THE EMERGENCE OF DYNAMICAL SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGY

Interpersonal thought and action represent highly dynamic and complex phenomena. Because of these defining qualities, social psychology has proven resistant to integrative understanding and unqualified predicti on within traditional theoretical and empirical approaches. These same qualities, however, make social psychology highly amenable to underst anding and investigation within the framework of dynamical systems the ory (DST). In the target article, we establish the relevance of this e merging scientific metatheory for theory construction and research in social psychology. We introduce key insights, theoretical notions, and paradigmatic features of the dynamical perspective, map these ideas o nto established social psychological phenomena, and suggest new areas of investigation that reflect these ideas. In so doing, we outline the means by which complex interpersonal phenomena can be understood in t erms of simple models involving principles and mechanisms common to a wide variety of dynamical systems. We conclude by indicating how DST r esolves the implicit trade-off between insight and scientific rigor in social psychology, provides a heuristic for theory construction and h ypothesis generation, and holds potential for establishing theoretical coherence within a fragmented field and for integrating the field as a whole with other areas of science.