The Emergence of Dynamical Social Psychology

Abstract 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 prediction within traditional theoretical and empirical approaches. These same qualities, however, make social psychology highly amenable to understanding and investigation within the framework of dynamical systems theory (DST). In the target article, we establish the relevance of this emerging 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 onto 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 terms of simple models involving principles and mechanisms common to a wide variety of dynamical systems. We conclude by indicating how DST resolves the implicit trade-off between insight and scientific rigor in social psychology, provides a heuristic for theory construction and hypothesis 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.