Social Psychology as Social Construction - Assignment Example

Today the scope of scientific knowledge has expanded and intermixed so greatly that simple distinctions between its areas often are impossible to make. The reason for this situation is that without the blending of disciplines a lot of facts about the world we live in would be completely missed, because reductionistic approaches are known to be effective only for a limited amount of scientific tasks (Katzner 2001, pp.6-7). I believe that the field of social psychology, which, as the term suggests, shares elements of sociology and psychology, can serve as a proper example of how the interdisciplinary nature of modern research can bring more results than the mere combination of the knowledge of each branch of science contributing to it. At the same time, such a combination of approaches can lead to the emergence of methodological, and even ideological, challenges as a union between dissimilar attitudes to the conduct of scientific investigations requires their re-evaluation and integration. Again, in the history of social psychology there were instances of such conflicts. On ground of this, let us discuss some of the main features of mainstream social psychology and criticism that it had to face during its development. In most general terms, social psychology deals with the study of the ways and degrees to which macro-social circumstances influence human beings on the micro level. As such, social psychology without exaggeration plays a critical role among other branches of social sciences as it establishes a traditionally missing link between psychological accounts of human personality, which often tend to omit the external social influences, and the macro-sociological theories of the ways humans interact in society that in their turn may disregard the role of individual as such and reduce it to its certain social functions. In this frame of reference, social psychology is a hybrid perspective which is focused on the interplay between the psychological and sociological realms, and on the ensuing new connections and corresponding research tasks and problems. Social psychologists are fully aware of the fact that if existing social connections were changed, then the very essence of human self with its cognitive, emotional, and communicative capabilities would change as well. As an example of this, I can think of people who live in authoritarian societies and who, to the great surprise of those living in democratic countries, seem to be quite content with their lot. I suppose that this becomes possible when successive generations are being brought up within a certain culture that literally shapes world views of all its members. That such vast socio-psychological experiments are possible is another vindication of the validity and importance of the concern of social psychology with the connection between individual and social spheres. With all this in mind, I would say that social psychology is based on a certain dualism between social and personal, and I believe that this sensation can be further strengthened by pointing out another feature of social psychology related to its methodology. As a matter of fact, the range of methodologies used for social psychological research can be divided into two groups - 'scientific' and 'qualitative'. The first approach is aiming to obtain measurable data, for the sake of which controlled experiments are usually implemented. However, as adherents of the qualitative approach claim, such a straightforward methodology is often inapplicable in the sphere of relations between people, because the factor of the presence of an observer can greatly influence the outcome of an experiment. Instead, qualitative approaches in social psychology, such as for example participant observation when researchers organise experiments in such ways as to influence them as little as possible, try not so much to fit data into some rigid theoretical models, but rather aim to comprehend the real complexity of the social world by reducing the factor of subjectivity of researchers and the artificiality of their experiments (Sapsford 1996, pp.147-157). However, the problem here is that this tendency within social psychology has raised debates over whether this discipline is, or should aspire to be, a science in the traditional sense of that word. Thus, I think that one of the main features of mainstream social psychology has been and remains the striving to combine both those broad methodological principles into a unified set of adequate and at the same time scientifically valid research tools specifically suited for tasks that social psychology faces. What complicated this task is the inherent connection between ethics and research in social psychology. For one, consider Milgram's controversial experiments on obedience, in which subjects were told they were shocking an unknown person for wrong responses and which raised the issue of the usage of deception as of a tool in experiments in social psychology, or recall an infamous Stanford prison experiment that quickly went beyond researchers control, and it becomes clear why the so-called Crisis that shook the field of social psychology during the 1960's and 1970's was in essence the turning point for this discipline. Perhaps the most important response that emerged within the field of social psychology as a reaction to The Crisis, and which is as well relevant to the above mentioned task of methodological unification, was represented by the rise to the prominence of the school of sociological thought termed 'social constructionism'. This sociological theory is based on the assumption that, instead of being rooted in certain natural laws that the more conventional approaches to social psychology have been trying to uncover, the social world is mostly governed by the process of the continuous dynamic creation by individuals and social groups of perceived reality, which is based on and maintained by social interaction even on the most fundamental level (Burr 1995, pp.1-16). In this regard, I believe that one of the prime merits of the social constructionist approach is its ability to provide that much sought for account of why it is possible that controlled experiments can influence their results. This happens because a person can act differently in various situations not only due to the influence of external factors, but also due to her or his alternating interpretations of reality. Thus, social constructionism helps reconcile 'scientific' and 'qualitative' methodologies by showing that each of them offers unique insights that should not be seen as conflicting, but rather as complementing each other. With all this said, I suppose that social constructionism may well be considered that force which will help social psychology vindicate its place within the range of social sciences (Gergen 1997, pp.127-128), especially if the social constructionist approach would overcome its limitations, such as for instance difficulties which I guess it may have explaining the similarity between the categorical structures of reality shared by various cultural traditions. References: Burr, Vivien. An Introduction to Social Constructionism, London: Routledge, 1995. Gergen, Kenneth J. "Social Psychology as Social Construction: The Emerging Vision". In McGarty, Craig, and Haslam, S. Alexander. The Message of Social Psychology: Perspectives on Mind in Society, Blackwell Publishers, 1997. Katzner, Donald W. Unmeasured Information and the Methodology of Social Scientific Inquiry, Springer, 2001. Sapsford, Roger. Social Psychology: Issues for Social Psychology, Open University Worldwide, 1996. Read More