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This introductory text emphasizes the underlying ideas and intellectual debates in Social Psychology. It explores fundamental disagreements about what sorts of theories, what sorts of research methods, what sorts of issues, questions and answers are right for social psychology. In presenting the complexity and fluidity of social psychological phenomena, it is never afraid to return to the roots of social psychology in class research studies, or to criticize contemporary social psychology when it is lacking in theoretical awareness. Illustrated by examples from social history and contemporary politics, it tackles the relative neglect of social change in social psychology and analyses explanatory concepts which can account for how changes occur in social life as well as how society is held together. It sets social psychological research into its theoretical context, and explores a changing discipline in a changing world. This is an essential introduction to the principles of social psychology for students of psychology, sociology, and applied social science such as health studies, counseling and social work.