Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

INTRODUCTION:
WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

It is almost mandatory for an introductory textbook of Social Psychology or even a relevant

lecture to begin by providing a definition of the subject matter of this particular scientific
discipline. Such a definition is conventionally contributing toward a synoptic introduction of
the reader or the audient to what social psychology is, what it is actually addressing, and what
it is concerned with. In this way, the author or the lecturer presents the subject matter of social
psychology or, better, their own acceptation of its subject matter as a single and
indivisible one, thus overlooking and, at the same time, obscuring the problematic character
of the definition as such. Let us give a contemporary and local example. In the first sentences
of their widely known and used in Greece textbook Social Psychology, M. A. Hogg & G. M.
Vaughan quote an excerpt of the definition formulated in 1954 by G. W. Allport, according to
which Social Psychology is the scientific examination of how the thoughts, emotions and
behaviors of individuals are affected by the real, imaginary or suggestive presence of others
(2010, 32). Reiterating the above definition, the authors do not only describe the subject
matter of Social Psychology as such, but they also indicate their own perception of the this
specific scientific branch and present their own general position and understanding with
regards to the subject matter of Social Psychology. Although the aforementioned textbook
embarks on a presentation of various prevalent themes and trends, in both the north-American
and the European traditions of Social Psychology, in reality, the definition they offer at the
beginning of their book attempts to steer all the presented trends so as to subsume en masse
under a very specific individualistic logic. A significant indication of this is that while the
textbook contains an extensive reference to the social identity theory of Henri Tajfel (Chapter
4), and while its last chapter refers to the importance of culture (Chapter 16), the authors
disregard the fact that both Tajfel as well as other researchers who focus on the significance
of culture have put forth various definitions of Social Psychology and of its object of study,
different than the one given by G. W. Allport. Thus, the definition quoted by M. A. Hogg &
G. M. Vaughan obscures not simply the many and irreconcilable differences that exist within
the scientific branch of Social Psychology in general, but also the differences, let them be
small, pointed out in the textbook as such. This definition functions as a unifying and all-
embracing one, constructing, that is, Social Psychology as a unified whole where any existing
differences are either approached as internal minor shades that do not require attention, either
ignored as non scientific given also the fact that the aforementioned definition makes a
reference to the scientific examination, thus implying only the use of the quantitative
research methodology and of the experimental method.
What is it that this definition tells us? The primary thing it tells us is that Social Psychology
concerns the study of the individual in his/her relationship with other individuals, thus
transforming the scientific branch under discussion into one more individualistic psychology,

1
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

a psychology that is bare of even the term society, as the latter is essentially reduced to or
equated with the presence of other people.
This common practice is, in our view point, extremely misleading, since the reader, or the
audient, who may lack any previous knowledge with regards to the specific area of study is
inevitably obliged to form a one-dimensional and one-sided view and perception of the
subject matter of Social Psychology, a perception according to which Social Psychology is
not only and simply the study of individuals (in four basic domains of analysis)1 but also a
sub-field of some General Psychology, and therefore in a relation of dependency with the
latter. Such kind of practice could be understandable only upon the existence of a broad
consensus and acceptance as to what Social Psychology is. In view of the lack of this kind of
discourse and agreement, however, the practice of quoting offhand and one-dimensional
definitions constitutes simultaneously a conscious neglect and a dangerous politics. Therefore,
even at this early stage of our discussion, we should at least put under dispute the very
question of what social psychology is. Although for many social psychologists this question
is both simple and justifiable, thus allowing for a quick answer by means of a brief reference
to one out of the hundreds of existing definitions, we maintain that this question is but a
misleading one, and also one that favors predominantly the hegemonic practices2 of the
various trends, theories and approaches that attempt to consolidate their own particular
perceptions. The question what is social psychology is a misleading one for the simple
reason that in reality there are many and different Social Psychologies, rather than one and the
same, and these Social Psychologies are based on (and construct) different assumptions with
regards to the nature of the individual and of the social world (ontology), to the nature of
our knowledge about the individual and/or the social (epistemology), and to which are the
appropriate ways of obtaining knowledge on the social-psychological subject matter
(methodology). Moreover, the various social psychologies define and delimit their object of
study differently, (re)produce and create different images with respect to reality, take different
positions regarding the various social issues, phenomena or circumstances specifying them
in accordance with their concrete interest and the terminology they use and promote
different forms of co-experiencing (-) them, and of actions or stances in order to
deal with them. In simpler words, there are many answers to the question of what social
psychology is, or, rather, many kinds of answers that ensue from within the different
sociopolitical processes and concern, to a great extent, not only the way in which one defines
the social needs that a social psychologist is called to study, but also the way of delimiting
the spatial and institutional locus in which social psychology is substantiated and applied
as theory and practice, as well as the way in which it is both differentiated from and related to
other branches of the social sciences. For all the above reasons, then, Wetherell, McGhee &
Stevens argue that:

