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Social Interest

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Synonyms

Community feeling; Gemeinschaftsgefühl; Social feeling

Introduction

Gemeinschaftsgefühl (social interest) was first penned by Adler in 1908 before he left Freud with one third of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society members (Adler 1956). Adler asserted that humans are social beings whose aggression drive can be modulated by social interest (Ansbacher 1992; Kaiser 1981). His focus that humans are social beings and the interest of the community began his departure from the aggression drive. There are many translations of Gemeinschaftsgefühl, the two most popular include community feeling and social interest; however, both terms are needed to fully describe the concept. This document will use social interest for the translation of Gemeinschaftsgefühl. Adler (1933/2012) was aware of the complexity and confusion, “Regarding social interest, you will also have observed certain fluctuations in the Individual Psychology literature….” (p. 51).

Social Interest Is Multidimensional

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Adler University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Leigh Johnson-Migalski, Danqing Huo & Francis Sesso-Osburn

Authors
  1. Leigh Johnson-Migalski
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  2. Danqing Huo
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  3. Francis Sesso-Osburn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leigh Johnson-Migalski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Kevin Meehan

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Johnson-Migalski, L., Huo, D., Sesso-Osburn, F. (2020). Social Interest. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_631

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