K. J. Gergen's (1982) argument that hypotheses in social psychology are not empirical propositions is critically examined and shown to be erroneous. Nevertheless, this article demonstrates that, without necessarily appearing obvious, some hypotheses can be derived from propositions that are like tautologies and that their confirmation as such is of little interest. An analysis of hypotheses in ...

System dynamics has been enriched from many disciplines. This paper describes our effort to discover generic structures in the field of social psychology. Social psychologists have accumulated a body of empirical studies and theories that are reproducible and apply to a variety of social situations. Our task was to start modeling a few pivotal dynamic effects found in the social psychology lite...