1
In their majority, the definitions center the subject matter of Social Psychology into some of the four domains
of analysis though with many differentiations. For more information on the domains of analysis in Social
Psychology, see Sapsford 2006; Papastamou, 2008.
2
For more information on the hegemonic practices, see Laclau & Mouffe 1985.

2
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

There is certainly no definitive answer to the question of what social psychology is.
The term has various meanings and the process of its definition involves disputes on
who is going to have the upper hand on whose definition will be deemed correct
(1998, 15).
The important aspect in the comment of Wetherell, McGhee & Stevens is their pointing out
that the term social psychology is a field of dispute and antagonism where there are taking
place negotiations with regards to the versions of social reality, to what is meant for someone
to be a person, and to sociopolitical agendas. What eventually comes to prevail on this
antagonistic and conflictive field as the most widely used and generally accepted perception
of what social psychology is marginalizing in effect other possible trends is much less
connected with the correctness of certain positions, presumptions and hypotheses; instead, it
has much more to do with who actually has the upper hand. In other words, what is actually
considered to be Social Psychology, at any different time, is the result of a nexus of political
fermentations, conditions and strives all of which are objects of examination in the two first
chapters of the present book. We can therefore say, with a considerable degree of certainty,
that social psychology exists only in the plural form, only as a plural science characterized
by a plethora of models, trends, programs, directions and manifestations the interrelation of
which is an antagonistic one. As argued by Stevens (1998), these contravening presumptions,
give birth to very different kinds of research, which, in turn, answer to very different
questions (p. 71). This is an issue that we will come back to a few paragraphs further
down.

In this context of thought, the first Chapter of the present book contains our attempt to
demonstrate by means of shreds and incidences (episodes??) of historicity how
various forms of research and of theoretical understanding in the field of social psychology
have actually acquired their prevalence through their being interlocked with broader social
conditions; an attempt that is carried out by examining a period that stretches from the
discovery of the New World by Colombo to our times.

In the second Chapter, while continuing with the deconstruction of social psychology as a
unified scientific area, we discuss and analyze a wide spectrum of the plethora of definitions
that have been formulated during the last century regarding this specific branch of study and
its subject matter, hoping to assist the reader to understand that there exist many social
psychologies, rather than single one, - as well as many methodologies - that come to define
different subject matters.

Another problem that is related to what we have previously called hegemonic practices, the
attempt, in other words, to present only one theoretical or methodological version as the
single version of social psychology, is associated with the fact that the great majority of the
introductory textbooks in the area under discussion do not do what they ought to do: that is, to
present all or at least a large spectrum of the theoretical and methodological approaches
that exist in both the so called sociological social psychology (SSP) and the psychological

