Social Psychology Should Be a Science of Feelings, Thoughts and Behaviour

Abstract

This article is a polemic with the eminent psychologists whose articles are published in the present edition of this journal. These articles present their views on the introductory article of the same volume titled “Is psychology still a science of behaviour?” The author of this article concurs with his polemicists that the fundamental task of psychology should be to explain behaviour, not merely to predict it. That said, he argues that in order for this to occur, psychology must, by necessity, study real human behaviours (which, in the opinion of some of the polemicists, is not an imperative). At the same time, he admits that an understanding of behaviour also requires studying what people think and feel.