THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 



BY EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS 



[Edward Alsworth Ross, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology in the University of Wis- 

 consin, b. Virden, 111., 1866. A.B. Coe College, 1886; Graduate Student, Uni- 

 versity of Berlin, 1888-90; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 1891. Professor 

 of Economics and Social Science, University of Indiana, 1891-92; Associate 

 Professor of Political Economy, Cornell University, 1892-93; Professor of 

 Economic Theory and Finance, and later Professor of Sociology, Leland Stan- 

 ford Junior University, 1893-1900; Lecturer in Sociology, University of Chicago, 

 1896 and 1905; Lecturer in Sociology, Harvard University, 1902; Professor of 

 Sociology, University of Nebraska, 1901-06. Secretary of the American Eco- 

 nomic Association, 1892-93; Associate of the Institut international de Socio- 

 logie. Author of Social Control (published 1901); The Foundations of Sociology 

 (published 1905); also many articles in economic and sociological periodicals. 

 Advisory Editor of the American Journal of Sociology.] 



MANY of the scholars who in their sectional meetings are at this 

 moment running over the "present problems" of their respect- 

 ive sciences are in the enviable position of having only to point 

 out certain stumps, bog-holes, thickets, and neglected fringes that 

 mar the appearance of their well-tilled fields. It is, however, my 

 unhappy duty, in reporting upon the problems besetting the pio- 

 neers of social psychology, to make what amounts to a resurvey 

 of the territory allotted to my science. So much of it is unsub- 

 dued wilderness, so little is plowed field, that a review of the pro- 

 blems yet to be solved requires me to run afresh the boundary-lines, 

 to drive the corner stakes, to cruise the inclosed area, and to de- 

 clare the whole domain, with the exception of certain promising 

 clearings which I shall take care to point out, open to entry and 

 settlement. 



Human psychology may from one point of view be divided 

 into general and special, the former dealing with that which is 

 common to all minds, the latter with the differentiae which mark 

 off one category of minds from another. General psychology may 

 in turn be divided into individual and inter-individual, the former 

 concerned with mind as acted upon by things and experiences, 

 the latter with mind as acted upon by other minds. The latter, 

 embracing as it does every possible mode of association of human 

 beings, belongs to social psychology. Special psychology like- 

 wise falls naturally into two sections, the one determining the 

 mental traits of anthropic varieties, such as races, sexes, ages, 

 temperaments, and types; the other, of societal varieties, such as 

 nationalities, classes, culture grades, etc. While there are some 

 who would make social psychology coextensive with inter-indi- 

 vidual psychology and confine it to studying the action of mind 

 on mind, I believe it ought to include the differential psychology 



