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1 - Group Dynamics: Structural Social Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Noah E. Friedkin
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Eugene C. Johnsen
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Summary

In this chapter, we present an overview of the group dynamics tradition that is our substantive focus, and we present our case for the advancement of this tradition via analysis of the attitude change process that unfolds in interpersonal influence networks. The idea that motivates this book is that some of the important lines of work on attitude change in small groups developed by psychologists (e.g., their work on social comparison, minority–majority factions, group polarization and choice shifts, and group decision schemes on attitudes) may be advanced if a social network perspective is brought to bear on them. In addition, we show how certain lines of current work in sociological social psychology may be advanced with our approach. Sociologists are more likely to pursue these advances than psychologists, given the current emphasis in psychology on social cognition. However, as we emphasize, the influence network and process specified by our theory are a social cognition structure and process. Thus, we seek to move the two orientations into closer theoretical proximity and to build a theoretical interface that speaks to both psychological and sociological social psychologists. By attending to the classic foundations of modern social psychology, to the theoretical perspectives, hypotheses, and findings that constituted the group dynamics tradition, we hope to advance current work on small group social structures and social processes. We revisit the classical past, pursuing an agenda of formal unification, in order to reshape perspectives and trigger new research.

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Chapter
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Social Influence Network Theory
A Sociological Examination of Small Group Dynamics
, pp. 3 - 27
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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