A golden age of behavioural social psychology? Towards a social psychology of power and intergroup relations in the digital age

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of a ‘golden age’ in social psychological research. I begin with ‘behavioural social psychology’—research that leverages the behavioural traces that are a product of the digital age. I argue that the ability to analyse digital visual data, natural language data, and smartphone and ambient sensor data, has made substantial contributions to the state of social psychological knowledge. However, social psychology needs to do more than just leverage digital data for psychological benefit. Digital technologies construct and reflect a world that is marked by profound structural inequality and unfairness. Yet social psychology never really considers technology as being ‘world-making’ in its own right. More specifically, social psychology very rarely goes beyond considering what technology might do—to explore the question of who wins and who loses when technologies reshape our worlds. I point to a mosaic of work applying social identity approaches to new technologies as the starting point for a social psychology that engages with power and resistance in the digital age. Social psychology will not enter a truly golden age until we engage not only with the data, but also with the power structures of digital technology.