What is social psychology? The construal principle.

, which holds that to understand and predict human behavior, one must focus on people's proximate (current) construals of themselves and their environment. The construal principle empowers social psychology in three key ways: It (a) accounts for the power of the situation, by acknowledging that construals are highly attuned to social norms; (b) is amenable to study with the experimental method; and (c) provides a unique theoretical framework for how to change human behavior. I discuss the origins and implications of the construal principle and how it distinguishes social psychology from related subdisciplines, including evolutionary social psychology, personality psychology, and social neuroscience. Whereas each subdiscipline is good at accomplishing the tasks it has set for itself, social psychology has unique advantages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).