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Abstract
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The fundamental assumptions underlying social psychology are the same as those underlying general psychology. Only the assumptions of natural science (physical monism) are considered here. The postulates are: (1) The movement continuum, describing the character of the universe and placing social evolution at the end of a series of progressive changes in the direction of greater variability in electron-proton statics and dynamics; (2) changes in the organism, which are correlational functions of changes in the environment; (3) human behavior, the form of motion fundamental to social psychology, which is made up of those movements and their physical effects which have become socialized stimuli for the same or for other individuals; (4) speech, a form of behavior through which individuals are functionally interconnected into a social organization; (5) sensorimotor interchangeability, a form of behavior in which sense organs and muscles of one individual are used by another; (6) social organization, the cooperation between individuals through which social institutions have developed, and operating as devices for increasing variability in behavior; (7) social evolution, which is in the direction of a maximum variability in the behavior of each individual with the least possible expenditure of energy; (8) civilization, the sum of the acquired forms of behavior; (9) methodology, the investigation of the biological (ontogenetic) and social (phylogenetic) antecedents of human behavior; and (10) applied social psychology, stressing the importance of teaching that all social problems have a scientific solution, but questioning whether the scientific principles underlying social organization can be taught to any considerable percentage of the population at large. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
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