Applied Social Psychology - A Haven for the Comfortable Radical Pussycat: A Response to Helmreich 1

Abstract

It is maintained that the failure of applied social psychology to fulfill its promise is due in large measure to communication barriers between social psychologists and the members of society, as well as to the continual squabbling on an intra-discipline basis concerning the relative merits of theoretical and applied social psychology, as Helmreich suggests. It is argued further that there is a need for the creation and utilization of diverse techniques for increasing communication between discipline members and the citizenry, and also for the development of graduate programs that are rooted primarily in the community, along with an incentive system that rewards such involvement, if we are to move toward the establishment of a viable, applied social psychology.