3
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

social psychology (PSP). There is almost no introductory textbook where one can find the
coexistence of chapters deriving from the SSP tradition, as, for example, chapters on the
school of social interaction and on ethnomethodology, together with chapters deriving
from the PSP tradition, as, for example chapters addressing the experimental social
psychology and/or social constructionism. What one finds in most textbooks are the
theoretical and methodological choices of the particular author(s), usually presented as the
only ones worthy of their being included in an introduction. The reason we refer to the
entire theoretical and methodological spectrum of social psychology, that is, to both the SSP
and the PSP versions, is to seize the opportunity to point to the artificial though not at all
accidental split between the two social psychologies. And it is not only this split into at
least two irreconcilable camps what is problematic for the purpose of studying the psycho-
social, but also the breakup of the study of the psych-social into partial social scientific
branches; a breakup which implies, for example, that is possible to study the social behavior
of the individual by focusing merely on socio-cognitive mechanisms while ignoring
completely the political-economic parameters, and a breakup which considers it sufficient for
one to understand a phenomenon by simply studying social attitudes with regards to a number
of issues without any attempt whatsoever to analyze the social structures.3

The establishment as such of Social Psychology as something between Sociology and

Psychology constitutes the controversial crystallization of a real need; a need which is both
expressed/articulated through the aforementioned crystallization, and at the same time
obfuscated/covered. And this is no other than the need for the
understanding/conceptualization of the societal construction/composition of ones
psychological makeup (psychical, self, human subject). It is the question of how the
individuals are, on the one hand, determined by societal conditions, and how, on the other
hand, re-produce and participate in the creation and transformation of these same societal
conditions. In the context of the dominant academic view, this question remains trapped in the
abstract dichotomy society/individual (and, correspondingly, in the dichotomy
sociology/psychology) and in the influence of the first on the individual/monad or the
individual/private citizen.

The consolidation of capitalism, of the market society, and the increasing antagonism
between capital and (waged) labor imply also a disruption (breakup, split) in the
understanding of society as a unified whole, as a unified cohesive entity in need of special
efforts to be dealt with intellectually. A disruption (breakup, split), however, which (though
unfortunately self-evident for us now) was inconceivable in the 19th century even to bourgeois
social theorists (e.g., Adam Smith), for whom it was (still) self-evident that one could not
answer the question regarding the subjective preconditions for the functioning of capitalism,

3
At this point, we ought to admit that neither our own textbook is aimed at making an introductory presentation
of all the theoretical and methodological currents that are to be found in the scientific branch under discussion.
What we really want to do and that is why we dare to give to this book the title critical introduction is to put
forth these issues, in both their historical (Chapter 1) and their practical dimensions (Chapters 4 & 5) for the
purpose of offering an understanding of the psycho-social.

4
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

of the market society, without having to (also!) turn to political economy. Moreover, after the
consolidation of capitalism as the dominant model of social organization and the (class)
antagonism between capital and (waged) labor, there also predictably emerge different
perspectives with respect to the question of the subjective preconditions for the functioning of
capitalism: From the side of capital, the theoretical/practical issue was oriented (or, rather,
specified) toward the direction of the maintenance of the status quo of the capitalist
conditions. On the contrary, from the social movements viewpoint (labor, womens, anti-
colonialist, ... movement) the theoretical/practical problem with regards to the preconditions
for the functioning of society has (also) to do with the possibility of changing/subverting the
existing, at each time, societal conditions/relations. For the prospect of exactly such change,
overturn, or transformation of the existing status quo there appears to be a need for a dynamic
theoretical stance, one capable of perceiving subjectivity and objectivity as a historical
outcome of the activities of specific human subjects who do not simply carry out relegations
(tasks) from outside or form above, but who also through their own activity create
and transform both the societal conditions they live in as well as their own competencies and
needs, that is to say, their own selves. In contrast to such a radically historical understanding
of the constitution/makeup (psychical) of the human subject, in the context of the division of
labor within the social sciences (into economics, sociology, psychology, ... and given that
there prevail constrained viewpoints in favor of the maintenance of the existing conditions),
the analysis of the natural and social world is reduced to conceiving and recording natural
(or naturalized), and therefore given facts, while, at the same time, the very competencies
and needs of the human subjects are hypostasized as distinctive and static parameters. In the
context of this process, society ends up to represent a sum (or aggregate) of social
factors which are simply assigned different name by the different dominant theoretical
strands.4

