We concur with the embedded-embodied approach to social psychology so nicely articulated by Marsh, Johnston, Richardson, and Schmidt (this issue). In fact, we do not think they went far enough. Their perspective on the contextual and dynamic foundations of mind and action is a useful way to conceptualize and investigate interpersonal dynamics, but it can also be seen more fundamentally as a manifestation of an integrative conceptual framework and research paradigm for psychological processes at all levels of human functioning, from brain dynamics to societal dynamics. For that matter, the dynamical underpinnings of the approach they advocate could be applied reflexively to provide insight into the nature of theory construction in social psychology. We feel this perspective holds potential for generating a unified and coherent account of human experience, one that stands in marked contrast to the fragmented state of affairs that reflects the state of psychological science today (see, e.g., Vallacher & Nowak, 2006). We cannot hope to make a convincing case for these sweeping claims in a commentary. But we do want to expand a bit on the points that Marsh et al. have made and, in so doing, suggest some lines of research that would provide a more concrete sense of what they propose.At the outset, it is instructive to play devil's advocate and consider why canonical social psychological theory and research has not embraced this perspective, relying instead on a reductionist approach to human interaction. The rationale is actually quite simple and fairly seductive. Different aspects of human experience have distinct operating rules. To expose the nature of these rules, the last thing one should do is contaminate their manifestations with the products of the operating rules for other psychological phenomena. Mental operations can (and should) be understood in terms of information processing rules and cognitive biases; social interaction can be understood in terms of personal concerns, situational factors, and social norms; relationships can be understood in terms of reward-cost considerations, commitment, trust, power, and compatibility; group dynamics can be understood in terms of communication structures, power asymmetries, conflicts of interest, superordinate goals, and accountability; and so on, for the various topics that collectively comprise social psychology. Once the basic processes are identified for each of these domains, one can then investigate how they interact to generate mental, emotional, and behavioral effects in different contexts and for different people. Social judgment in one context (e.g., dyadic interaction involving friends) may look very different from social judgment in a different context (e.g., personal rumination about past encounters with an enemy), for example, but the foundational rules of social judgment are presumably the same in both instances.What could possibly be wanting in this approach to social psychology? How could we ever understand people's behavior in a complex social environ...
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