Talk:Social psychology

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Merge proposal

What's the difference between this article and the social psychology (sociology) one? I understand that the difference has been acknowledged, but the definitions between the 2 aren't all that distinct.

Social psychology: "Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others."

Social psychology (sociology): "social psychology studies the relationship between the individual and society."

You could say the difference lies in the first half of the sentences (the "individual" vs. the "thoughts, feelings, and behavior"), but the word "individual" kind of already delineates those terms by default. Senomo Drines (talk) 03:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

They're different subfields. Sociology is a different domain than psychology. Both articles make pretty clear how this is the case if one actually reads the body rather than the first few sentences. I don't even get the idea that a merger is possible, never mind ideal. Remsense ‥ 论 04:28, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Clear, how? If the lead section didn't make it clear, then that isn't a good sign. Can you elaborate on the difference then, if you disagree with the merge? Senomo Drines (talk) 04:53, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I cannot read the articles you decided were the same for you. Remsense ‥ 论 06:18, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on you. And you definitely can read, you aren't illiterate. Sounds more like an excuse not to discuss any further about the merge. Besides, you think the articles shouldn't be merged, yet you ask me that you can't read it because "its the same for you", which is telling me that you do support the change. Please elaborate as stated prior instead of trying to shut this discussion down without proper input. At the very least, state the difference between Social psychology and Social psychology (sociology). That shouldn't be too hard. Senomo Drines (talk) 13:00, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on you

...it's quite clearly not, at all. Please refrain from messing with articles you can't even bother reading. Remsense ‥ 论 13:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Ok then, specify where I should read. I already gave my piece as to why the merge should happen. "Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others." and "social psychology studies the relationship between the individual and society." bare little difference.

My question is, why do I have to put in the work to prove your point? You are being intentionally and curtly vague when you say I need to "read" the article. If its this line, "Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field of psychology, sociological social psychology places relatively more emphasis on the influence of social structure and culture on individual outcomes, such as personality, behavior, and one's position in social hierarchies", then yes, you can definitely say for certain that's the difference, but to what extent does that make it independent from the other article? The very same line admits that there is "many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart", so a merge isn't out of the question.

I would be willing to compromise if you will amend the definition so that the difference between the 2 is abundantly clear. I simply don't think there is enough of a difference between the 2 fields to warrant separation, especially if the article itself admits there's a lot of overlap. Senomo Drines (talk) 13:19, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

If you haven't read either article, then you need not worry as to whether they should be merged—such things can be left to someone who actually cares about the topics in question. Remsense ‥ 论 13:21, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

What is the actual proposal here? You say you propose a merger, but if I look at both articles this psychology one seems (substantially) better developed so if anything the proposal would probably to merge the sociology one into this one. But there is no clear rationale (1) Why that would be needed (2) How and where the remaining text from the sociology would be integrated into this one (3) Why this discussion is not copied to the sociology one. Also from my experience I know that the way of writing and used jargon is substantially different between sociologists and psychologists, so a proposal should also contain a discussion how to come to a shared approach to language use for this new merged article (let alone a strategy to avoid a discussion along the lines Social psychology is primarily a psychology/sociology subdiscipline). None of that is proposed. So as I see it now this is more of an idea than an actual proposal; and as a consequence I could not meaningfully support it - even if I would want that (which is far from obvious). Arnoutf (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Everything beyond the initial definitions on each page are completely disjunct—the psychology subfield article begins its history with Norman Triplett and mentions the Milgram experiment, while the sociology subfield article begins its history with Charles Horton Cooley and mentions the Thomas theorem and cybernetics. Remsense ‥ 论 20:51, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with that assessment that the content is almost entirely different. I also consider the sociology one being far less developed and refers to old practitioners of whom the relation to social psychology seems tentative, and uses complex jargon words (to be frank I often struggle with this when reading sociological texts - in my view the terms for consumer attributes is telling - Psychologists came up with Search (attributes consumers use to search a product in store) Experience (attributes consumers experience at the moment of use of a product) and credence (attributes the consumers cannot establish themselves such a health or sustainability claims which they have to take on credence). Subsequently sociologists expanded this view with Potemkin attributes (these that are truly undistinguishable even if tracing history and doing lab tests). To me this example is telling, where psychologists often use language that is to some extent comprehensible to the general public (although the risk of miscommunication of what is exactly meant is often the consequence) some schools of sociology prefer obscure terms (while they can hardly be misperceived, they can be incomprehensible for anyone besides topical experts). I think one of the challenges when merging the article is to avoid a battle between these sciences (and I would not be surprised at all if such a battle was the reason for the original split in about 2006 if I trace it back). Arnoutf (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I did propose to merge the sociology page into the psychology one, not the other way around. Did you get it confused? I'll answer all of your questions as to why I proposed it in the first place.

(1) Why that would be needed

Having 2 articles of the same name is confusing. Also simply because the sociology page admits that there are a lot of similarities to the psychology one. Having to go back and forth between pages is unnecessary and can be fixed if they were together.

(2) How and where the remaining text from the sociology would be integrated into this one

As a separate section or heading, although admittedly the page is quite long so it would take a lot of space.

(3) Why this discussion is not copied to the sociology one.