As we have seen earlier, promising that we would return to this for Stevens (1998), the
contravening presumptions in social psychology, give birth to very different kinds of
research, which, in turn, answer to very different questions (p. 71). Though Stevens may be
right in claiming the above, we must be very careful so as to not slip in a naive democratic
relativism that wants all approaches to have the same value, to have their equally good and
bad points. It may be true that all different approaches produce results or, in simpler words,
are working, but the highly important issue here is who they are working for and to what
purpose. And by this, we do not mean only the cases where social psychology unscrupulously
and unhesitatingly stands by the side of those who exercise power and propagandism let us
not forget here that the first research projects on social attitudes were carried out for, and
financed by, the military machine of the U.S.A., or the fact that even today there are social
psychologists who produce techniques for the purpose of the exercise of social control and
repression. In addition to the above, we also want to include all those cases whose particular
methodological and theoretical choices and applications reproduce, unintentionally, such a

4
For example: combinations of stimuli by the behaviorist approaches, field configurations
(Feldkonfigurationen) by the Gestalt-theories or normative fields of action by the psychoanalytic approaches.

5
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

perception for the individual, for society, and for the relation between them that eventually
contribute substantially to the maintenance of the existing order of things, as they offer
scientific supports to the barbarism of capitalist economy and to the oligarchic system of
parliamentary government. For all these reasons, we have no intention to pretend that we are
attempting to do a neutral science in the present book. Not only because we maintain that it
is long past due to do away, once and forever, with the warmth offered by the mantle of the
ostensible neutrality, objectivity, and all the other phantasms of the dominant (social)
sciences, but, also, because we believe that any position one might take within the conflict
ridden field of social sciences is inevitably political. And this inevitability should not be
concealed under the democratic and warm mantle neutrality but, rather, it should always
be brought up for discussion in order to be openly treated as an object of negotiation. In this
context, we take the side of the social movements and try to work as social psychologists in
favour of an emancipatory social change, equality and justice.

In the third Chapter of the book, we examine the historicity of both society and the
individual, in order to discuss the centrality and importance of this issue for all social
sciences, and to also point at the implicit viewpoints governing Social Psychology, willfully
or unwillfully. Among other things, these viewpoints are essentially equating society with the
historical development/product of the nation-state, the inevitable result of which is the re-
production of an ethnocentric social psychology. An additional aim of the third Chapter is to
introduce the reader to the historicity of the encased Ego in the Western world, to examine
the fundamental perceptions of the self, as well as the various perceptual versions of the
relation between the individual and society as they are perceived and presented in the field of
Social psychology a perception which is definitely neither universal nor the one and only
option as we make clear later in Chapter 5.

Arguing that in the context of Social Psychology the relation between the individual and
society, in all its dominant perceptual versions, is treated as an external one, as something that
concerns two different and distinct entities as a posterior relation that may potentially be
formed between them, what we try to do in the fourth Chapter of the present book is to
outline another relationship between the individual and society, a dialectical relationship that
would not allow us to examine any of its two constituents (individual/society) separately from
the other. Moreover, the fourth Chapter outlines a different agenda for Social psychology
one which ineluctably brings it back into contact with all the other social scientific fields,
given the fact that the unified subject matter of the social sciences has been only technically
and historically divided in partial academic disciplines. This agenda concerns what we call
positioning or contextualization of the psychological makeup (psychical) of the human
being. In other words, it concerns an attempt of (re)connecting the self with the broader
societal sphere that is both the context in which the self comes into existence and, at the same
time, the context it creates. We claim that such a radical contextualization ought to take into
account a range of different dimensions, deriving knowledge and content from all the
particular social scientific fields, and we outline some of these dimensions.

