Few would disagree that human aggression is a very pressing social problem that leads to violent criminal acts, and that it is important to understand the causes of aggression before we can intervene to reduce it. How would a social psychologist approach this phenomenon? How would a social psychologist's approach differ from the approach of a personality psychologist or a sociologist?

First, like a personality psychologist, a social psychologist would focus on the individual, instead of on larger structural variables like socioeconomic status or the availability of handguns. Unlike a personality psychologist, however, a social psychologist would be more likely to focus on specific social situations or on people's construals of those specific situations. Social psychologist put far less emphasis on enduring personality characteristics or traits and are more interested in how people are like one another in those situations. This approach also differs from a sociologist's approach. Sociologists, unlike social psychologists, tend to focus not on the individual but on larger segments of society. Still, like social psychologists and unlike personality psychologists, sociologists would consider how people in different groups are different from one another when it comes to aggressive behaviors.