You stated just a sentence prior that the psychology one is substantially better developed.

a proposal should also contain a discussion how to come to a shared approach to language use for this new merged article

Are you talking about the editors or the sources? If its the editors, then this is completely redundant as everything has to follow the Wikipedia manual of style. And as stated prior, the merge will put it into its own section, so there will be no overlap. I began this discussion because the leading definitions matched, but I acknowledge how a merge may be unnecessary in this context if they can be laid out more differently. Senomo Drines (talk) 23:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I have amended both pages to help illustrate the distinction between the two. Although both share pretty much the same definition, it is what they focus on (the individual or society) that separates them. I hope this serves as a sufficient compromise to the merge. Senomo Drines (talk) 23:46, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Re 1 and 2 ok but an idea should be given and the discussion should also be mentioned (which you now did) on the page to be merged in. Re 3 - I am meaning both. Psychologists tend to be more empirical, use jargon that is closer to regular language and place less stock in philosophical historicising of schools and traditions compared to sociologists. So harmonising jargons, way of talking (and who is to claim the opening sections) between those disciplines may not turn out to be trivial (I have been in a department with psychologists and sociologists for 20 years now and it is still careful navigating all the time). Arnoutf (talk) 19:39, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Two Overlapping Subfields

What we have here is two overlapping subfields of different disciplines with different histories. Because they have different histories, they have different methodologies, viewpoints, and paradigms. Perhaps one of the two subfields is misnamed. Perhaps what is called social psychology (sociology) is really psychological sociology. The definitions of the subfields are almost the same because they overlap, but different approaches are used because they are studied by scholars with different backgrounds.

I haven't read the articles in detail, but I can see that there are two possible ways to resolve this merge proposal:

• Merge the two articles, which will result in one article that is mostly divided into two sections, one with a psychological focus, and one with a sociological focus, sort of like a two-headed owl, a bird representing wisdom.
• Leave the two articles as two articles, adding a paragraph to each explaining how the other discipline is like and unlike the subject discipline, sort of like two owls, each of whom acknowledges that the other owl is there.

Robert McClenon (talk) 17:51, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree they are very different. Personally I would opt for the second option (2 articles with an explanatory paragraph) as that would in my view lead to fewer discussions, less work, and less fuss in future editing. (the first option is also fair though). Arnoutf (talk) 19:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Keep separate, but remove the overlap

It seems as if the two articles refer to distinct ideas, that what sociologists call social psychology is its own thing. As such, it seems that the articles should not be merged.

However, 90% of the article is indeed overlap. In line with an older comment on the talk page, it seems like the best course of action is to excise all the stuff common to the page on social psychology, leaving a limited and very targeted article on the sociological notion. Ideally, we could move it to sociological social psychology too, because this nomenclature is just confusing.

It seems even more redundant to have a paragraph on both distinguishing it for the other. The main concept seems to be within psychology, with this being a branch of it. In my mind, the ideal form this article take would be very limited, not explaining the psychological concept and not giving a background to sociology, as it does now, but just explaining how sociology uses, understands, and applies the term.

Bruhpedia (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

If we are moving it to sociological social psychology, we need to move the other to psychological social psychology. The social psychology page can act as a disambiguation page differentiating the two, and the social psychology (sociology) page can be deleted or turned into a redirect after moving into the sociological social psychology page.

As I have mentioned before, I have added in a line to help differentiate the two. Essentially, the two share the same meaning, but what they focus on is different (the individual interacting with society). Psychological social psychology is focused on the individual, whereas sociological social psychology is focused on society. If this differentiation is wrong, please find another one so that the 2 don't intersect. Otherwise, the option for a merge is very open if they literally mean the same thing. Senomo Drines (talk) 14:06, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Whatever the outcome, creating a disambiguation page (see: Wikipedia:Disambiguation) would require that both usages are more or less equally relevant - as that would mean people would be looking for the sociology or psychology subfield about equally frequently. To me that does seem very unlikely as social psychology has 15 journal List of psychology journals referring to social psychology (my own counting) while the List of sociology journals only lists one (or two if you consider behaviour psychology). Given this difference in my view the disambiguation page proposed here would unduly complicate the search for almost all readers, while the current hatnote should suffice. Arnoutf (talk) 18:35, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

That only applies if there is a primary topic. Since there is a possibility that social psychology is going to be renamed to psychological social psychology, there will now be no primary topic. If you suggest there to be no disambiguation page, then readers who are searching for "social psychology" will find no results and be utterly confused as to why its not there. I also don't agree with the fact that they have to be "equally" relevant; the margin can be fairly high. A topic is deemed primary if it is "much more likely than any other single topic" (emphasis on much more) in usage and if it has "substantially greater enduring notability". I simply don't think the other page (sociological social psychology) isn't that unfamiliar compared to psychological social psychology. But, like what was said before, sociological social psychology does share quite a lot of overlap, so I may be wrong. Senomo Drines (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

That is not an acceptable article title, since that is not a term that is ever used. The parenthetical disambiguation is clearly correct per WP:NC. Remsense ‥ 论 19:32, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

That's why I suggested to turn it into a disambiguation page. You get the best of both worlds, differentiation and accessibility. Senomo Drines (talk) 19:36, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

In my view it would actually become the worst of two worlds as we would be creating non-existent names for the subfields AND force most readers (looking for the psychology subfield) to go through an extra step to find what they are needing. (my preference would be to keep the parenthetical disambiguation as it is now) Arnoutf (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2025 (UTC)