6
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

Finally, in Chapter 5, we allot considerable space to an example of contextualization related

to the Indian populations of Southern Mexico in the context of their Zapatistas struggle for
freedom and justice. The selection of this particular example has not been made randomly, but
because it serves three primary aims. The first concerns the fact that the positioning depicted
in this example has to do with a society which is in a process of social and political change,
and as such it may also be a useful example for other social movements. The second aim is
related to the fact that this particular example helps us to understand that the positioning can
never be effected on the basis of only one social scientific field. As it will become obvious to
the reader, this relatively brief and certainly incomplete contextualization attempted in
Chapter 5 draws from anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, history, etc. The third and last
aim served by this particular example is that it has the virtue of depicting a very different
perception of the human being and its relationship with the broader social environment
something that does not only throw light on all the discussions developed in the preceding
chapters of the book regarding the historicity, the locality/topicality (and the other
dimensions) of the psychological makeup (psychical) of the human being, but also
generates ideas and poses challenges for present and future (studies?).

Before closing this synoptic introduction and giving our readers the opportunity to judge our
present undertaking, we consider it purposeful to point out two basic things. The first has to
do with the character of the present book. More specifically, this book can be read in at least
two different ways. The first is for the reader to approach it as an introduction which presents
a critical viewpoint with regards to certain important issues in the field of social psychology
and proposes a different agenda based on the (re)positioning, the radical contextualization, of
the psychological makeup (psychical) of the human being, the (re)connection of the personal
and the social, the reinstatement of the societal text. Another way, however, is for this book
to be read as an attempt toward a (re)positioning, a radical contextualization, in and of itself,
in the sense that what we are doing here, drawing from the various social scientific fields, is
to (re)position social psychology in its psychosocial space/time, while (re)positioning at the
same time, in relation to social psychology, the psychological makeup (psychical) of the
human being as a practice of a given space/time. In simpler words and we are certain that
our readers will be more aware of what we mean here when they will have finished reading
the book the second way of reading approaches all the work contained in the book as
something commensurate with our endeavour in Chapter 5. In reality, the whole book could
be consisted of its 6th Chapter as another example of (re)positioning, of radical
contextualization. The second thing we would like to point out is, in essence, a clarification
we consider purposeful to be made for the avoidance of any possible misunderstandings: the
present book does not constitute, and in no way aspires to constitute, an alternative textbook
of Social Psychology that would replace the already existing ones. Our clear aim is, on the
one hand, to complement the logics at work in the field of Social Psychology, but also, on
the other, to put them under questioning, to stir and re-posit for discussion issues that have
been suppressed, marginalized and forgotten. It is in this way, we believe, that we can

7
 Critical Introduction to Social Psychology

respond to what Serge Moscovici5 called subversive attack during of the last discussion on
the subject matter of Social Psychology in the context of mainstream psychology after the
crisis-decade:
Social Psychology represents a subversive attack against the existing division, a
challenge to the fragmentation of reality (1989, 412)
It is our own decision, as social psychologists, whether we take this challenge/invitation to
subversion seriously or whether we will allow for our work to be registered in the words of
a German colleague Hans Anger (1965, 637, found in Anger 1979, 31) as one more episode
in the history of the unseemly and lost opportunities of Social Psychology.

5
See also the relevant position of Hans Anger (1979, 30): Und noch in neuerer Zeit erscheinen
sozialpsychologische Anstze zum Teil als eine Gegenbewegung, ein Protest gegen die allzu enge Auffassung
einer falschverstandenen Individualpsychologie...; and that of Helmut Nolte (1994, 272): Obgleich sie
ursprnglich eher auf die Integration der Human- und Sozialwissenschaften, insbesondere von Psychologie und
Soziologie, ausgerichtet schien, ist sie in mehrere Sozialpsychologien zerfallen.