The Social in Social Psychology.

In this paper, I make a critical plea for the rehabilitation of the theoretical conception of the intrinsically social dimensions of cognition, emotion, and behavior shared by early social psychologists but progressively neglected and abandoned in the last century. Some critical implications of this theoretical conception are considered, including its relation to contemporary theories of social cognition and the restrictive methodological prescriptions of experimental social psychology. Finally, I consider the relation between this conception and alternative theoretical traditions in social psychology, such as social representation theory and 'social identity' theory, cultural psychology, and social constructionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]