This article aims to build a panoramic sketch of the history of Brazilian social psychology. Initially, we start from the intuition of Farr about the conceptual difference between psychological and social psychology to establish the comparisons between the various perspectives in social psychology. We analyzed various theoretical groups to try to build an understanding of the implications of policies, guidelines and practices in their respective positions. In our reflection, we take the social psychology associated with behaviorism, cognitivism and comparative psychology in the USA. We trace the influences of cognitivist psychology in Brazil, showing that it was linked to the pursuit of stability, neutrality of the investigator and the concepts of resiliency and productivity. After the crisis of that perspective, we see the influence of the theory of social representations and critical theory in relation to socio-historical psychology. The socio-historical psychology had an idea of man associated with dialectical materialism, historicity and social transformation. We also reflect on the social psychology related to the institutions’ problems to think over the critical implications of this perspective and the socio-historical psychology in relation to the American thought.
Social psychology-History; Psychology-Theory; Theories; Methodology