Taking a Historical Turn: Possible Points of Connection Between Social Pyschology and History

The article confronts methodological differences between (and among) social psychologists and historians about how far the
social psychologist should be interested only in contemporary or very recent history and how far general conclusions can be
drawn about human behaviour across time and space. The article suggests that social psychology need not be present-centric
and might take different forms of a ‘historical turn’. In turn, it is suggested, historians can benefit from approaches developed
by social psychologists. Seven possible points of connection with the discipline of history are put forward in the hope of
fostering future collaborations. These are: the nature of modernity; collective memory and the uses of the past; political
discourse and ideologies; partisanship; the public sphere; stereotypes; and languages and images. Indeed, just as they can
encourage closer collaboration between historians and social psychologists, these themes might also open a wider inter-disciplinary
discussion with anthropologists, sociologists, literary scholars, art historians and scholars of political discourse.