiological responses to nonsocial stimuli, psychophysiological theories of human reactions may be inaccurate. Moreover, social psychology, perhaps more than psychophysiology, should benefit from a consideration of the reciprocal influence between social and physiological systems. A need is outlined for research in which the methods and theoretical constructs of social psychology and psychophysiology are not pitted against one another, but rather are joined to form a powerful, complemented tool for the comprehensive study of organismic‐environmental interactions. It is concluded that research in social psychophysiology may yet contribute in a consistent and significant fashion to our understanding of human reactions.