AUTHORS' RESPONSE Dynamical Social Psychology: The Next Iteration

We are delighted to have obtained feedback on our target article from such a distinguished and scientifically diverse set of commentators. It is precisely such a confluence of divergent perspectives that is crucial at this point in establishing the viability of the dynamical perspective in social psychology. Our stated aims in the target article were to describe an existing field of science that could be fruitfully applied to social psychological phenomena, to show what sorts of methods and tools are available and potentially relevant for this purpose, to discuss existing applications, and to point out the potential for new theory and research regarding these and other applications. It was not our intent to argue that all methods and tools from dynamical systems theory are applicable to social psychology, or to state exactly how dynamical social psychology should be done. Such refinement should emerge as a result of divergent perspectives and insights stimulated by, or otherwise relevant to, the ideas presented in the target article. In that very important sense, the commentators individually and collectively fill a critical role in forwarding this perspective and setting the agenda for theory and research in the years to come. We note with pleasure that all the commentators express appreciation for the central idea that social psychology would profit by being viewed in explicitly dynamical terms. Indeed, several of them extend the dynamical perspective by providing additional arguments for its potential utility and developing interesting applications. At the same time, the commentaries differ in their specific reactions to the ideas we presented and in their advice for developing the dynamical perspective. Because these points are largely supportive of our general goal, and because they are well developed in their own right by the commentators themselves, there is little to be gained by considering them in fine-grained fashion. At a somewhat broader level of analysis, however, the commentaries revolve around one of four basic themes that warrant further comment on our part: (a) Social psychology has always been dynamic, (b) contemporary social psychology is already dynamic, (c) one should exercise caution in applying dynamical systems to social psychology, and (d) the dynamical perspective should be based on social psychological insights, theory, and data. We consider each of these themes in turn.